Tag: Stress Reduction

Creating breaks in the chatter

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

When we cling to thoughts and memories, we are clinging to what cannot be grasped. When we cling to thoughts and memories, we are clinging to what cannot be grasped. When we touch these phantoms and let them go, we may discover a space, a break in the chatter, a glimpse of open sky. This is our birthright—the wisdom with which we were born, the vast unfolding display of primordial richness, primordial openness, primordial wisdom itself. When one thought has ended and another has not yet begun, we can rest in that space.

Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion

Seeing clearly and seeing through

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Meditation is a special kind of dance in which we commit our-selves wholeheartedly to the practice of deconstructing the materialistic view of reality. The challenge is simultaneously to hold on and to let go; it is to see clearly what we are doing and at the same time see through it.

Ajahn Amaro

Letting go of the race

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Stand still, and allow the strange, deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away like the worn-out, dusty cloak that it is – a cloak that was once considered beautiful. The restlessness was considered the magic carpet of tomorrow, but now in reality we see it for what it is: a running away from oneself, a turning from that journey inward that all  must undertake to meet God dwelling within the depths of their souls.

Stand still, and look deep into the motivations of life.

Catherine de Hueck Doherty

An underlying calm

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Stillness, a sense of the unchanging, is all around, and at different levels. Look for it, explore its effects on you, and let it sink in. For example…. there is the moment at the very top of a tossed ball’s trajectory when it’s neither rising nor falling, the pause before the first stroke of the brush, that space between exhalation and inhalation, the silence in which sounds occur, or the discernible gap between thoughts when your mind is quiet.

In your mind there is always an underlying calm and well-being that contains emotional reactions, like a riverbed that is still even as the flood rushes over it (if you’re not aware of this, truly, with practice you can find and stabilize a sense of it). There is also the unchanging field of awareness, itself never altered by the thoughts passing through it…Give yourself the space, the permission, to be still – at least in your mind – amidst those who are busy. To use a traditional saying:  “May that which is still, be that in which your mind delights”.

Rick Hanson.

Why training the mind is good

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When attention is not occupied by a specific task, like a job or a conversation, thoughts begin to wander in random circles. But in this case ‘random’ does not mean that there is an equal chance of having happy and sad thoughts. [T]he majority of thoughts that come to the mind when we are not concentrating are likely to be depressing.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Appreciate uncertainty

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Fear and anxiety are the dominant psychological states of the human mind. Behind the fear lies a constant longing to be certain. We are afraid of the unknown. The mind’s craving for confirmation is rooted in our fear of uncertainty. Fearlessness is generated when you can appreciate uncertainty, when you have faith in the impossibility of these interconnected components remaining static and permanent. You will find yourself, in the true sense, preparing for the worst while allowing for the best. You will become dignified and majestic.

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, What Makes you not a Buddhist