Tag: wellbeing

Stress is in the mind

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We are living in a very stressful time with all the successes of Western civilization, Western education and technology, the miracles that the West has performed! And it continues — there is no end to it. Yet people have not become more peaceful and contented. In fact they feel even more stressed by it all. So the problems of modern society in the West are coming not from a lack of anything, from tyrannical governments or from anything terribly wrong, but just from the level of stress in the mind — the speed, the nervousness, the tension, the tendency to get caught up in things and having no way of letting go, no understanding of the nature of things. So people end up taking drugs, drinking a lot, seeking sensory deprivation, trying to bury their heads in the sand; they go off to remote islands in the Pacific or do anything they think will help them find some inner peace…..[However] The silence, the cessation of suffering, is now; it is here and now, in the mind; we don’t have to go anywhere to get it. One can bear with conditions because the silence is not from denying or rejecting, but from understanding, from letting go, and from realizing that all is subject to arising and ceasing. In that movement is a stillness and peacefulness that all of us can experience and know directly for ourselves.

Ajahn Sumedho, The Still Silence

Surprising things which we hold on to

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Eckhart Tolle believes we create and maintain problems because they give us a sense of identity. Perhaps this explains why we often hold onto our pain far beyond its ability to serve us. We replay past mistakes over and over again in our head, allowing feelings of shame and regret to shape our actions in the present. We cling to frustration and worry about the future, as if the act of fixation somehow gives us power. We hold stress in our minds and bodies, potentially creating serious health issues, and accept that state of tension as the norm.

Though it may sound simple, Ajahn Chah’s advice speaks volumes: “If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.” There will never be a time when life is simple. There will always be time to practice accepting that. Every moment is a chance to let go and feel peaceful.

Lori Deschene, 40 Ways to Let Go and Feel Less Pain, Tiny Buddha Blog

Drawing a line and knowing when to stop

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The tendency in today’s world is to do more and more, to take on more tasks and responsibilities, to have a certain pride when telling people that we are “very busy”. For some this can mean the need to do more and more study, for others the push to get more achieved in a day, and for some others it even extends to an anxiety  to develop their inner life as one other thing to be “done”. However, all of this energy can mean that we find it hard to allow our work or our activities feel sufficient for the day or for the week. We find reflections on this in all wisdom traditions. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that “sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof “, encouraging us to deal with one day at a time, and not dwell excessively in the future. And I have always found the French translation of a familiar phrase from the Our Father to be more insightful than the English – Donne–nous aujourd‘hui notre pain de ce jour – “Give us this day our bread for this day”. In other words, enough to support us this day and no more. It encourages us to let go at the end of a day – or a working week – and be content.   There is a great benefit for our overall wellbeing in drawing limits to the amount we try to do.

“Enough” is a verb, a conversation, a fugue, a collaboration. It is not a static state, something achieved or accomplished. It is relational, by nature unpredictable, punctuated by wonder, surprise, and awe. It may feel dangerous and inefficient. It demands that we stay awake, pay attention to what is true in this moment, in our hearts, and make the choices always and only from that place. Then whatever we decide brings a sense of rightness and sufficiency, arriving with an exhale, a letting go, a sense that this, here, for now, is enough.

A life of enough is born in every moment — in the way we listen, the way we respond to the world, the way we see what is and tell the truth of who we are. Every single choice, every single moment, every change of course can bring us closer to a life of peace, contentment, authenticity, and easy sufficiency, a life of being, having, and doing enough.

Wayne Muller, A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough

The Body-mind

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Mindfulness is a form of Mind-Body medicine, a different way of knowing, a different way of being with our experience.  From an early age, and once we start school, our capacity to think and analyse is prioritized as the best way of working with what happens in each day. However, we learn in mindfulness is that through awareness there is a wider, kinder, less judgmental way of being with reality. We also come to see that there is a wisdom in our bodies which often “knows” much more than our thoughts. So tuning into our bodies is the fundamental daily skill of mindfulness. Broken down to its most basic from –  we focus on the breath in the body,  which allows us to notice our thoughts as they arise in the mind and, gently, gradually, let go of struggling with them. In this way we work with what has brought us to this day, as well as laying the foundations for greater happiness and health  in the future. Thubten Chodron quotes a Tibetan saying: ‘If you want to know about your past life, look at your present body. If you want to know about your future life, look at your present mind.’  There is a great wisdom in this.

What we use, we strengthen

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Inherent in any media technology – from the telephone to TV to Twitter – is an emphasis of some ways of thinking and a de-emphasis on other ways of thinking. If you look at the Internet, what it emphasizes is the ability to supply lots of information, in many forms, very quickly. As a result, it encourages us to browse through information in a similar way – by grabbing lots of bits of data simultaneously. What it doesn’t encourage us to engage in is more attentive ways of thinking – the mode of thinking that underpins deep reading, contemplation, reflection and introspection. All of these ways of using our minds – which to me, are very important are de-emphasized by the Internet, and as a result, we’re not practicing them as much anymore. I worry that as a society, we are in danger of losing them.

Nicholas Carr, from an interview with Karen Christensen

Invisible kindness

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Every two weeks,  or so,  I facilitate a Support Group for the Hospice volunteers, listening as they share their experiences of being with people towards the end of their life. Each time I am struck by the kind presence which they offer to those who are ill.  After the last meeting it struck me again how being generous requires an ongoing leap of faith, as we often cannot see the effects of our presence or our words. It maybe these  invisible kindnesses, which we offer quietly and without knowing their effect,  are the greatest things we can do in our lives.

In the human world, abundance does not happen automatically. It is created when we have the sense to choose community, to come together to celebrate and share our common story. Whether the ‘scarce resource’ is money or love or power or words, the true law of life is that we generate more of whatever seems scarce by trusting its supply and passing it around.

Parker Palmer