Remember, what
is important in practice
is perseverance and
consistency.
As you
continue to practise,
please understand: there is
nothing to worry about. Establish
this feeling of being relaxed and unworried,
securely, in the mind. Once the mind is concentrated
and one-pointed, no mind-object will be able to penetrate
or disturb it, and you will be able to sit in the meditation
posture for as long as you want. You will also
be able to sustain concentration without
any feelings of pain and
discomfort.
Having
developed samadhi
to this level, you will be able
to enter or leave it at will. When you
leave it, it will be at your convenience.
You simply withdraw at your ease, rather
than because you are feeling lazy or tired.
You withdraw from samadhi because
it is the appropriate time to
withdraw from it, and you
come out of it at
your will.
You enter
and leave this samadhi
without any problems. The mind
and heart are at ease. If you genuinely have
samadhi like this, it means that sitting meditation
and entering samadhi for just thirty minutes or an hour
will enable you to remain cool and peaceful for many days
afterwards. Experiencing the effects of samadhi like this
for several days has a purifying effect on the mind.
Whatever you experience will become an object
for contemplation. This is where
the practice really begins. It is
the fruit which arises as
samadhi matures.
were snowed in on Tortoise Mountain.
Day after day, Yantou slept while Xuefeng sat up
and meditated. On the third day, Yantou sat up
too and said, “Get some sleep. What do you
think you are — a roadside shrine?”
Xuefeng touched his chest and
said, “My heart isn’t at peace.
I can’t fool myself.”
Yantou grave a great yell.
“Don’t you know the family treasure doesn’t
come in through the gate?” he said. “Let the teaching
flow out from your own breast to cover
the sky and the earth.”
Xuefeng was suddenly enlightened
and cried out, “Today Tortoise Mountain
has finally awakened!”
A truly
good person doesn’t
dwell on her goodness.
Thus she can be good.
A person of false goodness
never forgets her goodness.
Thus her goodness is
always false.
A truly
good person does nothing,
yet nothing remains undone.
A person of false goodness is forever
doing, yet everything remains
forever undone.
Those who
are interested in service
act without motive. Those who are
interested in righteousness act with
motives of all sorts. Those who are
interested in propriety act, and
receiving no response, they
roll up their sleeves
and use force.
When
Tao is lost,
goodness appears.
When goodness is lost,
philanthropy appears.
When philanthropy is lost,
justice appears.
When justice is lost,
only etiquette
is left.
Etiquette
is the faintest husk
of real loyalty and faith,
and it is the beginning of confusion.
Knowledge of the future is only
a blossom of Tao; to become
preoccupied with it
is folly.
Thus the
sage sets her sights
on the substance and not the
surface, on the fruit and not the
flower. Leaving the one,
she gains the
other.
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
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As a boy I studied
literature, but was too lazy to
become a Confucian; in my younger days
I worked at Zen, but got no Dharma worth handing
down. Now I’ve built a grass hut, act as
custodian of a Shinto shrine,
half a shrine, half
a monk.