Tag: Mindfulness

Deep silence

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Cove-lake-fork-mountain-tn1.jpg

In different traditions and at different times there were many attempts to express the value of setting aside some time for silence or creating some space to listen and yet they all agree on its benefits. What was true in the 12th century is even more true today. When we get caught up in relentless activity we are in danger of not hearing what our deep needs are, or indeed what are those of others close to us. Finding some time for quiet in our lives is not a luxury but rather is essential for protecting our health.

Let all my world be silent in your presence so that I may hear what you may say in my heart. Your words are so softly spoken  that no one can hear them except in a deep silence. But to hear them lifts the person who sits alone and in silence completely above their natural powers, because those who humble themselves will be lifted up. Those who sit alone and listen will be raised above themselves.

Guigo II, Carthusian monk, died 1188, Ladder of Monks and Twelve Meditations

photo brian stansberry

Four rooms

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Sarospatak - Renaissance corridor, with a door.jpg

There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual .

Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time

but unless we go into every room every day,

even if only to keep it aired,

we are not a complete person

Rumer Godden, 1907 – 1998, author,  A House with Four Rooms

photo takkk

Where to start

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Kindness jar.jpg

Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself.
You may not be perfect, but you are all you’ve got to work with.

The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the
total acceptance of who you are.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

photo hunterdt

What’s personal

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Vaches sur la plage - Cows on the beach.JPG

You should not take personally things that actually aren’t personal.

It turns out when you start to really dig down underneath it, there’s very little that’s personal.

Taking things personally is a prescription for infinite suffering.

Jon Kabat Zinn

photo of cows disturbing a walk along the beach at Whitepark Bay, Ireland, by gtapp

Lost in our moods

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

 

File:Leaf on tree in Yosemite park.jpg

This mind of ours is naturally peaceful. It’s still and calm like a leaf that is not being blown about by the wind…

Why the mind doesn’t feel peaceful right now is because it gets lost in its own moods. There’s nothing to mind itself. It simply abides in its natural state, that’s all. That sometimes the mind feels peaceful and other times not peaceful is because it has been tricked by moods. The untrained mind lacks wisdom.  Moods come and trick it into feeling pleasure one minute and suffering the next. Happiness then sadness. But the natural state of a person’s mind isn’t one of happiness or sadness. This experience of happiness and sadness is not the actual mind itself, but just these moods which have tricked it. The mind gets lost, carried away by these moods with no idea what’s happening.  It still isn’t very clever. And we go on thinking that it’s our mind which is suffering or our mind which is happy, when actually it’s just lost in its various moods.

Ajahn Chah, Training this Mind

 

A way of interacting today

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Bee flower - Flickr - Andrea Westmoreland.jpg

In meditation practice we are cultivating a mind that knows rather than judges. In other words, it has enough space to hold what is happening,  without it triggering reactions or negative stories about  how our lives are.  I find the image in this passage to be a help toward developing that:

As a bee gathering nectar

does not harm or disturb

the colour and fragrance of the flower;

so does a wise person move

through the world.

The Dhammapada, v 49

photo Andrea Westmoreland