Tag: Joy

Treasure underneath

Karl Duffy2 Comments

A difficult practice these days…

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something.

Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Be patient and trust that the treasure you are looking for is hidden in the ground on which you stand.

Henri Nouwen, Hidden Treasure

An experience of emptiness

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Each chapter of the Bhagavad Gita concerns a particular yoga. This first chapter is called “the yoga of Arjuna’s despair” and it is significant that the experience of despair is a yoga; despair is often the first step on the path of spiritual life. It is very important to go through the experience of emptiness, of disillusion and despair. Many people do not awaken to the reality of God, and to the experience of transformation in their lives, until they reach the point of despair.

Bede Griffith, River of Compassion

A choice these days

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us
so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid,
or we can let them soften us, and make us kinder.


We always have the choice.

The Dalai Lama

How seductive, the thought of tomorrow

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

So we have to be patient with ourselves. Over and over again we think we need to be somewhere else, and we must find the truth right here, right now; we must find our joy here, now.

How seductive it is, the thought of tomorrow. We must find our understanding here.

We must find it here; it is always here; this is where the grass is green.

John Tarrant, Calling on the name of Avalokiteshvara

Sunday Quote: Oil and vinegar

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Wrong solitude vinegars the soul

right solitude oils it.

How fragile we are, between the few good moments.

Jane Hirshfield, Vinegar and Oil

Teach us how to breathe

Karl Duffy1 Comment

I am occasionally reminded of a beautiful line in the Gospel according to St. Luke, 11:1, where Jesus prays to God asking to be taught how to pray. Jesus asks not what to pray for; he does not pray for this or that. He asks how to pray.

I think we need similar instruction about breathing: Dear God: teach us how to breathe.

Teach us how to breathe beautifully. Teach us how to breathe truly.

Teach us how to breathe deeply. Teach us how to breathe in spirit.

Teach us to take in a breath that is connected to a healing spirit.

In many languages, the words for breath and spirit are connected. I am reminded of this when I look at our word: Respiration. In the middle of that word, respiration, the very process of breathing, is spirit.

The Bible begins with the wind/breath/spirit hovering above the waters. We do not breathe air. We breathe in spirit.

Omid Safi, Learning How to Breathe Again