Mindfulness – Page 966 – Mindfulbalance

The Beauty in the cracks

January 6, 2012January 6, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places. Hemingway

Most of us are trying to live an authentic life. Deep down, we want to take off our game face and be real and imperfect. There is a line from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem” that serves as a reminder to me when I get into that place where I’m trying to control everything and make it perfect. The line is, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” So many of us run around spackling all of the cracks, trying to make everything look just right. This line helps me remember the beauty of the cracks (and the messy house and the imperfect manuscript…). It reminds me that our imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together. Imperfectly, but together.

Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

How to meditate: very simple instructions

January 6, 2012January 5, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

When a thought arises that’s strong enough to take your attention away from the breath, simply note it as not breath. Whether it’s the most beautiful thought in the world or the most terrible, one you would never disclose to another soul, in this meditation, it’s simply not breath. You don’t have to judge yourself. You don’t have to get lost in making up a story about what triggered the thought or its possible consequences. All you have to do is recognize that it is not a thought. Some of your thoughts may be tender and caring, some may be boring and banal; all that matters is that they are not the breath. See them, recognize them, very gently let them go, and bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath.

Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

The hidden work that is essential for growth

January 5, 2012January 4, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

The ladder whose ascent implies spiritual progress has a long pedigree. Hebrews, Greeks and Christians all gave special value to the heights, and Western morality tends to put all better things up high and worse things down low. By the last century growth became inexorably caught in this ascensionist fantasy. Darwin’s thesis The Descent of Man became, in our minds, the ascent of man. Each immigrant moved upward in social class as buildings moved upwards with their elevators to more expensive levels. By now the upward idea of growth has become a biographical cliché. To be an adult is to be a grown-up. Yet this is merely one way of speaking of maturity, and an heroic one at that. For even tomato plants and the tallest trees send down roots as they rise toward the light. Yet the metaphors for our lives see mainly the upward part of the organic motion.

James Hillman, The Soul’s Code

Befriending the wandering mind

January 5, 2012January 4, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

From a different tradition than yesterday – this time from a former Catholic monk and friend of Thomas Merton – similar instructions on how to work with thoughts in meditation. He recommends a patient, gentle attitude towards ourselves, or toward the inevitable swings in thoughts and moods which we experience, not over-identifying with that which arises and passes away. This gentle, non-judgmental, befriending is the key to ongoing practice.

As we patiently learn to listen to the thoughts that arise, endure, and pass away within us, we come to a deep experiential knowing of ourselves as we really are. We learn to befriend our own wandering mind, neither abandoning it through daydreaming or sleepiness nor invading it with more thoughts about the thoughts that are already there. By quietly persevering in sustained nonthinking meditative awareness, we come to a new groundedness within ourselves. The meditative mind that neither thinks, nor is reducible to any thought. grows stronger, calmer and more stable. In time we learn to listen with God’s ears to our wandering mind while at the same time passing beyond all that our wandering mind can comprehend

Admitting we all struggle from time to time

January 4, 2012February 18, 2017 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Learn the alchemy true human beings know. The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door will open. Rumi

The irony of hiding the dark side of our humanness is that our secret is not really a secret at all. How can it be when we’re all safeguarding the very same story? That’s why Rumi calls it an Open Secret. It’s almost a joke — a laughable admission that each one of us has a shadow self — a bumbling, bad-tempered twin. Big surprise! Just like you, I can be a jerk sometimes. I do unkind, cowardly things, harbor unmerciful thoughts, and mope around when I should be doing something constructive. Just like you, I wonder if life has meaning; I worry and fret over things I can’t control; and I often feel overcome with a longing for something that I cannot even name. For all of my strengths and gifts, I am also a vulnerable and insecure person, in need of connection and reassurance. This is the secret I try to keep from you, and you from me, and in doing so, we do each other a grave disservice.

Rumi tells us that moment we accept what troubles we’ve been given, “the door will open.” Sounds easy, sounds attractive, but it is difficult, and most of us pound on the door to freedom and happiness with every manipulative ploy save the one that actually works. If you’re interested in the door to the heavens opening, start with the door to your own secret self. See what happens when you offer to another a glimpse of who you really are. Start slowly. Without getting dramatic, share the simple dignity of yourself in each moment—your triumphs and your failures, your satisfaction and your sorrow. Face your embarrassment at being human, and you’ll uncover a deep well of passion and compassion. It’s a great power, your Open Secret. When your heart is undefended you make it safe for whomever you meet to put down his burden of hiding, and then you both can walk through the open door.

Elizabeth Lesser, The Open Secret