All of you think it's better to be a man than a woman, you think it's better to be a priest than a layperson, and you think it's better to be Japanese than American. But I will always be a woman, and I will always be a layperson, and I will always be an American, and here I am.
Small changes over time make a big difference.
The nature of the Absolute is neither perceptible nor imperceptible; and with phenomena it is just the same. But to one who has discovered his real nature, how can there be anywhere or anything separate from it?...
...Therefore it is said: 'The perception of a phenomenon IS the perception of the Universal Nature, since phenomena and Mind are one and the same.'
As soon as the mouth is opened, evils spring forth. People either neglect the root and speak of the branches, or neglect the reality of the 'illusory' world and speak only of Enlightenment. Or else they chatter of cosmic activities leading to transformations, while neglecting the Substance from which they spring---indeed, there is NEVER any profit in discussion.
A perception (experience), sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen.
The approach to it ( Mind, Absolute, Void, Buddha Nature, Enlightenment ) is called the Gateway of the Stillness beyond all Activity. If you wish to understand, know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of conceptual and discriminatory thought-activity. Those who seek the truth by means of the intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.
...concepts are related to the senses; and, when feeling takes place, wisdom is shut out.
If, conceiving of the phenomenal world as illusion, we try to shut it out, we make a false distinction between the 'real' and the 'unreal'. So we must not shut anything out, but try to reach the point where all distinctions are seen to be void, where nothing is seen as desirable or undesirable, existing or not existing. Yet this does not mean that we should make our minds blank, for then we should be no better than blocks of wood or lumps of stone; moreover, if we remain in this state, we should not be able to deal with the circumstances of daily life or be capable of observing the Zen precept: ' When hungry, eat.' Rather, we must cultivate dispassion, realizing that none of the attractive or unattractive attributes of things have any absolute existence.
God not only took away what the Buddhists call the “five-skhandas” (bundle of self-experiences), but took with it their Empty (Divine) Center—both God and self, gone in one fell swoop. I have it from a renowned Zen Buddhist teacher that this is not what Buddhists mean by no-self, and that nowhere in Buddhism will anyone find a report of no-skhandas. So to say what I mean by No-Self is the same as what the Buddhists mean, is absolutely false.
The good news is that we are Buddha.
The bad news is that all beings are Buddha.
The sickness of being human is the sickness of wanting to be unique.
Right underneath your thoughts and negative emotions exists an ocean of love. You have but to quiet the mind to experience it.
"Regard the fleeting world like this: like stars fading and vanishing at dawn, like bubbles on a fast moving stream, like morning dewdrops evaporating on blades of grass, like a candle flickering in a strong wind; echoes, mirages, and phantoms, hallucinations, and like a dream.
Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?
I take refuge in the buddha.
I take refuge in the doctrine.
I take refuge in the monastic order.
I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that I will fall heir.
Examining "Who am I" is like beginning to go to the movies just to see
how the movie is made. As we first sit down in the dark theater we find that we are relating to the objects of the melodrama, the motion on the screen. We pay attention to the story line, which we notice is like the contents of the mind, allowing it to unfold as it will without judgment or the least interference. As we focus our attention on the process, we begin to see that frames that constitute film are like separate thoughts; then we begin to recognize the process buy which the images are produced, and it breaks our enthrallment with the story line. We notice that ll the activity is just a projection on a blank screen. That all these figures dancing before us are an illusion produced by light passing through various densities onthe film. We see the film is like our conditioning, a repetitious imprint of images gone by. We see that the whole melodrama is a passing show of motion and change ... We discover that all we imagined ourselves to be — all our becomiung, our memory, all the contents of mind — is just old film running off. The projectionist has died. "Who am I?" can't be answered. We cannot know the truth. We can only be it. Constantly living life in the past tense, rummaging through consciousness to decide who and what we are, the truth is obscured. The truth cannot be discovered in the contents of the mind. Only the untruth of false identification can be uncovered. Going beyond the false, the truth is revealed.
" If you want to enjoy the movie, you should know that it is the combination of film and light and white screen, and that the most important thing is to have a plain, white screen."
If a problem can be solved, there is nothing to worry about. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good.
Due to having made karma, rebirth consciousness arises. But we need not think of rebirth only in a future life. We are in actual fact reborn every moment with new thoughts and feelings, and we bring with us the karma that we made in past moments. If we were angry a moment ago, we are not going to feel good immediately. If we were loving a minute ago, we would be feeling fine now. Thus we live from moment to moment with the results of our karma. Every morning, particularly, can be seen as a rebirth. The day is young, we are full of energy, and have a whole day ahead of us. Every moment we get older and are tired enough in the evening to fall asleep and die a small death. All we can do then is toss and turn in bed, and our mind is dreamy and foggy. Every day can be regarded as a whole lifespan, since we can only live one day at a time; the past is gone and the future may or may not come; only this rebirth, this day, this moment, is important.
The problem with following a religion is that you're being led by followers. Followers don't know their own path. How the heck do you expect them to know yours?
Although you can find certain differences among the Buddhist philosophical schools about how the universe came into being, the basic common question addressed is how the two fundamental principles--external matter and internal mind or consciousness--although distinct, affect one another. External causes and conditions are responsible for certain of our experiences of happiness and suffering. Yet we find that it is principally our own feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, that really determine whether we are going to suffer or be happy.
Who you are is this "motion of seeing" that is looking through your eyes right now. When you stop at and as this "motion of aliveness" - by consciously refocusing your attention to this seer; by coming to being deeply at rest at and as this one that is the "you" that you can never get away from; by no longer furthering out from this "you" and into the attempt to try and be something that is notyou; you are immediately freed from who you think you are in every given moment of this realization.
True happiness is completely causeless; it is not reliant on a thing; it is its own reward, its own pleasure. It is immutable and immovable even as it is constantly changing and forever increasing in its movement into its own manifestation.
Your true home is in being deeply at rest at and as the heart of existence itself, the "you" that you truly are and have always been. The heart is totally free of everything even as it contains everything, sustains everything and is flowing through everything - without any paradox or contradiction to any of it.
As you learn to leave alone the activity of unconsciously trying to be the mindbody that you think that you are - the mindbody that this "you" is currently flowing through - and you learn to move as this one that you truly are - this "you" of you; the very heart of existence - steadily, consciously and momentarily, the continuity of the ever deepening of this innermost as it keeps on entering its manifestation, through this mindbody that you find yourself flowing through, allows you to simply bubble in the sheer joy, pleasure, peace, delightfulness and stillness that this "you" of you is.