Tag: Life

The real life within

Karl Duffy1 Comment

You know that the seed is inside the chestnut tree and inside the seed there are blossoms of the tree and the chestnuts and the shade. So inside the human body there is the seed, and inside the seed there is the human body again

Thinkers, listen…. tell me what you know of that which is not inside the soul: Take a jug of water and set it down on the water – now it has water inside and water outside. We shouldn’t give it a name, in case silly people start talking again about the body and the soul.

If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth: Listen to the secret sound, the real sound which is inside you.   The One nobody talks of  speaks the secret sound to himself, and he is the One who has made it all.

Kabir

Our one inch-square heart

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Fall floods have washed away the planks of the bridge;
shouldering our sandals, we wade the narrow stream.
I dabble in the flow, delighted by the shallowness of the stream,
admiring how firm the stones are.
The point in life is to know what’s enough –
why envy those otherworld immortals?
With the happiness held in one inch-square heart
you can fill the whole space between heaven and earth.

Gensei, Japanese monk and poet, 
1623―1668

Predicament

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Two quotes from Leonard Cohen on the anniversary of his death

One idea on my new record is that the human predicament has no solution. We were tossed out of the garden; this isn’t paradise. And to look for perfect solutions is a very difficult burden to bear. That’s my theme: It’s a mess — thank God

[“The Traitor”]  was about the feeling that we have of betraying some mission that we were mandated to fulfill, and being unable to fulfill it. And then coming to understand that the real mandate was not to fulfill it, and that the deeper courage was to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you found yourself.

 

Nothing is fixed

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We frequently identify quite closely with our moods…never the best idea on a Monday morning….

In a world where nothing is as fixed as it seems,

it comes as a great relief to discover that even the ego is impermanent

Mark Epstein, Advice not Given: A Guide to Getting over Yourself

Sunday Quote: No need to want more

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The beauty of a mountain is that it is so much like a mountain, and of water that it is so much like water

Zen saying

Always being born, always dying

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To regress in a certain way is to return to origins, to step back from the battle line of existence, to remember the gods and spirits and elements of nature, including your own pristine nature, the person you were at the beginning. You return to the womb of imagination so that your pregnancy can recycle. You are always being born, always dying to the day to find the restorative waters of night. Darkness is natural, one of the life processes. There may be some promise, the mere suggestion that life is going forward, even though you have no sense of where you are headed. It’s a time of waiting and trusting. My attitude as a therapist in these situations is not to be anxious for a conclusion or even understanding.

You have to sit with these things and in due time let them be revealed for what they are.

Thomas Moore, The Dark Night of the Soul