Tag: Mindfulness

Time enough

Karl Duffy2 Comments

 

The butterfly counts not months

but moments,

and has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore

Why difficulties are necessary

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If we are going to achieve our purpose in life, we must be willing to fall out of grace and accept its lessons. When we feel righteous about ourselves, or deny our brokenness, we are fighting against the higher states of grace that await us. Failure is built into grace. You cannot have one without the other. It’s like two sides of a single coin. Everyone who has achieved a state of grace is certain at some point to fall, and to have fallen many times before. Every successful person, everyone you respect, will tell you that they have mountains of failure behind them…

When we are in grace, we begin to take things for granted and we actually stop working on ourselves. Falling out of grace shakes us up. It reconnects us to the larger universe in order for us to see ourselves anew. It forces us to rediscover where our true center begins, and to learn what needs to be set aside.

Sobonfu Some, Falling Out of Grace: Meditations on Loss, Healing and Wisdom

photo http://www.vagabondjourney.com

Using time wisely

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To truly be kind to others (and ourselves for that matter), it helps to abandon time slavery and try to notice what kind of time others are keeping, to notice their face and their gesture, to know when they are ready to say something, ready to be quiet, ready to come, to go, to be led, to be followed. So many times I have been unable to listen or to notice what someone was going through or where they were headed because it didn’t meet with my schedule. Patience and timing are inextricably linked. Patience, which we can regard with such excruciation, offers a hidden reward. When we stop watching the pot, we may learn that it boils right on time.

Sometimes my father would forget to wind the big clock, the weights would fall, and time would stop. We wind the clock. It does not have to wind us.

Barry Boyce, What Time is Now?

When we are blown around

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Black Birch Leaves and Twig

 

When green leaves turn in the wind
I vow with all beings
to enjoy the forces that turn me
face up, face down on my stem

Robert Aitken Roshi,  The Dragon Who Never Sleeps

That’s all we have

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Every moment in life is absolute itself. That’s all we have. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don’t pay attention to every little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this can be anything. This can be straightening our sitting mats, chopping an onion, talking to one we don’t want to talk to. It doesn’t matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute. That’s all there is, and all there ever will be. If we could totally pay attention, we would never be upset. If we’re upset, it’s axiomatic that we’re not paying attention. If we fill our days and we miss not just one moment, but one moment after another, we’re in trouble.

Charlotte Joko Beck

A meditation exercise in times of transition

Karl Duffy4 Comments

Bring your awareness to focus on something in your life that is changing or ending or dying right now. Breathe gently as you consider whatever transition is most significant right now in your life. Note any feelings that arise – trepidation, excitement, resistance, anger, annoyance, or grief. Every time your feelings get the better of you, become aware of your breathing. Meet your troubled and contracted feelings with your calm and expansive breath. Breathe, sigh, and stretch out on the river of change. Remember times when you have resisted change in the past. Regard how things turned out in the end – maybe not how you thought they would or you wanted them to, but in the end, there you were. Wiser, stronger, still alive. Smile. Relax. Allow yourself to break open. Sit tall, with dignity and patience, watching your breath rise and fall, rise and fall. Pray for the courage to welcome this new change with openness and wisdom.

Then, open your eyes, go back into your life, and do what you have to do, but do it with grace, with hope, and with a lighter touch.

Elizabeth Lesser