Tag: Joy

Where we grow

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We never grow by dreaming about a future wonderful state or by remembering past feats. We grow by being where we are and experiencing what our life is right now. We must experience our anger, our sorrow, our failure, our apprehension; they can all be our teachers., when we do not separate ourselves from them. When we escape from what is given, we cannot learn, we cannot grow. That’s not hard to understand, just hard to do. Those who persist, however, will be those who grow in compassion and understanding. How long is such practice required? Forever.

Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

Noticing colour in grey days

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Some similar thoughts, this time from a poet and not a neuroscientist. She encourages us to notice the little moments of colour that come into every day as a way of going against the heart’s tendency to close in on itself:

Red bird came all winter firing up the landscape as nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows, those dun-colored darlings so hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason —
perhaps because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue,
or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens —
I am glad
that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.

Mary Oliver, Red Bird

Taking in the good things that happen

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Some writers state that this is the week when people find their mood low, as the excitement of Christmas and New Year fades and they find that not much has actually changed in their lives. It does not seem that there is much scientific findings for their claim – indeed the term ” Blue Monday”, coined for the first day of the week, seems to have come from a Travel Agency’s campaign to get us to book our summer holidays around this time. That being said, there does seem to be good scientific support for the brain’s tendency to focus on the difficult things in our lives and remember or amplify them. Because of that, this week and every week,  we have to consciously work against that leaning, both by becoming familiar with  our negative stories and by practicing the way we pay attention.

Here is one good way of doing that, outlined by Rick Hanson, the author of the excellent Buddha’s Brain. Sincere thanks to regular reader Kathy at http://pocketperspectives.wordpress.com/ for bringing this series of videos to my attention.

…but rather, looking inside

Karl Duffy1 Comment

One of Tony De Mello’s stories, with a similar theme – We often think that what we want is outside us. Rather, the real work we need to do is within:

One day God got tired of being pestered by people asking for this and for that, so God calls a meeting of the most trusted angels and asks for suggestions as to where one can hide from pestering people. One angel advises God to hide on the highest peak of the highest mountain because no one will search there. Another angel says, “No, hide in the depth of the deepest ocean in the world and no one will search for you there.” Finally, God turns to the most trusted angel and asks: “Where do you suggest I should hide?” And the angel responds: “Hide in the human heart! No one will search for you there.”

Sunday Quote: Open a window

Karl Duffy1 Comment

 

Keep knocking,

and the joy inside will eventually open a window

and look out to see who’s there.

Rumi

Not waiting for some future perfection

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Maybe we think that someday we will have gained perfect maturity from the lessons of our lives. Subconsciously,  we are lured by the expectation that we will reach a stage where we don’t have to fix anything ever again. One day we will reach “happily ever after” We are convinced of the notion of “resolution”. It’s as if everything that we’ve experienced up until now, our whole lives up to this moment, was a dress rehearsal. We believe that our grand performance is yet to come, so we do not live for today. For most people this endless managing, rearranging, upgrading is the definition of “living”. In reality we are waiting for our life to start. When prodded, most of us admit that we are working toward some future moment of perfection – retirement in a log cabin in Kennebunkport or in a hut in Costa Rica. Or maybe we dream of living out our later years in the idealized forest landscape…serenly meditating …..overlooking a waterfall and koi pond.

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, What makes you not a Buddhist.