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Zen Musings
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Musings for 12th June 2008 |
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This is the only moment.
This is the only day.
Thich Nhat Hanh |
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Musings for 11th June 2008 |
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Nobody said it was easy, to stay in the fire, stay alert, and forebear. But the alternative is to suffer what is anyway, but with no true or reliable relationship with it.
Susan Murphy |
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Musings for 10th June 2008 |
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I have met the builder and broken the ridgepole. I shall not build that house again.
Buddha |
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Musings |
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We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life; not in avoiding pain, but in being pain when it is necessary to do so. Too large an order? Too hard? On the contrary, it is the easy way.
Charlotte Joko Beck |
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Musings for 3rd June 2008 |
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The basic teaching of the Buddha is that there is no abiding self. Our being is made up of and constantly depends upon other people, animals, plants, soil, water, air, the planet earth, the other planets, the sun, moon and stars. Our very genes are programmes provided to us by our ancestors and from unknown sources back to the earliest green slime and before. Nothing is my own and everything makes me up: my parents, grandparents - the birdsong, portraits by Rembrandt, the scent of the Puakenikeni, and the laughter of a friend. Also forming my being are death in the family, the danger of biological holocaust, misunderstandings, and malicious gossip.
This formation that is me, flowing along, eating and adapting and adopting, is the same formation that is you, with very small variations in our combination of genes and experience that give us our uniqueness. This uniqueness is our own personal potential, and we depend upon each other for sustenance to fulfill it.
Robert Aitken |
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Musings for 2nd June 2008 |
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Every day mind is getting out of bed, eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, going to bed. It is laughing and crying, being anxious and joyful. Everyday mind is walking and talking, sitting down and standing up. It is the mind of suffering, conflict, anger and hatred, love and devotion. How can everyday mind be the way? Everyday mind, we say, is too mundane, too ordinary, and so we want the opposite, we want the magical.
It is our very search, our lust for the miraculous and magical, that hides from us the truth that simply to be, simply to know I am, is already the miracle that we seek. Everything, as it is, is perfect, but you must stop seeing it as if in a mirror, as if in a dream.
Albert Low |
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Musings for 23rd May 2008 |
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There is nothing I dislike
Lin Chi |
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Musings for 22nd May 2008 |
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Realization does not destroy the individual any more than the reflection of the moon breaks a drop of water A drop of water can reflect the whole sky.
Dogen |
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Musings for 21st May 2008 |
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We are waiting for the seasons to change. We are waiting for our time to come around, or that opening to appear in the Tao where we can walk through and touch somebody. Whereas if we had moved before, everything would have been wrong - no point, no effect. Sometimes the right thing to do is to wait. In the hexagram in the I-Ching about waiting, it says you should enjoy yourself with this kind of waiting, you should eat and drink and be of good cheer. We do not need to be dour about waiting because we are in tune with the seasons. It is the right time to wait.
John Tarrant |
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Musings for 20th May 2008 |
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The perfect person has many different aspects, but at heart he changes not. To understand the world he assumes its appearances, but his heart remains centered on the One. Within he is stable; outwardly he bends and straightens like a bow
Wen-tzu |
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