Joy – Page 179 – Mindfulbalance

Inner and outer life on the first day of Spring

March 21, 2012March 18, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

This morning two birds
fell down the side of the maple tree

like a tuft of fire, a wheel of fire
a love knot out of control as they plunged through the air
pressed against each other
and I thought

how I meant to live a quiet life
how I meant to live a life of mildness and meditation
tapping the careful words against each other

and I thought—
as though I were suddenly spinning, like a bar of silver
as though I had shaken my arms and lo! they were wings—

of the Buddha
when he rose from his green garden
when he rose in his powerful ivory body

when he turned to the long dusty road without end
when he covered his hair with ribbons and the petals of flowers
when he opened his hands to the world.

Mary Oliver, Spring

We always want something different

March 20, 2012March 19, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Suffering is the desire for more choices than reality offers, but reality is without options. Our mind creates mental alternatives when there are none in reality, and we do so by bargaining with reality through our desires and fears. The sense-of-self comes into play when we think that reality can be altered. As we consider the options we take ourselves out of the state of abiding within the moment into acting on the moment. When the moment becomes adversarial, we become self invested and determined to do something about it. This creates a sense of someone being on one side and reality being on the other, as if life was happening to us.

Rodney Smith, Stepping out of Self-Deception

A need for the timeless

March 18, 2012March 12, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

One of the signs of work that’s debilitating is when you feel constantly besieged by time, when you are constantly trying to fit your work into a schedule. Now there’s no work that is immune to the sense of deadline or of being limited. But if you don’t have a cyclical visitation of the timeless in your endeavours, I’d say that’s a pretty good sign it’s not your conversation, it’s not your work and you should be elsewhere. Or you should move on from something that perhaps once brought that into your life but no longer does. The whole idea of pilgrimage is not necessarily moving on from a particular form of conversation, but finding – and I do think work is a kind of out loud, visible conversation – it’s keeping that conversation real, and in order to do that, finding new forms appropriate to it.

David Whyte

Sunday Quote: Awareness

March 18, 2012March 16, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

In a crumb of bread the whole mystery is.

Paddy Kavanagh, Irish Poet, The Great Hunger

Blessings ……Beannachtai

March 17, 2012March 17, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Following on the poem this morning, some thoughts on the blessings we have received and the place of gratitude in our lives. It is interesting that in loving kindness meditation we always begin with blessings directed towards ourselves. So an ongoing good practice is to reflect on all who have touched us in our lives, or just at the end of each day – to see what blessings have come our way, to take them in and be grateful for them. It seems to me that a lot of the time most of us feel as if we are looking for something, and we live our days or weeks more or less happy or unhappy, but mostly not really paying attention to what is actually going on each day. Having space to notice and then be grateful for the small blessings of each day and the larger blessings of our life and history allows us to celebrate our life, come what may, moments of sadness and joy, being close or far away.

Blessing is a very concrete reality. The word “blessing” is related in English to the word “blood.” Blessing is like the spiritual bloodstream that flows through the universe. When we bless something we are returning what we have received to its source. We know we receive life and breath from a source which is beyond us. We haven’t bought it or earned it. We are just put here and life comes to us from some mysterious source, and we can give it back. That is like the blood coming from the heart and going back to the heart. That blood keeps on flowing and if we tune in to the bloodstream of blessing the world comes alive. The same thing happens if we cut off the bloodstream or drain the sap from a tree; life withers. The gifts or blessings of life are always there but if we are not aware of them, they don’t do much for us. That is where gratefulness comes in. Gratefulness makes us aware of the gift and makes us happy. As long as we take things for granted they don’t make us happy. Gratefulness is the key to happiness.

David Steindl-Rast.

Beannachtai na Féile Padraig oraibh go léir! The blessings of Saint Patrick’s Day to you all.

On not waiting too long…….to live your life

March 16, 2012March 15, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

The great Indian poet Kabir reminding us that at every moment in our life we are challenged to live fully. We need not wait for some time in the future to find the “right conditions” for happiness. There is no such thing as a perfect time. Now is the only time we have – to face into our fears, to shake off what we know is holding us back, to let go of whatever we are carrying that no longer gives us life, to cross the river ahead of us.