Tag: Joy

Beautiful things

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Frosted window, nature's version of net curtains - geograph.org.uk - 1652846.jpg

We live our long, worn days in the shadows, in what often feels like barren, cold winter, so unaware of the miracles that are being created in our spirits. It takes the sudden daylight, some unexpected surprise of life, to cause our gaze to look upon a simple, stunning growth that has happened quietly inside us. Like frost designs on a winter window, they bring us beyond life’s fragmentation and remind us that we are not nearly as lost as we thought we were, that all the time we thought we were dead inside, beautiful things were being born in us

Joyce Rupp, Praying our Goodbyes

photo pauline eccles

Notice the little things today

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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We can spend a lot of time each day as if in a trance, missing each moment as we lean into the next.  One way to counteract this,  and enjoy your life more,  is to let yourself notice the little things today with fresh eyes; simple things, like a cup of coffee, a smile from a colleague, the dew on the grass. In this way we pause and refresh the heart.

In the dew of little things

the heart finds its morning

and is refreshed.

Kahlil Gibran

….its already here

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File:Skelligs fullmoon.jpg

“The Island that you cannot go beyond” is the metaphor for this state of being awake and aware, as opposed to the concept of becoming awake and aware. [It]….is very powerful, because it points to the principle of an awareness that you can’t get beyond. It’s very simple, very direct, and you can’t conceive it. You have to trust it. You have to trust this simple ability that we all have to be fully present and fully awake, and begin to recognize the grasping and the ideas we have taken on about ourselves, about the world around us, about our thoughts and perceptions and feelings. The way of mindfulness is the way of recognizing conditions just as they are. We simply recognize and acknowledge their presence, without blaming them or judging them or criticizing them or praising them. We allow them to be, the positive and the negative both.

Ajahn Sumedho, A difficulty with the word nibbana

photo of full moon over the Skellig islands, off Co Kerry, by bloodybucaneer

Something to practice with today

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snowdrop
What in this moment
Is lacking?

Rinzai.

Being gentle today

Karl Duffy2 Comments

compassion55

If your compassion does not include yourself,

it is incomplete.

Jack Kornfield

The mist, the wind and the rain.

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File:Mist on Blessington Lake - geograph.org.uk - 1615577.jpg

How would it be to allow for knowing

and not knowing: allowing room

for the mystery of creating

to be able to wonder softly

without needing to understand everything

to trust in the process

to trust in love

to trust in the mystery and wonder

of the universe

that beats softly wildly

true

all round about us,

that is hidden in the mists

in the clouds and the rain

in the wind blowing and the rain lashing down on your window,

reminding you poetically

prosaically

that this is where you are,

on the island, at the edge,

in a place of finding  and refinding,

and remembering

to remember

the feel of the mist, wind and rain.

John O’ Donohue

photo of mist on Blessington Lake, Co Wicklow by irishflyfisher