Tag: Meditation

Looking for the good

Karl Duffy1 Comment

This poem from Hafiz,  on drawing warmth from the sun,  makes even more sense in the light of the unseasonal weather in this part of the world and the very wet June which was seen in Ireland and England. Often in our lives we have to deliberately pay attention to the good things that happen, because our brain has a negativity bias and more easily stores the bad events of each day. As psychologist Robert Emmons and his colleagues at the University of California have shown, cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, less anxiety and is beneficial to subjective emotional well-being.  They found that people who consciously noted the good things in each day were more optimistic and felt happier than a control group. Consciously being aware helps us to notice what is good in our lives rather than always noticing and complaining about what is wrong and allows us to wake up to the gifts around us each day. Hafiz knew this and encourages us to squeezing the drops of light and warmth from even the brief appearances of the sun in our lives:

I know the voice of depression still calls to you.
I know those habits that can ruin your life still send their invitations .
But you are with the Friend now and look so much stronger.
You can stay that way and even bloom!
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter.
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved
And, my dear, from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
But then drag you for days like a broken man Behind a camel.
You are with the Friend now.
Learn what actions of yours delight Him,
What actions of yours bring freedom and Love.


O keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter
And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.


Now, sweet one, Be wise.
Cast all your votes for Dancing!

Hafiz, Cast All Your Votes for Dancing

Everything you need is already here

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This is what we mean by the practice of mindfulness. It is the how of coming to our senses moment by moment. There really is no place to go in this moment. We are already here. Can we be here fully? There really is nothing to do. Can we go into non-doing, into pure being?  There really is nothing to attain, no special “state” or “feeling”, because whatever you are experiencing now is already special, already extraordinary, by virtue of the fact that it is being experienced. The paradox of this invitation is that everything you might wish for is already here. And the only important thing is to be the knowing that awareness already is.

Jon Kabat Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners.

What gives us hope

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I think that each of us has something or someone that gives us hope. This “reason for hoping” may be a person or a special place, a religious belief or a vision of life that is strong enough to weather the internal storms and strife.

There is an Ethiopian legend about a shepherd  boy Alemayu that speaks to me of the power of hope. Alemayu had to spend the night on a bitterly cold mountain. He had only a very thin cloth to wear. To the amazement of all the villagers, he returned alive and well. When they asked him how he survived, he replied: ” ‘The night was bitter. When all the sky was dark, I thought I would die. Then far, far off I saw a shepherd’s fire on another mountain. I kept my eyes on the red glow in the distance, and I dreamed of being warm. And that is how I had the strength to survive.

Each one of us has a  “shepherd’s fire on another mountain” that has kept our hope alive.  This fire has given us the courage to recover our lost self and believe in the dreams that stir in our soul.

Joyce Rupp, Dear Heart, Come Home

Trusting, even if you feel lost today

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Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.

John O’Donoghue, Anam Chara

…and where, in the deepest sense, that journey needs to go…

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I have been travelling and on holidays in the past few weeks. Outside travel and movement is a good time to observe ongoing inner movement. Even when relaxed, the ever-present restless  mind was working away, wanting that things fit into a pre-decided idea of how moments, such as those spent on holidays,  “should” be. Days should be relaxing, places should be better or give the exact same sense as before, the weather should consider me and be warmer or cooler, my mood calmer or more enthusiastic. This characteristic of the mind is described in one ancient text as giving rise to the  “shackles of constant becomings” – always moving, always wanting something else and seeking fulfilment.  Thus, as happens frequently, things were often seen as too much  – “It was too hot to do anything” – while others not enough – “There were too many people there and it was not quiet enough to allow me enjoy the place”.

The following, profound,  text describes both this problem and indicates the way towards its resolution, through a certain type of journey.  The end of our restless, wanting-more, wanting-other,  mind cannot be calmed by “travelling”, it tells us. The word “travelling” here seems to suggest, looking outside for solutions, such as ideas about our life or intellectual concepts, or in the latest technique – doing more,  fixing more, trying harder – all of which are rooted in the unending quest to get our life under control by figuring it out or getting something.  On the contrary, the radical solution proposed – that gets to the heart of our restlessness –  is to be found in a type of travel, but one that goes inside, getting to know the body and heart, in an experiential way. In becoming familiar with the sensations of the body and how they give rise to energies in the heart that leave us restless, and seeing these body and heart formations as passing through and not identifying with them, we take the  journey that leads to the end of our restless travel. The whole world is to be found there.

That end of the world wherein one is not born, does not grow old or die, pass away or reappear, that I declare, is impossible to be known, seen or reached by travelling. But, friend, I do not declare that one can make an end of suffering without reaching the end of the world. Friend, I do proclaim that in this very body, with its perceptions and consciousness, is the world, the world’s arising, the world’s cessation and the path leading to the world’s cessation.

The Buddha, Rohitassa Sutta.

Sunday Quote: On a Journey…

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All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy – it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.

Carlos Castaneda