Tag: Stress Reduction

Running and missing

Karl Duffy2 Comments

runningFrequently for us time is money. We must save as much time as possible, so that we have free time for more important things. The question is – what is more important to us? Often we cannot do much at all with all the time “saved”. We are habitually in a rush. But where to? We’ve become victims of our own frenzy – we rush at all times including our free time. He too we want to do more ever faster. But this constant rushing takes away our ability to feel and to experience the things we do. Increasingly we only feel alive in the midst of the hustles and bustles. We no longer feel ourselves, our breathing, our body, or the stirring of our heart. As the poet Ingeborg Bachman once said: “Idleness is the beginning of all love”

Anselm Gruen, Angels Calling

Meet the wind

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

wind tree

The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face. When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness. When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite. When we want to complain about the rain we could feel its wetness instead. When we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet the wind and hear its sound. Cutting our expectations for a cure is a gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and cold. They will go on forever.

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

A solid place

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Mount Asgard 3 2001-07-25.jpg

When you think about yourself and who you are, who you should be, who you would like to be, who you do not want to be – how good or bad, wonderful or horrible you are, all this whirls around, it goes all over the place. One moment you can feel ” I am a really wonderful person”, the next moment you can feel ” I am an absolutely hopeless, horrible person”. But if you take refuge in awareness, then whatever you are thinking does not make much difference, because your refuge is in this ability of awareness, rather than in the gyrations and fluctuations of the self-view.

Ajahn Sumedho, Intuitive Awareness

Photo: Ansgar Walk

Nowhere to go

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

https://i0.wp.com/www.goerieblogs.com/sports/nwpaoutdoors/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Marsh-Trail.jpg

What we are seeking is right here. But we persist in looking south to find the north star. Any kind of speculating is just the discursive mind doing its habitual thing – creating scenarios in the mind that block us from discovering what is right in front of us.  This moment is not some narrow, tiny point but is actually everything.  Right now includes memories of the past, fantasies about the future, judgements about the present, emotions and sensations of all kinds.  As soon as we say, “I’m living in the present,”  we’ve made a significant cognitive error, and created another barrier for ourselves.  Meditation practice ….. brings us into the direct intimate experience of this moment.  There’s no room for speculating.  We feel fully alive.  There’s no place to go, and yet, we are continually moving through space and time.  The path is never blocked if we can realize that we are always on it, going in the only direction we can go.  We’re always heading for here, here, here, here.

Melissa Blacker, Trail Temporarily Closed

Aimlessness

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:India - Haridwar - 002 - cows wandering aimlessly among the pilgrims (2086490984).jpg

It is our tendency in daily life to become goal oriented. We know where we want to go, and we are very focused on getting there. At times, this may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the way. Apranihita is a Sanskrit word meaning “wishlessness” or “aimlessness.” We don’t need to keep running after something, because everything is already here, within. Often we tell ourselves, “Don’t just sit there, do something!”  But when we practice awareness, we discover that the opposite may be more helpful: “Don’t just do something, sit there!” We can train ourselves to stop from time to time throughout the day, to come back to the present and let go of our worries and preoccupations. When our minds and bodies are calm, we can see our situations more clearly and we know better what to do and what not to do.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Not a series of chores

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Milk in a Japanese supermarket.jpg

Mindfulness meditation is a wonderful tool for making each day, each moment of our life count. Paradoxically this is achieved by not doing more, but by doing less. We may feel that we need to do the things  have to be done faster so that we have time for doing more things. Mindfulness practice goes the other way. I may need to go to the store to get a carton of milk. The way to make the experience more satisfying is not doing it as fast as possible while thinking of other things, but to enjoy the walk to the store by paying attention. This way, we make every moment count. We are not sacrificing the means for the goal., Otherwise, our day becomes a series of dry chores. When night comes we may feel that we haven’t lived.

Joseph Emet, Buddha’s Book of Sleep