Tag: Mindfulness

What peace means

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The Christian calendar today remembers the story in the gospel of Matthew which tells how King Herod ordered the killing of all the children in an attempt to murder Jesus. It is striking that this feast day is celebrated just a few  days after the celebration of Christmas, which is associated with joy. It draws attention to the reality of our changing experience, that sadness can follow joy very quickly, or disappointment come when least expected. Or maybe to the reality of the world, as many people experience violence and hatred every day, no matter what time of year.

To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful.

It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.

Jill Boite Taylor, American neuroanatomist. 

Be with how it actually is

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Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone should behave. But it is not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.

Ajahn Sumedho

The eyes of a child

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One way to have good perspective is to see the world through the eyes of a child. We innocently report. We accept how others think and feel. If something is had or sad, or we’re scared, we say that. We say how we feel and what we want and need. We know that when we’re tired, we see things out of focus. And when things get too difficult, we either go play in the park or we take a nap.

Somehow we know that everything will work out.

Melody Beattie

A link with the infinite

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Are we related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of our life. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change. In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.

Carl Jung

Sunday Quote: Relax

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Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.

 William s. Burroughs, American author, died 1997

Patient waiting

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Our passing dramas stand in contrast to the enduring parts of nature, which goes back inside itself at this time of year, and then starts again.

The oak tree
loves patience,
the mountain is
still looking,

as it has for centuries,
for a word to say about
the gradual way it
slides itself

back to the
world below
to begin again,
in another life,

to be fertile.
When the wind blows
the grass
whistles and whispers

in myths and riddles
and not in our language
but one far older.
The sea is the sea is

always the sea.
These things 
you can count on
as you walk about the world

happy or sad,
talky or silent, making
weapons, love, poems.
The briefest of fires.

Mary Oliver, Patience