"Knowledge is learning something every day.
Wisdom is letting go of something every day."
~Zen Proverb~
"Knowledge is learning something every day.
Wisdom is letting go of something every day."
~Zen Proverb~
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.
Red morning sky -
snail,
are you glad of it?
We are an endless moving stream in an endless moving stream.
It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our mind?
The great lesson from the true mystics, from the Zen monks, and now also from the Humanistic and Transpersonal psychologists, is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life...in one's own backyard.
Abraham Maslow
What stands in the way of effortless effort is caring, or a conscious attempt to do well.
"Knowledge is learning something every day,
Wisdom is letting go of something every day."
~~Zen Proverb~~
I cannot find the Monastery of Heaped Fragrance,
Miles up now into the clouds of the summit.
There is no footpath through the ancient woods.
Where did the bell sound,
Deep in the sound, deep in the mountain?
The voice of the torrent gulps over jagged stones;
Sunlight hardly warms the bluish pines.
As dusk deepens in these unfathomable mazes,
I practice meditation
To subdue the dragon of desire.
True Self is the Self that existed before the division of heaven and earth and before one's father and mother were born. This Self is the Self within me, the birds and the beasts, the grasses and the trees and all phenomena. It is excatly what is called 'Buddha Nature".
This Self has no shape or form, has no birth, has no death. It is not a Self that can be seen with the aid of your present physical eye. Only the (hu)man who has received enlightenment is able to see this. The (hu)man who does see this is said to have seen into her own nature and became a Buddha. It is to use neither thought nor reasoning and to look straight ahead. - Takuan Soho (1573-1645), P81
When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. But above all don't wobble!
Happy in the morning
I open my cottage door;
A clear breeze blowing
Comes straight in.
The first sun
Lights the leafy trees;
The shadows it casts
Are crystal clear.
Serene,
In accord with my heart,
Everything merges
In one harmony.
Gain and loss
Are not my concern;
This way is enough
To the end of my days.
I close my eyes in order to see.
" 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."
To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are.
Zen Howl is like a complete exhalation and a complete inhalation.
At the moment our rational mind stops, hits against a wall ... something else happens. And a bigger mind, like a pearl, rolls in a silver bowl.
This is about life, not about us.
As writers we need to crack open language.
A simple yet profound way to create a healthy body, a stress-free mind, and a peaceful sense of well-being.
"Leap and the net will appear."
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.