Tag: Joy

Learning from water

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Edenpics-com_005-093-Sacred-Water-lily-also-called-Blue-Lotus-Indian-Lotus-or-Bean-of-India.75200328I want the way

the water sees without eyes,
hears without ears,
shivers without will or fear
at the gentlest touch.
 
I want the way it
accepts the cold moonlight
and lets it pass,
the way it lets
all of it pass
without judgment or comment.
 
There is a lake,
Lalla Ded sang, no larger
than one seed of mustard,
that all things return to.
O heart, if you
will not, cannot, give me the lake,
then give me the song.

from Jane Hirshfield, Lake and Maple

The smallest thing

Karl Duffy2 Comments

 

File:GIRL USES A MAGNIFYING GLASS TO STUDY PLANT LIFE IN THE TUNDRA OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. THE DENVER PTA SPONSORED A... - NARA - 543740.jpg

To study a single speck of dust is to study the whole universe

Dogen, 1200 –  1253

And he also showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand. It seemed to me as round as a ball. I gazed at it and thought, ‘What can this be?’ The answer came thus, ‘It is everything that is made.’ I marveled how this could be, for it was so small it seemed it might fall suddenly into nothingness. Then I heard the answer, ‘It lasts, and ever shall last, because God loves it. All things have their being in this way.’

Julian of Norwich, 1342 – 1416,  Revelations of Divine Love

photo US National Archives and Records Administration: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency

A real miracle

Karl DuffyLeave a comment
File:Path , Muirsheil Country Park - geograph.org.uk - 30201.jpg
I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child  – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

photo richard webb

Sunday Quote : When we stay quiet

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Crystal Lake Thanksgiving (2987367939).jpg

Silence is the closest thing to God we know.

Meister Eckhart

photo briyyz

Right here, right now

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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It [our way] is never apart from this very place;

what is the use of traveling around to practice?

Dogen,   General Advice on the Principles of Zazen

Each moment

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Child drawing.jpg

Two quotes from Emerson on surprise and wonder to prompt us to look with fresh eyes today :

In liberated moments, we know that a new picture of life is already possible

The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire, is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

photo D Sharon Pruitt