Tag: Mindfulness

Sunday Quote: Marvellous

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Salal (Gaultheria shallon) Leaf and Flowers.jpg

In all things in nature

there is something

of the marvellous

Aristotle

photo wing-chi poon

The opposite of time

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Pigeon clocks

All is always now,” says T. S. Eliot. This statement implies a profound insight: Not only is the now not in time; time is in the now. When the future comes, it will be now, and any past event becomes now as we remember it. There is only one now. It cannot be multiplied; it simply is. The now is the opposite of time. In fact, this is Augustine’s definition: “Eternity is the now that does not pass away.” A happiness anchored in the now is eternal. This precisely is the happiness our heart desires — eternal, and unassailable, because it is beyond the reach of “time the destroyer”

David Steindl-Rast, A Basic Human Approach to Happiness

Being present

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Ecola State Park Haystack Rock.JPG

To listen is to lean in softly
With a willingness to be changed
By what we hear


Mark Nepo

photo brmuchin at en.wikipedia

A paradox

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Sit 08860.jpg

Just sitting means just that. That ‘just’ endlessly goes against the grain of our need to fix, transform, and improve ourselves. The paradox of our practice is that the most effective way of transformation is to leave ourselves alone. The more we let everything be just what it is, the more we relax into an open, attentive awareness of one moment after another.

Barry Magid, Leave yourself alone

photo nevit dilmen

Part of life

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Working with unpredictability

Trauma is not just the result of major disasters. It does not happen to only some people. An undercurrent of trauma runs through ordinary life, shot through as it is with the poignancy of impermanence. I like to say that if we are not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, we are suffering from pre-traumatic stress disorder. There is no way to be alive without being conscious of the potential for disaster. One way or another, death (and its cousins: old age, illness, accidents, separation and loss) hangs over all of us. Nobody is immune. Our world is unstable and unpredictable, and operates, to a great degree and despite incredible scientific advancement, outside our ability to control it.

Mark Epstein, The Trauma of Being Alive, New York Times, August 2013

Control

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Image taken from rawforbeauty.com