Tag: Life

Unreal Expectations

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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Renunciation is not the same as giving up pleasure or denying ourselves happiness. It means giving up our unreal expectations about ordinary pleasures. These expectations themselves are what turn pleasure into pain… Simply stated, renunciation is the feeling of being so completely fed up with our recurring problems that we are finally ready to turn away from our attachments to this and that and begin searching for another way to make our life meaningful… To develop renunciation means to realize how our ordinary reliance on pleasure is preventing us from tasting a higher, more complete happiness

Lama Yeshe

…Such as the story of being separate

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Women Standing in Circle

Human beings are a part of a whole, called by us “the Universe”, a part limited in time and space. We experiences ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of  consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

Albert Einstein.

Staying solid and enduring

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The strong winds in Ireland this morning remind me of this teaching on being shaken and standing firm

When you look at a tree in a storm, you see that its upper branches move more violently in the wind. But if you look at its trunk, you see that it is very solid and still. Your belly is the trunk of your being. It is important to allow everything in your head to move down to your abdomen. Place your hands on your abdomen and practice your breathing.  After five, ten, fifteen minutes the storm will pass and you will be ok.

Nguyen Anh-Huong and Thich Nhat Hahn, Walking Meditation

A joyful mind

Karl Duffy6 Comments

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This is the path we take in cultivating joy: learning not to armor our basic goodness, learning to appreciate what we have. Most of the time we don’t do this. Rather than appreciate where we are, we continually struggle and nurture our dissatisfaction. It’s like trying to get flowers to grow by pouring cement on the garden  A basic support for a joyful mind is curiosity, paying attention, taking an interest in the world around you. Happiness is not required, but being curious without a heavy judgmental attitude helps. Curiosity encourages cheering up.  We are so locked into this sense of burden — Big Deal Joy and Big Deal Unhappiness — that it’s sometimes helpful just to change the pattern. Anything out of the ordinary will help. You can go to the window and look at the sky, you can splash cold water on your face, you can sing in the shower, you can go jogging — anything that’s against your usual pattern. That’s how things start to lighten up.

Pema Chodron

photo Harold Hoyer

Being rather than doing

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baby steps

When people … put on masks, they hide their center from others and from themselves. They hide their source from themselves and from others. They hide their cry from others because somewhere they are inserted in society and they have their place and they are recognized in their power. So they wear a mask because they have a position to defend. Often their function is their mask. But when you are dying, you have no mask. It is a pity that we have to wait until our last breath to accept who we are!

Jean Vanier, Founder of the L’Arche Communities. 

Sunday Quote: Right here

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The highest point of happiness is to wish to be what you already are

Desiderius Erasmus,