Posted by Pamela Leavey on February 6, 2012
Compassion is vital in our day to day existence…
The human capacity to care for others isn’t something trivial or something to be taken for granted. Rather, it is something we should cherish. Compassion is a marvel of human nature, a precious inner resource, and the foundation of our well-being and the harmony of our societies. If we seek happiness for ourselves, we should practice compassion: and if we seek happiness for others, we should also practice compassion. ~~ His Holiness The Dalai Lama
When we ourselves our struggling we must remember that we are still capable of having compassion for others. It is in that compassion that we lift ourselves up and we lift up those to whom we give our compassion.
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Posted by Pamela Leavey on February 5, 2012
I was first introduced to the teaching of J. Krishnamurti while studying A Course In Miracles, with Tara Singh while living in Los Angeles. Since then I have found great comfort and wisdom from the teaching of J. Krishnamurti…
The center of suffering
When you see a most lovely thing, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful sunset, a ravishing smile, a ravishing face, that fact stuns you, and you are silent; hasn’t it ever happened to you? Then you hug the world in your arms. But that is something from outside which comes to your mind, but I am talking of the mind which is not stunned but which wants to look, to observe. Now, can you observe without all this upsurging of conditioning? To a person in sorrow, I explain in words; sorrow is inevitable, sorrow is the result of fulfillment. When all explanations have completely stopped, then only can you look -which means you are not looking from the center. When you look from a center, your faculties of observation are limited. If I hold to a post and want to be there, there is a strain, there is pain. When I look from the center into suffering, there is suffering. It is the incapacity to observe that creates pain. I cannot observe if I think, function, see from a center- as when I say, ‘I must have no pain, I must find out why I suffer, I must escape.’ When I observe from a center, whether the center is a conclusion, an idea, hope, despair, or anything else, that observation is very restricted, very narrow, very small, and that engenders sorrow. ~~ J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
Let go of the suffering, I believe Krishnamurti is saying here. Release it. Sorrow is inevitable, we all go through it. We can’t get past it if we hold it at our center. It’s a hard lesson, but in time we must release the sorrow and suffering and move through it.
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Posted by Pamela Leavey on February 3, 2012
I am strong enough to get through whatever life throws at me. There is an inner strength that flows through me like a river that runs through the earth’s surface. ~~ Pamela J. Leavey
(Photo: Merrimack River at Point Shore, July 2011 ~~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2011)
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Posted by Pamela Leavey on February 2, 2012
I recognize there is no time like the now to clear up the clutter in my life. Although the task maybe be arduous at times, little by little as I work through the clutter I am clearing space for new possibilities in my life. Every day I re-mind myself that clarity comes from clearing up clutter. ~~ Pamela J. Leavey
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Posted by Pamela Leavey on
When we have problems, issues in our lives, we must choose to solve those problems by facing them head on and making the effort to understand the problem…
“The mere desire to resolve a problem is an escape from the problem, is it not? I haven’t gone into the problem, I haven’t studied it, explored it, understood it. I don’t know the beauty or the ugliness or the depth of the problem; my only concern is to resolve it, put it away. This urge to resolve a problem without having understood it is an escape from the problem – and therefore it becomes another problem. Every escape breeds further problems.” ~~ Talks by Krishnamurti in Saanen, 1964
We can not escape our problems, as J. Krishnamurti points out above, because in attempting to escape our problems we simply create more problems. And then our problems compound on top of each other and we create a proverbial mountain from a mole hill.
When there is conflict in our lives, J. Krishnamurti asserts that “conflict becomes more and more complex and insoluble because we do not face what is.” As Krishnamurti goes on to say, “There is no complexity in what is, but only in the many escapes that we seek.”
It’s one thing to take time to reflect on our problems and go deep inside our hearts and minds to question and find solution, but we cannot and we must not use escapism as route to “solve” our problems.
Communication with one’s self and others involved in problems that arise in our lives, is the key to solving our problems. We must shut out the ego that gives us false fear driven solutions and listen deeply to the open heart.
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Posted by Pamela Leavey on February 1, 2012
This quote caught my eye earlier today…
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy. ~~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge, 1943
Reflecting on the subject of taking delight in something “while we have it,” I think back to times of great joy. We know instinctively in the midst of sheer joy, that that joy will not last forever, but we still revel in it while it is happening.
And then, is that joy not our solace, when we slip down into a period of the dark nights of soul. It is there, lost in the dark nights of soul, that we reflect deepest sometimes. And that reflection at first can appear messy, like the reflection of the clouds amidst the winter trees in the marshes.
Difficult as the path may seem, it is taking the journey through the dark nights of the soul that clears our hearts and allows us to find strength in the notion that “nothing in the world is permanent.”
(Photo: Reflection In Hellcat Swamp ~~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2011)
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