|
EMPTY-HANDED I ENTERED THE WORLD
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going--
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
--Kozan Ichikyo
from "Japanese Death Poems: Written by
Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death"
(Charles E. Tuttle Co.)
BEFORE LONG, ALAS!
This body will lie upon the earth,
cast aside, devoid of consciousness,
even as a useless log.
LO! AS THE WIND IS,
so is mortal life,
A moan, a sigh,
a sob, a storm,
a strife.
--Sir Edwin Arnold
from "Light of Asia"
WHETHER A BUDDHA COMES INTO THE WORLD
or not, the nature of things is still the nature of things.
The Buddha is someone who realizes what is true,
what actually exists. If we want to become enlightened,
we simply have to acknowledge or recognize
what is.
I DON'T THINK THAT I HAVE KEPT
a particular goal in mind. Nor have I
aspired to leave a certain legacy. I have simply, well,
"followed my bliss," as Joseph Campbell would say.
That's a remark that is widely misunderstood. I mean,
and I think he meant, that you should determine
what it is that is really to the point. I must get at
what is really to the point in my own life,
in my world---in my limited world, and in my larger world.
And encourage that to evolve.
--Robert Aitken Roshi
from the article "Buddhism Without Walls,"
Tricycle, Spring 1999
THE WHOLE PROBLEM
is to establish communication
with one's self.
--E.B. White
from the profile "Magnum Opus,"
by John Updike, New Yorker July 12, 1999
WEARINESS MAY ALSO BEGIN TO SET IN
---this is actually a healthy sign---at the enormous burden
of working for the ego. Most of us, before we see this,
don't realize why we're so tired, or even how tired we are.
But we spend our whole day nourishing the ego,
being told by it what to do, maintaining and protecting it,
being wounded in it. It's exhausting.
--Larry Rosenberg
from his book "Breath by Breath:
The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation"
(Shambhala, 1998)
WHAT WE LOVE IS YOUR PEACE
not your mask.
Your warrior's face is not handsome.
--Pablo Neruda
from his poem
"I Wish the Wood-Cutter Would Wake Up,"
IN THE MORNING WHEN YOU GET UP
generate a heartfelt intention to be in accord
with bodhicitta*. In the evening when going to bed,
investigate whether what you did was in accord with
or in opposition to bodhicitta.
--Khunu Rinpoche
Tricyle, Summer 1999
*bodhicitta: the altruistic aspiration
for enlightenment
WHEN YOU ARE HAVING A BAD TIME,
examine that badness, oberve it mindfully,
study the phenomenom and learn its mechanics.
The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself.
Learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart
piece by piece. The trap cannot trap you
if it has been taken to pieces.
The result is freedom.
-- Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
from "Mindfulness in Plain English,"
(Wisdom Books, 1995)
THE WORLD IS NOT TO BE PUT IN ORDER,
the world is order incarnate.
It is for us to put ourselves
in unison with this order.
ONE MUST TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING
according to its nature,
how it comes to be and how it grows.
Men have talked about the world without
paying attention to the world
or to their own minds,
as if they were asleep or absent-minded
MY RELIGION IS TO LIVE
---and die---
without regret.
TO LIVE RIGHT HERE NOW,
moment after moment. So simple,
and so very difficult.
The extraordinary teaching of the Buddha,
with echoes and reverberations
in every direction through space and time.
--Peter Matthiessen
from Tricycle, Fall 1993
DUNNIGGAHASSA LAHUNO
yatthakamanipatino
cittassa damatho sadhu;
cittam dantam sukhavaham.
WONDERFUL, INDEED, IT IS
to subdue the mind, so difficult to subdue,
ever swift, and seizing whatever it desires.
A tamed mind brings happiness.
PREVIOUSLY in Quotations:
QUOTATIONS, Issue 3: Rumi, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Yogi Berra, Thinley Norbu Rinpoche and more.
|
