Tag: Life

How love makes us vulnerable

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The big challenge through life is not letting our hearts get hardened. We are born into a world where we feel a danger of getting hurt if we allow ourselves be open at our deepest level. So there is a tendency to shy away from this, to armour our hearts, to hide behind our words or our achievements. Or we numb out the pain that comes from our wanting to be seen but are afraid to risk it.  It takes courage to stay open, to tell our story with our whole heart, to step out when there are no guarantees, to stay open to a relationship that may or may not work out, to keep the heart soft and vulnerable.

When I was a child, my grandmother died and was buried in the churchyard in Castlecomer,  Ireland.  The following year I went there on holiday.  One day we drove to visit relatives, I in the back seat with my grandfather.  As we pass the gravelled driveway leading up to the churchyard, my grandfather, thinking he was unobserved, pressed his face against the window of the car and with a small, hidden motion of his hand, waved. It was then I came to my first understanding of the majesty and vulnerability of love.

Herbert O Driscoll, A Doorway on Time

Its not in the future, but here today

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Mindfulness encourages us to pay attention and rest in what is happening in the present moment.  However, we often prefer to be elsewhere, or that the present moment be other than what it actually is. What we learn through our practice is the key to finding contentment is to be fully present with whatever we are doing, no matter how ordinary. This realization that the fulness of our lives is right in front of us, and not to be found in the future, is an insight found in all wisdom traditions and leads to true contentment .

The everyday tedium of our lives is the desert we wander, looking for the Promised Land. Our relationships, our work, and all the little necessary tasks we don’t want to do are all the gift. We have to brush our teeth, we have to buy groceries. we have to do the laundry, we have to balance our checkbook. This tedium — this wandering in the desert — is in fact the face of God. Our struggles, the partner who drives us crazy, the report we don’t want to write — these are the Promised Land.

Charlotte Joko Beck

The Secret of health

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The secret of health for both mind and body is

not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles,

but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Buddha

Being mindful of everything today

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In our dally lives, we should be mindful. What does it mean to be mindful? It means to be fully aware right here, concentrating on what is going on inside. We are looking at something, for instance, and we try to concentrate on that; then a sound comes, and then a smell, then this and then that-distractions, changes. We say: ‘I can’t be mindful of this environment; it’s too confusing. I have to have a special environment where there are no distractions, then I can be mindful. If I go to one of those retreats, then I can be mindful; no distractions there-peace and quiet-noble silence! I can’t be mindful in Edinburgh or London – too many distractions. And I’ve got family, children, too much noise!’

But mindfulness is not necessarily concentrating on an object. Being aware of confusion is also being mindful. If we have all kinds of things coming at our senses-noises, people demanding this and that-we cannot concentrate on any one of them for very long. But we can be aware of the confusion, or the excitement, or the impingement; we can be aware of the reactions in our own minds. That is what we call being mindful. We can be mindful of confusion and chaos. And we can be mindful of peace and tranquillity.

Ajahn Sumeho

Bring a steady attention to all

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The foundation practice for mindfulness is the development of a steady concentration which is able to then hold all things in awareness, both pleasant and unpleasant, without necessarily identifying with them:

The practice of concentration (samadhi) trains the mind’s capacity for being present in the moment,

thus augmenting our ability to bring wise attention to bear as much as possible on the experience.

Andrew Olendzki.

Here I am

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“Hineyni”  for me is the most powerful word in the Book of Genesis. Abraham says it to God. It means “Here I am”, but it is not a geographical answer.  It is the response to the challenge to acknowledge the truth of the present moment, to recognize what needs to be done and to be prepared to do it. Abraham says “Hineyni” three times in the most terrible of circumstances.

Mindfulness is also “Here I am, not hiding” and it is also an expression of freedom. Even when experience is painful, especially when it is dire, mindfulness is freedom from extra anguish, from the extra pain of futile struggle. “This is what is true. These are the possibilities. I understand the necessary response”.  And sometimes “There are no possibilities other than surrender.  I surrender”

Sylvia Boorstein, That’s Funny, you don’t look Buddhist.