Tag: wellbeing

The address of happiness

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:River Barrow Towpath - geograph.org.uk - 489173.jpg

The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the present moment. The present moment is the destination, the point to arrive at. Every time you breathe in and take a step, you arrive: “Breathing in I arrive, breathing out I arrive”. This is the address of happiness, the address of life. The Buddha said “Life is accessible only in the present moment”. Life with all its wonders is accessible now. So we train in coming back to the present moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh, You are Here

photo kevin higgins

An inner place of patience

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Un bonze Sri Lankais en regardant la marée (vue arrière - 23 janvier 2011).jpg

When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety;

if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without pain.

From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me.

There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.

Rumi

photo serge ottaviani

Coming and leaving

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Revolving Door Sign.jpg

Whenever one of these states arise, just know that it has arisen. To see feelings in the right way is to see them as a sort of imposter, not identifying them as ourselves. Anger or doubt are not us: they are not people or beings. So see them without giving them an identity, as just strangers coming in and then leaving. When there is cause they arise,  and when there is no cause they fall away.

Ven Pramote Pamojjo, To see the Truth

photo daquella Manera

Bring love to the moment

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Tug-of-war.jpg 

At a certain moment in [Nietzsche’s] life, the idea came to him of what he called ‘the love of your fate.’ Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, ‘This is what I need.’ It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment — not discouragement — you will find the strength is there. This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.

Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.

Joseph Campbell

Always hoping

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Lough Dan reflections (27765469).jpg

A lot of conversation in Ireland revolves around the weather. These days we wonder what the Summer will be like, or even stress about whether the weekend will allow a walk or a barbeque. In a way this unpredictability can support our practice and can lead to a reduction in stress: it reminds us that reality is always changing and that we have to be with the present however it manifests, open to possibility and not too fixed in expectations:

A large degree of life happens independent of, and often contrary to, your expectations. At first this may seem dismaying, but as you develop more and more awareness, you eventually start to realize that carrying around this jumble of expectations in your head is a burden  and that it gets in the way of being present in,  and responding to, the life you have.

Phillip Moffitt, Emotional Chaos to Clarity

photo of Lough Dan in Wicklow by Hugh C

Not there

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Distracted driving kills, keep your eyes and mind on the road 130417-M-RR352-002.jpg

Too often we are not present to the beauty,  love and grace

that brims within the ordinary moments of our lives.

Beauty is there, but we aren’t

Ron Rolheiser