Tag: Mindfulness

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

A different strength

Karl Duffy1 Comment

sitting

Too often, people think that solving problems is based on conquering the earth,

rather than touching the earth,

touching ground.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Ambiguity

Karl Duffy2 Comments

window

The magnitude of our personal journeys,

require that we learn to tolerate ambiguity,

in service to a larger life.

James Hollis, What Matters Most

photo of 13th century Killelan Abbey (Knights of St John of Jerusalem),  Moone, Co. Kildare

Travelling at night

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Photo art.triddle.jpg

E.L. Doctorow said once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life

photo triddle