Tag: Joy

Sunday Quote: Broken but..

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crack

Lessons learnt from the week that has passed.  Two different personalities using words in different ways: one path ascends, the other descends.

This was reinforced in a conversation with a close friend yesterday: The Western mind is performance driven, with value being given to the highest achiever. This might be good for external advancement and achievement, but will it last in terms of wisdom and inner peace?

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again, I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
or what is yet to be.

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack in everything 
That’s how the light gets in 

Leonard Cohen, Anthem, died Friday November 11th

photo of centuries old rock in Glendalough

Brightness

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dark-river

The only true antidote to always wanting more, as this 8th Century  reminds us, is to be aware of, and rooted in,  our inherent completeness, an awareness which will contradict the arising feeling of never being satisfied.

There is a solitary brightness without fixed shape or form.
It knows how to listen to the teachings,
it knows how to understand the teachings,
it knows how to teach.
That solitary brightness is you.

Linji Yìxuán, Chinese Zen Buddhist monk, died 866

Sunday Quote: Grounded inside yourself

Karl Duffy3 Comments

IMG_1543

In the past days,  how many times have we run this way and that, expending energy in places that don’t really align with the deepest sense of where we are going?

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save;

they just stand there shining

Anne Lamott

Problems and Inconveniences

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bberry

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you have a problem.

Everything else is an inconvenience.

Life is an inconvenience.

Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems.

You will live longer.

Robert Fulghum, American author and Unitarian Minister, 

Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door

Special moments

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mary-oliver

What will it be for you today?

It could be a meeting, a walk in nature, even just a cup of coffee…

To pay attention and be fully present is the key

Every day has something in
it whose name is forever.

Mary Oliver, Everything That Was Broken

Keep knocking

Karl Duffy1 Comment

doorIt must be said that things do not always work out as we would like. This teaches us patience and trust.

However, sometimes we get news of  reward after long effort that is richly deserved. We don’t expect it, find it hard to believe,  and yet –  as Heaney says –  it is like a gust of wind that can catch “the heart off guard and blow it open”. This teaches us the unforced nature of  joy:

Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about giving up from work.
Water is there somewhere.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.

Rumi