Tag: Life

In this ordinary life

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

On Sunday during his sermon in Bolton Abbey,  Fr Michael said that an awareness of goodness can strike at any moment, cutting through our complacency and reminding us that, deep down, there is wonder at the heart of our experience, even  when we struggle and cannot see it.  He saw it in the tender care of a cow for its new-born calf. Merton saw it in the swallows flight:

There are days when I am convinced that Heaven starts already, now, in this ordinary life, just as it is, in all its incompleteness, yet, this is where Heaven starts. See within yourself, if you can find it. I walked through the field in front of the house, lots of swallows flying, everywhere! Some very near me. It was magical.

We are already one, yet we know it not

Thomas Merton,

This day (this month) contains all

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it as the axis on which the world revolves

Thich Nhat Hanh

Zen teaches that our approach to today determines our whole approach to life.

The Japanese call this attitude Ichi-nichi issho:

‘Each day is a lifetime.’

Philip Toshio Sudo, Zen 24/7

Sunday Quote: Little needs, much contentment.

Karl Duffy2 Comments

If we have little needs and much contentment,

we experience the wealth of the world around us,

and when we experience that wealth

there’s nothing we need to renounce 

and nothing we need to add to it.

Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel

All we get are glimpses

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Saints and bodhisattvas may achieve what Christians call mystical union or Buddhists call satori — a perpetual awareness of the force at the heart of things. For these enlightened few, the world is always lit. For the rest of us, such clarity comes only fitfully, in sudden glimpses or slow revelations. Quakers refer to these insights as ‘openings.’ When I first heard the term … I thought of how, on an overcast day, sunlight pours through a break in the clouds. After the clouds drift on, eclipsing the sun, the sun keeps shining behind the veil, the memory of its light shines on in the mind.

Scott Russell Sanders, A Private History of Awe

What to remember in a time of change

Karl Duffy2 Comments

A similar theme, this time from the Christian tradition:

Nothing lasts. No single thing can consume our entire life’s meaning. No single thing can give us total satisfaction. Nothing is worth everything: neither past, nor present nor future. It isn’t true that the loss of any single thing will destroy us. Everything in life has some value and life is full of valuable things, things worth living for, things worth doing, things worth becoming, things worth loving again. It is only a matter of being detached enough from one thing to be open to everything else.

The essence of life is not to find the one thing that satisfies us  but to realize that nothing can ever completely satisfy us.

Joan Chittister, After Great Pain: Finding a Way Out

Radiate joy

Karl Duffy1 Comment

This is the primary…affirmation within all of Scripture…
To believe that we and our world are good, very good; 

to take delight in our lives and in each other; 

 to live lives that radiate joy rather than depression, boredom, and resentment;

well … that sounds simple and easy, but remains a rare thing that’s seldom accomplished.

The most important challenge that all of us face in life is to….bless rather than to curse!

Ron Rolheiser, Blessing and Cursing Life