Tag: Meditation

Moving on into insecurity

Karl Duffy1 Comment

As time passes, we are continually called to move out of our comfort zones and take on new challenges. Or  we need to shake ourselves up and leave behind what has become too familiar and comfortable.  At other times, growth may be painful, but we know deep down  that we need to make choices which will lead us in new directions. In every case it is the same, an ongoing, organic process  that has been in place since we were little: we move from an established secure base, stepping out to explore new worlds.  To do this we need to let go of what is certain. It has always been that way. We often sense it deep down. Where do I feel stuck at this moment? What do I need to move on from?

To be human is to create sufficient order so that we can move on into insecurity and seeming disorder. In this way we discover the new.

Jean Vanier

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.

Sunday Quote: Where we grow

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Life acquires meaning when we face the conflict

Between our desires and reality

365 Tao

The secret of life: Being fully in the moment with our history

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Sometimes meditation practice can be used just to dampen down anxiety or to run away from facing difficult aspects in our lives or our history. As a strategy this is doomed to failure, sooner or later. The only way to full wholeness is to allow all things to be held in awareness, including the parts of ourselves or our life histories that frighten us, the things that disturb our “calm”. As the previous quote from Pema Chodron reminds us, all that comes into our life – including the experiences of our childhood  and subsequent difficult moments – remain in us until they have taught us something and we have integrated the teaching. So our most important practice is allowing and acknowledging all the parts of our life,  thus increasing our capacity to be free in their presence.

If, then, we want to be let in on the secrets  of life, we must be mindful of  two things : first, there is the great melody, in which things and scents, feelings and past events, dawns and dreams, all contribute their part; and second there are the individual voices which augment and complete this full chorus. And to lay the foundation for a work of art — that is, an image a life lived more deeply –  of our more than daily experience — we have to put both voices, – the voice of this moment and the voice of the group of people living within that moment  – into a proper relationship and reconcile them.

Rilke, Notes on the Melody of Things

Another sunny morning in Geneva

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Another beautiful day of sunshine dawns. We have been so blessed these past weeks.  LIfe starts over again with new possibilities, new experiences, and is lavish in its possibilities. This day is exactly as it should be; are we open to receive it, or too preoccupied with other concerns?
Have you ever seen
anything in your life more wonderful
than the way the sun, every evening,
relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon  and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone—
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning, on the other side of the world,
like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough for the pleasure
that fills you,  as the sun reaches out,
as it warms you as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too turned from this world—
or have you too gone crazy  for power,  for things?

Mary Oliver, The Sun