Joy – Page 201 – Mindfulbalance

The energy in nature : a blessed unrest

May 15, 2011May 15, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. … . [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a … blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

Martha Graham

Sunday freshness after the rain

May 15, 2011May 15, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

After the warmth of the past weeks we have had one or two days of welcome rain showers. This morning one can see the meadows and hedgerows filled with an abundance of wild flowers, their movement and colour contrasting with the formality of the fields of wheat and barley. Butterflies are also moving everywhere, flitting from flower to flower, or keeping ahead on the path as you walk. Nature has a deep-down energy at this time – as Manley Hopkins says – and is not confined to straight lines. We too have this capacity within, we adapt and move on, continually seeking out the light and new places to grow. Mary Oliver sees this life in the small hummingbird, and she too realizes how rich we are when we take time to notice the little moments of each day and be moved by such sights.

When the hummingbird sinks its face
into the trumpet vine,
into the funnels

of the blossoms and the tongue leaps out
and throbs,

I am scorched to realize once again
how many small, available things
are in this world

that aren’t pieces of gold or power –
that nobody owns

or could but even for a hillside of money

that just float in the world, or drift over the fields,
or into the gardens,
and into the tents of the vines,
and now here I am

spending my time, as the saying goes,
watching until the watching turns into feeling,
so that I feel I am myself

a small bird with a terrible hunger,
with a thin beak probing and dipping
and a heart that races so fast

it is only a heart beat ahead of breaking –
and I am the hunger and the assuagement,
and also I am the leaves and the blossoms,
and, like them, I am full of delight, and shaking.

Summer Story

Finding the gap

May 12, 2011May 13, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

In our ordinary mind we perceive the stream of thoughts as continuous, but in reality this is not the case. You will discover for yourself that there is a gap between each thought. When the past thought is past, and the future thought has not yet arisen, you will find a gap in which the nature of the mind is revealed: so the work of meditation is to slow down, to make that gap become more and more apparent.

Sogyal Rinpoche, Glimpse after Glimpse

How love makes us vulnerable

May 11, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The big challenge through life is not letting our hearts get hardened. We are born into a world where we feel a danger of getting hurt if we allow ourselves be open at our deepest level. So there is a tendency to shy away from this, to armour our hearts, to hide behind our words or our achievements. Or we numb out the pain that comes from our wanting to be seen but are afraid to risk it. It takes courage to stay open, to tell our story with our whole heart, to step out when there are no guarantees, to stay open to a relationship that may or may not work out, to keep the heart soft and vulnerable.

When I was a child, my grandmother died and was buried in the churchyard in Castlecomer, Ireland. The following year I went there on holiday. One day we drove to visit relatives, I in the back seat with my grandfather. As we pass the gravelled driveway leading up to the churchyard, my grandfather, thinking he was unobserved, pressed his face against the window of the car and with a small, hidden motion of his hand, waved. It was then I came to my first understanding of the majesty and vulnerability of love.

Herbert O Driscoll, A Doorway on Time

Using the weather today as a metaphor for life

May 10, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The warmth of the Spring weather this year means that plants and fruits are in bloom ahead of time and any memories of winter is far behind. We can look at the weather and nature today and be reminded of a number of lessons, which help us live our life mindfully:

Spring is a metaphor for transitions. It moves from lifelessness to life and we move from lifelessness to life in each cycle of breathing. If we know change is going to occur we are in a better place to accept it. If we expect things to stay constant we are vulnerable to frustration, disappointment, and resistance.

Spring is also a metaphor for forgiveness. Whatever happened in the last season, life begins anew with no carryover resentment from the past. Spring reminds us, as Pema Chodron says, to start where we are.

Spring shows us the cycle of living and dying on a bigger scale do. Everything comes into being and goes out of being — changing its form. Spring invites us not to become attached to things, even the most precious things in our life. The invitation is to love things wholeheartedly with the awareness that they will not be with us forever. And, indeed, we, ourselves, will not be here forever. The invitation is to not be afraid to grieve when that grief becomes necessary. Grief is, at times, the admission price to the present moment.

The renewal of spring is the healing from grief, from the inexorable impermanence of things. Spring also demonstrates the tenacity of life and encourages us to persist in whatever we are doing.

So welcome spring and your multifaceted metaphors for mindful living!

Arnie Kozak, on Beliefnet