Tag: wellbeing

Another week begins: it doesn’t have to be perfect

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Sometimes Monday mornings can be a challenge, and what is not going right comes to mind more easily, as we start back into work after a relaxed and sunny Sunday.  So we remind ourselves that  one does not have to be completely satisfied with everything before one can be content. Similarly, everything does not have to be just as you would like it in your life for you to be grateful.

Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have.

Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape

The wilderness constantly reminds me that wholeness is not about perfection….

I have been astonished to see how nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds. Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness – mine, yours, ours – need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.

Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

Sunday Quote: Stop running

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Now and then it is good 

to pause in our pursuit of happiness

and simply be happy,

[De temps en temps il est bon de faire une pause dans notre quête du bonheur  et simplement être heureux]

 

Guillaume Appolinaire, 1880 – 1918

 

Sunday Quote: Sunday Morning: Safe

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Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.

The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Developing a routine of care

Karl Duffy1 Comment

We are so attentive to our devices, making sure they are charged. Do we show the same care and concern for our hearts? Do we wait until we are running on fumes? How lovely and wise to make sure that the recharging is not through being a “weekend warrior” or even once-every-few-years vacations (both are lovely), but rather a matter of daily practice. […]

Let us, you and I, friends, find what sustains our soul.

Let us find what nurtures our heart, who nurtures our heart, where our heart is nurtured.

Omid Safi, Tending Our Inner Life to Make the World Whole

Nature speaks

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File:A tree bud.JPG

Very mixed weather in Ireland this week,  snow on Wednesday followed by warm sunshine on Friday. Our experience too can be mixed, with encouraging  moments at times and moments when discouragement reigns

But patiently, underneath it all, something emerges and we learn to let go…

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin

Open to good and bad

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Canal St NOLA CBD Sept 2009 Hippie Gypsy Open Sign.JPG

A story about Zen master Suzuki Roshi. Once his students had been sitting and they were 3 or 4 hours into a very hard sitting period. The person who told the story said that every bone in his body was hurting. Not only that, his thoughts were totally obsessed with either, “I can’t do this, I’m worthless. There’s something wrong with me.” or “This whole thing is ridiculous. Why did I ever come here? These people are crazy. This place is like boot camp.”  Probably everyone else in the room was going through something similar. 

Suzuki Roshi came in to give the lecture  and sat down. He started to talk very, very slowly and said, “The difficulty that you are experiencing now…” (And that man was thinking….“will go away”)… and Suzuki said, “will be with you for the rest of your life.”

That’s a sort of Buddhist humor, but it is also the essence of  maitri (friendliness towards ourselves). It seems to me that we come to a body of teachings  or any spiritual path, or to meditation, in some way like little children looking for comfort, looking for understanding, looking for attention, looking somehow to be confirmed. And the truth is actually that the meditation practice isn’t about that. Practice is about that part of our being finally being able to open completely to the whole range of our experience, including all that wanting, including all that hurt, including the pain and the joy. Opening to the whole thing so that this little child-like part of us can finally, finally, finally, finally grow up.

But this issue of growing up, it’s not all that easy because it requires a lot of courage… to relate directly with your experience. By this I mean whatever is occurring in you, you use it. You seize the moment. Moment after moment? You seize those moments and instead of letting life shut you down and make you more afraid, you use those very same moments of time to soften and to open and to become more kind.

Pema Chodron

photo infrogmation of New Orleans