Present moment – Page 370

Its not in the future, but here today

May 11, 2011May 11, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Mindfulness encourages us to pay attention and rest in what is happening in the present moment. However, we often prefer to be elsewhere, or that the present moment be other than what it actually is. What we learn through our practice is the key to finding contentment is to be fully present with whatever we are doing, no matter how ordinary. This realization that the fulness of our lives is right in front of us, and not to be found in the future, is an insight found in all wisdom traditions and leads to true contentment .

The everyday tedium of our lives is the desert we wander, looking for the Promised Land. Our relationships, our work, and all the little necessary tasks we don’t want to do are all the gift. We have to brush our teeth, we have to buy groceries. we have to do the laundry, we have to balance our checkbook. This tedium — this wandering in the desert — is in fact the face of God. Our struggles, the partner who drives us crazy, the report we don’t want to write — these are the Promised Land.

Charlotte Joko Beck

Using the weather today as a metaphor for life

May 10, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The warmth of the Spring weather this year means that plants and fruits are in bloom ahead of time and any memories of winter is far behind. We can look at the weather and nature today and be reminded of a number of lessons, which help us live our life mindfully:

Spring is a metaphor for transitions. It moves from lifelessness to life and we move from lifelessness to life in each cycle of breathing. If we know change is going to occur we are in a better place to accept it. If we expect things to stay constant we are vulnerable to frustration, disappointment, and resistance.

Spring is also a metaphor for forgiveness. Whatever happened in the last season, life begins anew with no carryover resentment from the past. Spring reminds us, as Pema Chodron says, to start where we are.

Spring shows us the cycle of living and dying on a bigger scale do. Everything comes into being and goes out of being — changing its form. Spring invites us not to become attached to things, even the most precious things in our life. The invitation is to love things wholeheartedly with the awareness that they will not be with us forever. And, indeed, we, ourselves, will not be here forever. The invitation is to not be afraid to grieve when that grief becomes necessary. Grief is, at times, the admission price to the present moment.

The renewal of spring is the healing from grief, from the inexorable impermanence of things. Spring also demonstrates the tenacity of life and encourages us to persist in whatever we are doing.

So welcome spring and your multifaceted metaphors for mindful living!

Arnie Kozak, on Beliefnet

Moving on into insecurity

May 9, 2011May 9, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

As time passes, we are continually called to move out of our comfort zones and take on new challenges. Or we need to shake ourselves up and leave behind what has become too familiar and comfortable. At other times, growth may be painful, but we know deep down that we need to make choices which will lead us in new directions. In every case it is the same, an ongoing, organic process that has been in place since we were little: we move from an established secure base, stepping out to explore new worlds. To do this we need to let go of what is certain. It has always been that way. We often sense it deep down. Where do I feel stuck at this moment? What do I need to move on from?

To be human is to create sufficient order so that we can move on into insecurity and seeming disorder. In this way we discover the new.

Jean Vanier

Being mindful of everything today

May 9, 2011May 9, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

In our dally lives, we should be mindful. What does it mean to be mindful? It means to be fully aware right here, concentrating on what is going on inside. We are looking at something, for instance, and we try to concentrate on that; then a sound comes, and then a smell, then this and then that-distractions, changes. We say: ‘I can’t be mindful of this environment; it’s too confusing. I have to have a special environment where there are no distractions, then I can be mindful. If I go to one of those retreats, then I can be mindful; no distractions there-peace and quiet-noble silence! I can’t be mindful in Edinburgh or London – too many distractions. And I’ve got family, children, too much noise!’

But mindfulness is not necessarily concentrating on an object. Being aware of confusion is also being mindful. If we have all kinds of things coming at our senses-noises, people demanding this and that-we cannot concentrate on any one of them for very long. But we can be aware of the confusion, or the excitement, or the impingement; we can be aware of the reactions in our own minds. That is what we call being mindful. We can be mindful of confusion and chaos. And we can be mindful of peace and tranquillity.

Ajahn Sumeho

The secret of life: Being fully in the moment with our history

May 7, 2011May 8, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Sometimes meditation practice can be used just to dampen down anxiety or to run away from facing difficult aspects in our lives or our history. As a strategy this is doomed to failure, sooner or later. The only way to full wholeness is to allow all things to be held in awareness, including the parts of ourselves or our life histories that frighten us, the things that disturb our “calm”. As the previous quote from Pema Chodron reminds us, all that comes into our life – including the experiences of our childhood and subsequent difficult moments – remain in us until they have taught us something and we have integrated the teaching. So our most important practice is allowing and acknowledging all the parts of our life, thus increasing our capacity to be free in their presence.

If, then, we want to be let in on the secrets of life, we must be mindful of two things : first, there is the great melody, in which things and scents, feelings and past events, dawns and dreams, all contribute their part; and second there are the individual voices which augment and complete this full chorus. And to lay the foundation for a work of art — that is, an image a life lived more deeply – of our more than daily experience — we have to put both voices, – the voice of this moment and the voice of the group of people living within that moment – into a proper relationship and reconcile them.

Rilke, Notes on the Melody of Things