Life – Page 450 – Mindfulbalance

Don’t rush past

September 4, 2013September 2, 2013 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If you notice the wonderful smell of the rain, instead of just moving quickly past the experience without deeply appreciating it, you can prolong your contact with this wonderful sensation. Pause for a moment and really let yourself experience the smell of the rain. If you are struck by the blueness of the sky, linger for a moment and breathe mindfully, taking in the wonderful blue color. Don’t rush past these marvelous experiences, treating them as if they are unimportant. To treat them as unimportant is ultimately to treat yourself as unimportant. This is your life: enjoy it!

Thomas Bien

photo bryancalabro

Intimate Kindness

September 3, 2013September 1, 2013 Karl Duffy3 Comments

Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of color and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference. Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel — to be here is immense. To be created and come to birth is to be blessed. Some primal kindness chose us and brought us through the forest of dreaming until we could emerge into the clearance of individuality, with a path of life opening before us through the world.

John O Donohue

The essential rhythm

September 2, 2013September 1, 2013 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Another short piece from poet Seamus Heaney, whose funeral is taking place around this time in Dublin.

Getting started, keeping going, getting started again –

in art and in life,

it seems to me this is the essential rhythm .

Seamus Heaney

….whatever you do

September 1, 2013August 30, 2013 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Big sporting day in Dublin for the local team….

Leisure and sleep, moments of inactivity and relaxation, can all restore balance within ourselves and allow us touch into our deeper nature. Even a few moments of conscious slowing down, finding some space from our tendency to rush, has a beneficial effect on our overall system. Taking time each day to develop an ongoing practice of mindfulness soothes the nervous system and encourages calm:

Something of God…

flows into us from the blue of the sky,

the taste of honey,

the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot,

and even from sleep itself.

C. S. Lewis

Sunday Quote: Wherever you are….

September 1, 2013August 29, 2013 Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Newgrange Entrance Stone.jpg

God is a circle whose center is everywhere

and circumference nowhere.

Voltaire

photo: carved spiral design on passage tomb entrance at Newgrange, Co Meath, Ireland

Always looking elsewhere

August 31, 2013August 30, 2013 Karl Duffy1 Comment

There is no greater mystery than this,

that we keep seeking reality

though in fact we are reality

Ramana Maharsi

photo epsos.de

About this Blog

Mindfulbalance supports the slow, patient practice of mindfulness meditation, as a way to find balance and meaning in life, reduce stress and develop health and wellbeing. It contains reflections to encourage the practice of meditation as well as occasional posts from psychology, spirituality and the wisdom traditions. The daily posts are prompted by Rilke's advice: "Write about what your everyday life offers you, your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind, and your belief in some kind of beauty". Written in County Laois, Ireland