Tag: mind

Fear-driven stories

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Blown dandelions, green background.jpg

The quality of our lives depends heavily on whether we assume a world of scarcity or a world of abundance.

By embracing the scarcity assumption, we create the very scarcities we fear.  We create scarcity by competing with others for resources as if we were stranded on the Sahara at the last oasis. In the human world, abundance does not happen automatically  It is created when we have the sense to choose community, to come together to celebrate and share our common story. Whether the “scarce resource” is money or love or power or words, the true law of life is that we generate more of whatever seems scarce by trusting its supply and passing it around. Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection, but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them – and receive them from others when we are in need.

Parker Palmer, The Active Life and Let Your Life Speak

photo john liu

Sunday Quote: Be still and know

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Holo Church Lake Still.jpg

To a mind that is still

the whole universe surrenders

Chuang Tzu, Chinese philosopher, 4th Century BC.

photo Joanne Bergenwall

Enough space to hold

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:A blue sky.JPG

We do not meditate in order to be comfortable. In other words, we don’t meditate in order to always, all the time, feel good. I imagine shockwaves are passing through you as you read this, because so many people come to meditation to simply “feel better.” However, the purpose of meditation is not to feel bad, you’ll be glad to know. Rather, meditation gives us the opportunity to have an open, compassionate attentiveness to whatever is going on. The meditative space is like the big sky — spacious, vast enough to accommodate anything that arises.

Pema Chodron, 5 Reasons to Meditate

photo Thamizhpparithi maari

 

A calm mind

Karl Duffy2 Comments
File:西湖平湖秋月.JPG
In the heart of the night,
The moonlight framing
A small boat drifting,
Tossed not by the waves
Nor swayed by the breeze.
 
Dogen, 1247, one of the verses he prepared for the Shogun in Kamakura
photo jeff chenqinyi

Tolerance for uncertainty

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:The steep slope down from Meall a Coire Leith - geograph.org.uk - 1002952.jpg
There is a deep-seated tendency, it’s almost a compulsion, to distract ourselves, even when we’re not consciously feeling uncomfortable. There’s a background hum of edginess, boredom, restlessness. As I’ve said, during my time in retreat where there were almost no distractions, even there I experienced this deep uneasiness.…..We feel this uneasiness because we’re always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We’re always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn’t exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing…Nothing is pin-down-able the way we’d like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty
Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap
photo david brown

Where to place our attention

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Frown (8187991157).jpg

De Toqueville’s insight into the human mind, although made during his visit to the USA in 1831, probably applies even more so today,  as we are continually made aware of the variety of things which we “need” and experiences we cannot live without:

I  have seen the freest and most educated men in the happiest circumstances the world can afford;

yet it seemed to me that a cloud hung on their brow and they appeared serious and almost sad even when they were enjoying themselves…

because they never stop thinking of the things they have not got.

[songent sans cesse aux biens qu’ils n’ont pas]

Alexis de Toqueville, French Political thinker,  De la Democratie en Amerique, (1835) Chapitre XIII

photo psyberartist