Tag: wellbeing

Nothing lasts long

Karl Duffy3 Comments

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You never actually become anything for very long.  Sure, you seem to go through periods of agitation and tension, but with practice there are periods of joy and humour – and as you get more skilled in attending to the mind, the habit of holding on to particular states loosens up. You find yourself identifying with this or that state less and less; and that reduces the stress and turmoil.

Seen like this, human life is a great opportunity. We can always act skilfully
and cultivate the mind; we can always move towards goodness, happiness and liberation.
Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and non Kamma

How we see

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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The mind is the source of all experience,

and by changing the direction of the mind,

we can change the quality of everything we experience

Yongey Mingpur Rinpoche

On not comparing

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Two Mountain Roads in Ladakh.jpg

Regret is an emotion, and it is also a punishment that we administer to ourselves. The emotional state has been well described by two Dutch psychologists, who noted that regret is ‘accompanied by feelings that one should have known better, by a sinking feeling, by thoughts about the mistake one has made and the opportunities lost, by a tendency to kick oneself and to correct one’s mistake, and by wanting to undo the event and to get a second chance’. Intense regret is what you experience when you can most easily imagine yourself doing something other than what you did. Regret is one of the counterfactual emotions that are triggered by the availability of alternatives to reality.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

photo karunakar raykar, two roads in the Himalayas

What we are looking for

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Flowers_growing

All that we are looking for in life — all the happiness, contentment, and peace of mind — is right here in the present moment. Our very own awareness is itself fundamentally pure and good. The only problem is that we get so caught up in the ups and downs of life that we don’t take the time to pause and notice what we already have…Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, pause from time to time and relax your mind. You don’t have to change anything about your experience. You can let thoughts and feelings come and go freely, and leave your senses wide open. Make friends with your experience and see if you can notice the spacious awareness that is with you all the time. Everything you ever wanted is right here in this present moment of awareness.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Letter to students before starting three year wandering retreat. 

Making space to see….

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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In silence, we learn to make distinctions. Those who fly silence, fly also from distinctions. [The person]….who loves …silence ..fears the noise that takes the sharp edge off every experience of reality. He avoids the unending movement that blurs all beings together into a crowd of undistinguishable things.

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

Making friends

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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Being satisfied with what we already have is a magical golden key to being alive in a full, unrestricted, and inspired way.  One of the major obstacles to what is traditionally called enlightenment is resentment, feeling cheated, holding a grudge about who you are, where you are, what you are. This is why we talk so much about making friends with ourselves, because, for some reason or other, we don’t feel that kind of satisfaction in a full and complete way. 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