Tag: Meditation

Not leaning….

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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By pausing and accepting our experience, we free ourselves to respond to our circumstances in ways that bring genuine peace and happiness. In a pause, we simply discontinue whatever we are doing. We become wholly present, attentive and, often, physically still.  Try it now: Stop reading and sit there, doing “no thing,” and simply notice what you experience.

Taking our hands off the controls and pausing lets us clearly see the wants and fears that drive us. We become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future. We can continue our futile attempt to manage our experience, or we can meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of what I call “radical acceptance.”

Tara Brach

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Content in being

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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The reason why men are so anxious to see themselves,

instead of being content to be themselves,

is that they do not really believe in their own existence. 

Thomas Merton, A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life

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Sunday Quote: Home

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meditation-leaf

Your body is your first home:

“Breathing in, I arrive in my body.

Breathing out, I am home.”

Thich Nhat Hahn

Time simply for ourselves

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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One reason we do sitting meditation is to strengthen our capacity to be with ourselves. It is a profound act of gentleness, because we allow ourselves to simply be, without any need to achieve or do.  The weekend allows us a little more time to cultivate this space in our lives, through winding down, walking in nature, creating some area for “Non-doing”. This is a key to happiness, growth and to real relationships with others.

No other person will completely feel like we do, think like we do, act like we do. Each of us is unique, and our aloneness is the other side of our uniqueness. The question is whether we let our aloneness become loneliness or whether we allow it to lead us into solitude. Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

Henri Nouwen.

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The Basics of Practice 5: The natural breath

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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As you start the practice, you have a sense of your body and a sense of where you are, and then you begin to notice the breathing. The whole feeling of the breath is very important. The breath should not be forced, obviously; you are breathing naturally. The breath is going in and out, in and out. With each breath you become relaxed.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Open to the life we have

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Today dawned very foggy over Ireland and England, narrowing down things and dulling the senses somewhat. Sometimes,  in similar ways,  we narrow down our possibilities by not being open to all  that is actually going on in our lives, as we think better is to be found elsewhere, or in the future:

We often disapprove of parts of our lives without really examining them – it’s like never going into certain rooms of your house. But meditation allows all the voices and all the images into the room. When we open the invisible doors, we can come to rest in the life we have; we can love it as it is instead of waiting for a shinier version. “Every day is a good day”, goes the Zen koan.

John Tarrant, Enlightenment is Something we do Together

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