Tag: Present moment

Sunday Quote: Empty

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Everything that seems empty

is full of the angels of God.

Hilary of Poitiers, 310 – 368 AD

Each moment is a new moment

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Abba Moses asked Abba Sylvanus, ‘Can a person lay a new foundation every day?’

The old man said,

‘If they work hard, they can lay a new foundation at every moment.‘ 

From the sayings of the Desert Fathers. Abba Moses lived 330 – 405 AD

Sunday Quote: Ordinary

Karl Duffy1 Comment

A common man marvels at uncommon things.

A wise man marvels at the commonplace.

Confucius

The unknown is an answer

Karl Duffy2 Comments

It was in the process of asking that I came upon a truth:

that the unknown is an answer.

That there are answers upon answers,

and sometimes no questions at all.

Mary Oliver, Breakage

Grounded

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Some of these old teachings are very beautiful. The fundamental insight is that we are always whole and alive, even right in the midst of difficulties. We thus loosen our identification with our story as something solid, as a permanent sense of agitation, weakness or illness.

A monk asked, “How can a person escape from birth, old age, sickness and death?”

Lingyun replied, “The green mountain is fundamentally unmoving,

But the floating clouds pass back and forth”

(Little is known of Lingyun Zhiqin, a disciple of Chinese Zen Master Guishan Lingyou (771 – 853). “Birth, old age, sickness and death” are shorthand for all the difficulties of life and its overall unsatisfactory nature).

A swinging door

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Came across this image in Tim Burkett’s book Nothing Holy about It: The Zen of Being Just Who You Are, one of the best books I read last year.  It is one of the most famous ideas of this great teacher… Easy to understand, not so simple to do.

We say “inner world” or “outer world,” but actually there is just one whole world. In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, “I breathe,” the “I” is extra. There is no you to say”I.” What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no “I,” no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door.

Suzuki Roshi