Tag: Present moment

Serenity

Karl Duffy5 Comments

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A long weekend here in Ireland,  so a chance to refresh and nourish ourselves, taking a step back to notice compulsive running, outside and inside our minds.  Meditation practice is more about settling back into something that is already present,  rather than a need to “achieve” a goal, even a “good” or “calm” goal. Often this desire to achieve is based on a perfect image of ourselves and just fuels an underlying feeling that we are lacking in a fundamental way, needing to be supported and held up.

Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,  but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

Lao Tzu

with thanks to dear friend Patrick for the picture from his mountain walks in France

The beginning of happiness

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Fahan Old Church 1996 08 29.jpg

What do Sad people have in
Common?
It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past
And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.
What is the beginning of
Happiness?
It is to stop being
so religious
Like that.

Hafiz

Photo: Fahan, Co Donegal, Ireland by Andreas Borchert

The origin of suffering

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Blue Line Train Passing Through State Street Station.jpg

Be attentive and notice that whatever arises passes away; that whatever condition of your mind or body – whether it is a sensation of pleasure or pain, feeling or memory, sight, sound, smell, taste or touch, inside or outside – is just a condition. It’s important to reflect on what ‘ignorance’ really means when .. called … the origin of all suffering. ‘Being ignorant’ means that we identify with these conditions, by regarding them as ‘me’ or ‘mine’, or as something that we don’t want to be ‘me’ or ‘mine’. We’ve got the idea that we’ve got to find some permanent pleasant condition, we have to achieve something, get something we don’t have. But you can notice that desire in your mind is a moving thing, looking for something, so it’s a changing condition that arises and passes away – it’s not-self.

Ajahn Sumedho, Everything that arises passes away

photo sean p bender

 

Sunday Quote: True self, false self

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File:Kite flying.jpg

Discernment is a process of letting go what we are not

Father Thomas Keating, Cistercian monk, author of Open Mind, Open Heart

photo mschlindwein

No Maps

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File:Ortelius 1592 Ireland Map.jpg

It’s so tempting to want the answers before we begin the journey. We like to know our way.  We like to have maps.  We like to have guides.  But we are more like a breathing puzzle, a living bag of pieces, and each day shows us what a piece or two is for, where it might go, how it might fit.  Over time, a picture starts to emerge by which we begin to understand our place in the world. Unfortunately we waste a lot of time seeking someone to tell us what life will be like once we live it. We drain ourselves of vital inner fortitude by asking others to map our way. The instructions are in the living.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Map of Ireland 1592 by Abraham Ortelius

Unique

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File:Passer domesticus -England -male.jpg

If you don’t look at things through your concepts, you’ll never be bored. 

Every single thing is unique. 

Every sparrow is unlike every other sparrow despite the similarities. 

It’s a great help to have similarities, so we can abstract, so that we can have a concept. 

It’s a great help, from the point of view of communication, education, science. 

But it’s also very misleading and a great hindrance  to seeing this concrete individual. 

If all you experience is your concept,  you’re not experiencing reality,  because reality is concrete. 

The concept is a help, to lead you to reality, but when you get there, 

you’ve got to intuit or experience it directly.

.
Anthony de Mello. sj.

photo david friel