Tag: Joy

Sunday Quote: Awareness

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In a crumb of bread the whole mystery is.

Paddy Kavanagh, Irish Poet, The Great Hunger

Blessings ……Beannachtai

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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

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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.

Wherever you are is the entry point

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road,
and no road.

Be strong then, and
enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place
for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don’t go off somewhere else

If you don’t break your ropes
while you’re alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

Learning from the return of Spring

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If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving
and for once could do nothing
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Pablo Nerudo, Keeping Quiet

The address of life

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“I have arrived” is our practice. When we breathe in, we take refuge in our in-breath,  and we say “I have arrived”. When we make a step, we take refuge in our step, and we say “I have arrived”.  This is not a statement to yourself or to another person.  “I have arrived” means I have stopped running, I have arrived in the present moment, because only the present moment contains life.

Stopping running is a very important practice . We have been running all our life: we believe that peace happiness and success are present in some other place and time. We don’t know that  everything – peace happiness and stability – should be looked for in the here and now. This is the address of life –  the intersection of here and now.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Happiness

Finding the life you ought to be living

Karl Duffy2 Comments

This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe to anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing is happening there. But if you have a sacred place, and use it, and take advantage of it, something eventually will happen….

Most of our action is economically or socially determined and does not come out of our life… the claims of the environment upon you are so great, that you hardly know where the hell you are! What is it you intended? You’re always doing things that are required of you; this minute, that minute, another minute! Where is your “bliss station”?” Try to find it! Put on the music that you really love… or the book you want to read. Get it done! And have a place in which to do it! There you’ll get the “thou” feeling of life. If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a track that has been there all the while, waiting for you. And the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth; Sacrifice and Bliss.