KEEP ONLY THIS PURE MIND
in the 'four dignities' of your daily life:
sitting, lying, standing, walking.
To sustain it you will come naturally to
the practice of correct meditation.
Dismiss all thoughts which bother your mind.
Train yourself during many days, many months,
many years, to retain this pure mind.
One day, when your empty mind
has become crystallized,
suddenly it will become illumined
by its own intrinsic wisdom.
At that instant, you will realize
the state of pure awakening.
-- Sokei-An
from Tricycle, Summer 1997
WE HELP KEEP OUR LIVES BALANCED
and sane by being aware of the darkness within us
as well as the light, so that we are
never taken unawares by unconscious
negative impulses.
-- Lama Surya Das
from p. 204 "Awakening the Buddha Within:
Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World"
(Broadway Books)
WE STILL NEED A CONTAINER
that's for sure. In one sense, it is the Zen center.
It is also the lineage itself. I must not
betray my old teachers, you know.
I must not water down the Dharma.
I must not establish an agenda, whereby
I am simply using those old teachers
to forward my own views.
But rather, let me try to convey
those profound insights.
-- Robert Aitken Roshi
from "Buddhism Without Walls"
Tricycle, Spring 1999
IF THE VAST VIEW IS A HELPFUL ANTIDOTE
to the self-centered, human-centered,
geocentric reality that is eating us alive
and assuring our self-destruction, we can
look to scientists and to poets in our own culture
whose work and vision have an affinity
with the vast perspective of the Buddhist view.
-- Helen Tworkov
Tricycle, Winter 1999
WHEN YOU TOUCH ONE THING
with deep awareness,
you touch everything.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh,
from "Touching Peace"
NEVER FEAR SHADOWS.
They simply mean
there's light somewhere near.
SO WHAT IS THERE TO REALIZE?
Peonies bloom on peony trees.
A cat doesn't become a chicken.
Tulips are tulips, not roses.
Why can't we realize this true fact?
That to be me is great.
I don't have to be anyone but me.
I am blooming as I am in my life, just as
a peony blooms on a peony tree.
Further, a beautiful peony flower does not
worry about when it will wilt and fall to the ground.
It does not compete with the flower next to it;
rather it blooms with its whole self.
-- Sensie Ogui
from "Zen Shin Talks"
"NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.
It's just a fish
swimming in my mouth."
-- Grace Marie Imbrogno McKeown,
age 6, showing a blue bubblegum
bubble in her mouth, Summer 2000.
PLEASE DON'T HURT OTHERS...
Please try to work with people and be
helpful to them. A fantastically
large number of people need help.
please try to help them, for goodness sake,
for heaven and earth.
Don't just collect Oriental wisdoms
one after the other. Don't just sit on an
empty zafu, an empty meditation cushion.
But go out and try to help others, if you can.
That is the main point... Your help doesn't
have to be a big deal. To begin with, just work
with your friends and work with yourself
at the same time. It is about time we became
responsible for this world.
It will pay for itself.
-- Chogyam Trungpa,
from "Great Eastern Sun:
The Wisdom of Shambhala"
(Shambhala, 1999)"
ON CROIT FAIRE UN VOYAGE,
mais c'est le voyage qui nous fait...
(We think that we are making a voyage,
but it is the journey that makes us...)
ALL THIS CAN SOUND RATHER ESOTERIC--
rapture, bliss, impermanence, lack of self--
and it is important not to let the practice
become a cluster of words up in your head.
You don't want to create an image of yourself,
a stone Buddha like those you see around various
centers, always sitting in the lotus posture
and discerning marvelous wisdom.
The whole point of a book like this, of retreats
and classes, of sitting practice itself, is for you
to take the practice into everyday life,
to practice moment to moment.
You can learn everything I've said
just as well by cleaning the toilet.
-- Larry Rosenberg,
from "Breath by Breath:
The Liberating Practice of
Insight Meditation"
(Shambhala, 1998)"
PEOPLE GET INTO A HEAVY-DUTY sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further."
-- Pema Chodron on karma,
from her book "Start Where You Are"
[submitted by Darrell Glenn]
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU DID
in your past life,
observe your present condition;
if you want to know what your
future condition will be,
observe your present actions.
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