Tag: wellbeing

Here already if only we noticed

Karl Duffy1 Comment

templeOne day you realized that what you wanted
had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place you had lived in before you began
and that every step along the way, you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise
that first set you off and drew you on

and that you were more marvelous
in your simple wish to find a way,  than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach: as if, all along, you had thought the end point might be a city
with golden towers, and cheering crowds,
and turning the corner at what you thought was the end of the road,
  you found just a simple reflection.

David Whyte, Santiago from Pilgrim: Poems

Realizing our happiness

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path44In studying ourselves
We find the harmony
That is our total existence

We do not make harmony
We do not achieve it
Or gain it

It is there – all the time

Here we are – in the midst
Of this perfect way
And our practice is…

Simply to realize it
And then
To actualize it
In our everyday life…

Taizan Maezumi Roshi, 1931 – 1995

 

Sunday Quote: Sit and be still

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glendalough

Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear,
beneath the dry wind’s
commotion in the trees,
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,

and you are where
breathing is prayer

Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 2001

Not looking outside

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File:Flickr - Official U.S. Navy Imagery - Sailors work with students..jpg

The primary cause of disorder in ourselves

is the seeking of reality promised by another

Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Suchness

Karl Duffy3 Comments

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When I first came across this word ‘Suchness’ in Zen literature, I thought, ‘What the heck is Suchness? …Can’t figure that one out.’ If we hold perceptions to be reality, then in order for our world to be real, we have to perceive it as something. It can’t be just what it is. We have to interpret it, or give it a name, or describe it in some way. We perceive the world through words, through ideas. This obsession with cameras and selfies now, is just wanting to capture things, capture moments on film, petrify them in time, and make them fixed because everything is moving and changing. But Suchness, or Tathata…. is right now. This is the way it is. But sometimes, when I say, ‘This is the way it is,’ somebody will say, ‘You mean this is the way it is forever?’ No! RIGHT NOW — this is the way it is. The only way it can be is the way it is right now! It’s changing, but at this moment, the Suchness of this moment, is just this way. The thinking mind has to stop. Otherwise you will want to ask, ‘Where is it? What is he saying?’ You just have to stop your mind and listen, or watch. Then you will be relating to Suchness, the Suchness of the moment, the as-is-ness.

Ajahn Sumedho, Tathata or suchness

with thanks to Jackie for the prompt.

Why we get no rest

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Bismarck-spotted.jpg

The mind never stops looking for identity and  this identity always defines itself through attributes: “the beautiful  one”, “the smart one”, “the creative one”,  “the successful one”… We are always searching for something to be.

Dzigar Kongtrul,  Light Comes Through