Tag: Present moment

The art of the soul

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

All through your life, the most precious experiences seem to vanish. You look behind and see no sign even of a yesterday that was so intense. Yet in truth, nothing ever disappears, nothing is lost. Everything that happens to us in the world passes into us. It all becomes part of the inner temple of the soul and it can never be lost. This is the art of the soul: to harvest your deeper life from all the seasons of your experience.

This is probably why the soul never surfaces fully. The intimacy and tenderness of its light would blind us. We continue in our days to wander between the shadowing and the brightening, while all the time a more subtle brightness sustains us. If we could but realize the sureness around us, we would be much more courageous in our lives. The frames of anxiety that keep us caged would dissolve. We would live the life we love and in that way, day by day, free our future from the weight of regret.

John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

A simple mind

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Awareness is completely simple; we don’t have to add anything to it or change it. It is unassuming or unpretentious; Awareness is not a thing, to be affected by this or that. When we live from pure awareness, we are not affected by our past, our present, or our future. Because awareness has nothing it can pretend to, it’s humble. It is lowly. Simple. Practice is about developing or uncovering a simple mind.

Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special, Living Zen

Sunday Quote: The process, not the content

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

What must be increased is the ability to observe.

What we observe is always secondary

Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

Learning from nature

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Calming allows us to rest, and resting is a precondition for healing. When animals in the forest get wounded, they find a place to lie down, and they rest completely for many days. They don’t think about food or anything else. They just rest, and they get the healing they need. When we humans get sick, we just worry! We look for doctors and medicine, but we don’t stop. Even when we go to the beach or the mountains for a vacation, we don’t rest, and we come back more tired than before. We have to learn to rest. Lying down is not the only position for resting. During sitting or walking meditation, we can rest very well. Meditation does not have to be hard labor. Just allow your body and mind to rest like an animal in the forest. Don’t struggle. There is no need to attain anything.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching,

Where the attention is

Karl Duffy1 Comment

If you are doing something to avoid pain, then pain is running your life. All of your thoughts and feelings will be affected by your fears.

Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul

of ordinary things

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Pat Schneider, 1934 – 2020, American writer, poet, writing teacher and editor