Tag: Mindfulness

Unique path

Karl Duffy1 Comment

little birdEvery person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique. It is the duty of every person…to know and consider…that there has never been anyone like him in the world, for if there had been someone like him, there would have been no need for him to be in the world. Every single person is a new thing in the world and is called upon to fulfill his particularity in this world. Every person’s foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never-recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, be it even the greatest, has already achieved.

Martin Buber

Travelling light

Karl Duffy6 Comments

File:Berlin hauptbahnhof drei rollkoffer 15.04.2011 15-07-46.JPG

There is an old story of a famous rabbi living in Europe who was visited one day by a man who had traveled by ship from New York to see him. The man came to the great rabbi’s dwelling, a large house on a street in a European city, and was directed to the rabbi’s room, which was in the attic. He entered to find the master living in a room with a bed, a chair, and a few books. The man had expected much more.  After greetings, he asked, “Rabbi, where are your things?” The rabbi asked in return, “Well, where are yours?” His visitor replied, “But, Rabbi, I’m only passing through,” and the master answered, “So am I, So am I.”

This is not a lesson to be put off. One great teacher explained it this way: “The trouble with you is that you think you have time.” We don’t know how much time we have. What would it be like to live with the knowledge that this may be our last year, our last week, our last day? In light of this question, we can choose a path with heart.

Jack Kornfield,  A Path With Heart

photo dirk ingo franke

Using time well

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Magnolia x soulangeana Rogów.JPG

In a week when the newspaper front pages in Ireland and England devote as much time to celebrity gossip and the gyrations of Miley Cyrus at VMA Awards as they do to atrocities and human suffering in Syria and Iraq, it is probably good to reflect on how we can live more consciously. One element of this is where we choose to place our attention and devote our time:

If they say we should get together. Say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them any more.
You’re trying to remember something too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project. It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store, nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

Naomi Shihab Nye, The Art of Disappearing

photo crusier

The slow pace of creation

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Early Morning Driveway.jpg

Slowing how we think and feel and take in the world is directly related to being centered. The wisdom traditions all have some form of meditation and prayer that is aimed at slowing us into this center, where the very pace of creation breathes…..At the pace of creation, all things breathe the same way….So, when we slow and open and center ourselves, we breathe in unison with all of life, and breathing this way we draw strength from all of life.  At the pace of creation, the beginning enters us and we are new.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

photo josh hallett

Trust

Karl Duffy1 Comment

buds2

What shape waits in the seed of you

to grow and spread its branches

against a future sky?

David Whyte

Recognizing your experience

Karl Duffy3 Comments

Looking Outside

Here’s a definition of mindfulness: it’s a strengthening of your concentration so that you can be more precise and clear in recognizing your experience. It’s also a strengthening of your equanimity — your ability to be relaxed and open in the face of your experience. The concentration part of mindfulness is a little like drinking a cup of coffee; it kind of wakes you up. It’s like the straight spine of arousal or awareness. The equanimity part is like the relaxed limbs of the body. The spine is straight, and the limbs are relaxed. This relaxation part is a receptivity and acceptance to things as they are. It’s a kind of “friendly audience” to your own experience; a sort of “Hello. Wow! OK.” attitude — a gentle, matter-of-fact awareness of your experience, rather than a reactive pulling back.  All mindfulness practices cultivate both of those, the concentration and the equanimity, so that you can be clearer, more precise and more relaxed in the face of whatever is happening to you —whether it’s loud noises coming in from a jackhammer running in the next building, or a pain in your knee, or your emotions about your spouse.

Polly Young-Eisendrath