Tag: Life

Underneath the ice

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Our habits and patterns can feel just as frozen as ice. But when spring comes, the ice melts. The quality of water has never really disappeared, even in the deepest depths of winter. It just changed form. The ice melts, and the essential fluid, living quality of water is there. Our essential good heart and open mind is like that. It is here even if we’re experiencing it as so solid we could land an airplane on it. When I’m emotionally in midwinter and nothing I do seems to melt my frozen heart and mind, it helps me to remember that no matter how hard the ice, the water hasn’t really gone anywhere. It’s always right here.

Pema Chodron

We are more than what we are feeling

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The snow of the weekend starts to melt as rain moves in and the temperatures rise from yesterday. With some grumbling we accept these ups and downs in weather as natural occurrences, and not having much choice allow them pass through. A useful skill to learn for working with our inner lives:

It is essential to understand that an emotion is merely something that arises, remains and then goes away. A storm comes, it stays a while, and then it moves away. At the critical moment remember you are much more than your emotions. This is a simple thing that everyone knows, but you may need to be reminded of it: you are more than your emotions.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Healing Pain and Dressing Wounds

Looking in the wrong place

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We are so achievement-orientated that we often surge right by the true value of relating to what’s before us, because we think that accomplishing things will complete us, when it is experiencing life that will.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Inner movies

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Sitting quietly in meditation is the best research lab to observe the minds behaviour when it isn’t being interrupted, called to order. Sitting quietly, we inquire into our experience: can we exit our mental multiplex cinema at will?  Or do you find yourself moving from one inner movie to another, to another, a triple feature of memories and fantasies of last year, next year, the ups and downs  of love and work and family recast in a seemingly endless tape loop? Is this really freely chosen or a chained-to-the-theater-seat compulsive habit? Meditation practice is based on a simple commitment— the commitment to being fully present in mind and body.

Gaylon Ferguson,  Natural Wakefulness

A relationship with the world

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Life can only find you if you are paying real attention to something other than your own concerns, if you can hear and see the essence of otherness in the world, if you can treat the world as if it is not just a backdrop to your own journey, if you can have a relationship with the world that isn’t based on triumphing over it or complaining about it

David Whyte, The Three Marriages; Reimagining Work, Self and Relationships

The art of resting

Karl Duffy7 Comments

cat sunlight2It is very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus and find creative solutions to problems. We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

Thich Nhat Hahn