As an irrigator guides water to his fields, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives.
The Buddha.
Photo by Jens Fersterra.
The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.
Yasutani Roshi.
Ask me anything
Yasutani Roshi.
Ask me anything
January 27, 2012
January 26, 2012
Investigate yourself. Question everything. Take nothing for granted. Don’t believe anything because it sounds wise and pious and some holy men said it. See for yourself. That does not mean that you should be cynical, impudent, or irreverent. It means you should be empirical. Subject all statements to the actual test of your own experience, and let the results be your guide to truth. Insight meditation evolves out of an inner longing to wake up to what is real and to gain liberating insight into the true structure of existence. The entire practice hinges upon this desire to be awake to the truth. Without it, the practice is superficial.
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.
Photo by Veronika Faustmann.
January 26, 2012
The road to enlightenment is paved with authenticity, not imitation.
Alan Cohen.
Photo by blade01793.
January 26, 2012
January 25, 2012
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick. Every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.
Milarepa.
Photo by Arjun Purkayastha.
January 24, 2012
January 24, 2012
Don’t forget to bring the good experiences of meditation into your daily activities. Instead of acting and reacting impulsively and following your thoughts and feelings here and there, watch your mind carefully, be aware, and try to deal skillfully with problems as they arise. If you can do this each day, your meditation will have been successful.
Kathleen McDonald.
Photo by Jon Sheer.
January 24, 2012
The Four Noble Truths are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. They suggest a course of action to be followed rather than a set of dogmas to be believed. The four truths are prescriptions for behavior rather than descriptions of reality. The Buddha compares himself to a doctor who offers a course of therapeutic treatment to heal one’s ills. To embark on such a therapy is not designed to bring one any closer to ‘the Truth’ but to enable one’s life to flourish here and now, hopefully leaving a legacy that will continue to have beneficial repercussions after one’s death.
Stephen Batchelor.
Photo by Christy Luu.
January 23, 2012
This is how we love, Buddha-style: impartial to all, free from excessive attachment or false hope and expectation; accepting, tolerant, and forgiving. Buddhist non-attachment doesn’t imply complacence or indifference, or not having committed relationships or being passionately engaged with society, but rather has to do with our effort to defy change and resist the fact of impermanence and our mortality. By holding on to that which in any case is forever slipping through our fingers, we just get rope burn.
Lama Surya Das.
Photo by Sean-Lee Cheng.
January 23, 2012
In the beginning of practice, we focus primarily on learning the form of meditation. We learn how to work with our bodies so that we can sit comfortably in zazen with good posture and natural breathing, and we learn how to work with our minds so that we can focus our attention. At some point we experience an opening to our true nature. We call that first experience of nonduality ‘the shift’ because it is a shift from our usual way of perceiving reality. Suddenly, instead of perceiving only the apparent reality, what appears to be so, we have a direct experience of the absolute reality that underlies and pervades all things, including the self. Once we have glimpsed the absolute, the self never again seems so solid or permanent. Our usual way of perceiving the self and the world has been cut through, even if only for an instant, and it becomes easier to remember that duality is just one side of reality.
Genpo Roshi.
Photo by shegrooVes photography LLC.
January 22, 2012
It’s not necessary to try to become your true self. You can’t be anything else. It’s impossible to be other than what we truly are - and what we are changes moment to moment. But because our tendency to grasp is so strong, it may take us some time to learn to trust and relax into our unfixed nature. Ego wants to be substantial and special, and it will try to possess each new realization and insight. When ego grasps at the gains we’ve made, we will suffer the consequences. Most of us fall into this trap many times before finally seeing that grasping is futile and admitting to ourselves, ‘ah, maybe i really am zero, nothing special!’ When we make practice our life, we can expect to encounter many traps and sticking places. Yet we can make this an honorable part of our practice by remaining watchful and letting go each time we become stuck. By returning to zero again and again, we gradually close the gap and actualize our unfathomable true nature.
Genpo Roshi.
Photo by Anitha K.
January 22, 2012
Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.
Thich Nhat Hanh.
Photo by Walter Adyar.
January 21, 2012
If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.
Alan Watts.
Photo by Jonathan O’Reilly.
January 19, 2012
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
Thich Nhat Hanh.
Photo by Judy Merrill-Smith.
January 19, 2012
When a simpleton abused him, Lord Buddha listened to him in silence, but when the man had finished, the Buddha asked him, ‘Son, if a man declined to accept a present offered to him, to whom would it belong?’ The man answered ‘To him who offered it.’ ‘My son’, Buddha said, ‘I decline to accept your abuse. Keep it for yourself.’
The Buddha.
Photo by jonesmonster.
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