Tag: Mindfulness

Trying to find happiness in the wrong way

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

I think it’s odd for people to say, “I meditate,” or “I don’t meditate.” It’s like saying either you work with your mind or you don’t. The reality is that whether or not we are working with our mind in formal meditation, one way or another we are always working with our mind. Most of the time we’re using it to meditate on “me.” We’re using it to become familiar with our immediate reactions to the world around us. Somebody has something we want, so we “meditate” on jealousy. We don’t get something we want, or we do get something we don’t want, so we “meditate” on anger. Our root meditation is, “What about me? Will I get what I want today?” Our mind is continuously chasing itself around, trying to secure happiness in all the wrong ways. Its speed and reactivity keep us under siege. There’s so little space that by the end of the day we feel physically exhausted. We are drained by our continual meditation on the mental fabrication known as “me.”

Meditation is about taming our mind by engaging our mind, with enthusiasm and inspiration. With practice we become grounded in the experience of basic goodness. This leads us toward a healthy sense of self.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Running away from things, we do not live life directly

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

It seems the more we express, that is, the more we bring out what is in, the more alive we are. The more we give voice to our pain in  living, the less build up we have between our soul and our way in the world. However, the more we push down and keep in, the smaller we become. The more we stuff between our heart and our daily experience, the more we have to work through to feel life directly. Our unexpressed life can become a callous we carry around and manicure, but never remove…..Just as flowers need healthy root systems in order to blossom, feelings can only express their beauty when they are rooted cleanly within us, breaking ground in some manner, sprouting outside us.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

If we stopped moving…

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Paolo Neruda, Keeping Quiet


Space for the conditions of life

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

To free ourselves from our neurotic ego is ultimately to accept the conditions of existence and to see ourselves not as victims or opponents of the givens of reality, but as adults who face up to them honestly. These givens include the following: things change and end; life is not always fair; we pay for growth with suffering; things do not always go according to plan; people are not always loyal or loving.

Accepting the conditions of existence means first of all admitting our vulnerability to them. When we realize that the givens of life – no matter how ferocious – are not penalties, but ingredients of depth, lovability and character, we can let go of the belief that we are immune (or need to be). “That can’t happen to me” or “How dare they do that to me” changes to “Anything human can happen to me and I will do my best to handle it”. The strength to handle challenges, in fact, is directly proportional to how much we let go of entitlement.

David Richo, How to be an Adult in Relationships

Having room for everything and everyone

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The silence of the mind is like the space in a room. The spacious mind has room for everything. It is like the space in a room, which is never harmed by what goes in and out of it. In fact, we say “the space in this room,” but actually, the room is in the space, the whole building is in the space. We can apply this perspective to the mind, using the “I” consciousness to see space as an object. In the mind, we can see that there are thoughts and emotions —  the mental conditions that arise and cease. Usually, we are dazzled, repelled, or bound by these thoughts and emotions. We go from one thing to another, reacting, controlling, manipulating, or trying to get rid of them. So we never have any perspective in our lives. We become obsessed with either repressing or indulging in these mental conditions; we are caught in these two extremes. With meditation, we have the opportunity to contemplate the mind and the spacious mind has room for everything.

Noticing the space around people and things provides a different way of looking at them, and developing this spacious view is a way of opening oneself. When one has a spacious mind, there is room for everything. When one has a narrow mind, there is room for only a few things. Everything has to be manipulated and controlled, so that you have only what you think is right  – what you want there – and everything else has to be pushed out.  Life with a narrow view is suppressed and constricted; it is always struggle. There is always tension involved in it, because it takes an enormous amount of energy to keep everything in order all the time. If you have a narrow view of life, the disorder of life has to be ordered for you; so you are always busy, manipulating the mind and rejecting things or holding on to them. 

Ajahn Sumedho

Natural kindness

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Had some lovely visitors to the garden this morning, as an adult wagtail fed its chicks, probably not long out of the nest. The young ones followed the adult, waiting for food and running across the grass when they saw some being offered. We do not normally get wagtails visiting the garden, even allowing for the fact that they keep a  low profile when nesting. However,  this year we are extremely lucky with the amount of birds we see, especially the blackbirds who are nesting in the trees at the end of the garden. After the thunderstorms of the past two days they love to fill the air with song.

The instinctive tenderness of the adult’s care for the chick was very moving. It seems to me that, when we are not afraid, we have a natural movement of kindness and compassion towards others. It is only when fear enters into the equation that we withdraw and hold back, and our natural desire for caring connection is blocked and gets confused.  At some level, even though we may not be aware of it, this causes a division within, some kind of cognitive dissonance and we deal with this by blaming the other or by justifying ourselves. These stories simply mean that we stay cut off from our deep self and from others, ensuring that we will never be fully happy as most of the energy from that part of our life or our history goes into splitting and withdrawal rather than into kindness.

Mindfulness practice is about cultivating a space in our minds and a harmony with our inner capacity for compassion. This means noticing when the mind is fearful or defensive. When we see this  it is a good practice is to focus on the warmth of our own kindness and direct it first and foremost towards ourselves. We need to have the same tenderness that the mother bird demonstrated this morning towards the hungry,  weak and frightened parts of our own heart. In this way we gradually find strength not to automatically run away from the fear when it arises. We can let go of what we carry within and relax in the more natural condition of love and trust.

The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.

Pema Chodron