Tag: Joy

We fall, we get back up

Karl Duffy2 Comments

As yesterday morning’s post stated, we can find that we pass through periods which don’t fit our picture of how we want our life to be. Or we can find that some things don’t go exactly as we would like. These words of the Irish writer, Samuel Beckett, can help at such times and  show a deep understanding of the gentleness and non-judmental attitude we need to take towards ourselves in meditation and in life. The key in both is simply starting over, without letting  judgmental or self-critical thoughts take over. We like to imagine that we can have a mind without fault, but mostly this is not possible. We imagine we will someday have a perfect personality, but again this is unlikely to last long. So our main work is cultivating self-compassion and not dwelling too long on critical stories about ourselves.

Ever tried. Ever failed.

No matter.

Try Again. Fail again.

Fail better

Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho

Every morning a new day is created

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A simple poem, suggested by the sky at dawn this morning. Even as the days shorten, and darkness seems to encroach more, the light at dawn is beautiful. There are moments of light and strength, even at those times when we seem to struggle.

Every morning the world is created…

If it is in your nature to be happy..

And if your spirit  carries within it

the thorn that is heavier than lead….

there is still somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted –

each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly, every morning,

whether or not you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

Mary Oliver

What happens today is not a deviation from life

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The Buddhist teachings are fabulous at simply working with what’s happening as your path of awakening, rather than treating your life experiences as some kind of deviation from what is supposed to be happening. The more difficulties you have, in fact, the greater opportunity there is to let them transform you. The difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into the lousy habitual patterns you already have, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you, on the spot.

Pema Chodron

Sunday Quote: Like a leaf

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Walk around feeling like a leaf
know you could tumble at any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

Naomi Shibab Nye, The Art of Disappearing

Grateful center

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Another way of talking about a refuge, as a  place from where we feel welcomed, and can draw comfort. This reflection nicely conveys the sense of care and home: a safe refuge within which supports us at every moment. It goes well with the weather that was there early this morning, as the incredibly mild autumn finally begins to get cold and the first frost appears. Our refuge is within: we can drop in at any time, and find what we truly value.  It is nice to have a warm place to go to.

Let me describe my grateful center to you. I was seven years old, and my parents were trying to move to the West Coast. Our relative poverty, however, caught up with us, and we were forced to winter in the cabin of an uncle in the Rocky Mountains. The time was difficult for my parents, I am sure, but for me it was glory . . . my most vivid memory is of the fireplace. (I had never been around a fireplace before, all of our heat heretofore having come from the coal furnace in our Nebraska home.) Every night I would pull out the bed that hid in the couch by day and climb under the heavy quilts, my head less than ten feet away from the crackling warmth. Night after night I would fall asleep, watching this strange yellow blaze that warmed us all. I was in my grateful center.

Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home

On using our time responsibly

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Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time left to confront the real issues. If we look into our lives, we will see clearly how many unimportant tasks, so-called “responsibilities” accumulate to fill them up. One master compares them to “housekeeping in a dream.” We tell ourselves we want to spend time on the important things of life, but there never is any time. Helpless, we watch our days fill up with telephone calls and petty projects, with so many responsibilities  – or should we call them “irresponsibility’s”?

Sogyal Rinpoche