this is what you shall do

fluid awareness

This

is what you

shall do: Love the earth

and sun and the animals, despise riches,

give alms to every one that asks, stand up for

the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor

to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have

patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat

to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men,

go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young

and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open

air every season of every year of your life, reexamine all you

have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss

whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall

be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only

in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and

face and between the lashes of your eyes

and in every motion and

joint of your

body.

Walt Whitman

don’t use the mind to invoke a buddha

kazuhiko okushita

Buddhas don’t save buddhas.

If you use your mind to look for a buddha,

you won’t see the buddha.

As long as you look

for a buddha somewhere else,

you’ll never see that your own mind

is the buddha. And don’t use a

buddha to worship

a buddha.

And don’t use the mind to invoke a buddha.

Buddhas don’t recite sutras.

Buddhas don’t keep precepts.

And buddhas don’t break precepts.

Buddhas don’t keep or break anything.

Buddhas don’t do good or evil.

Bodhidharma

bodhimorema

no use fretting over gold

spring will come again

No use fretting over gold, beauty, or fame;

Nurturing these, how can we calm our

Fluttering heart?

Non-attachment brings deep truth,

And a truthful nature brings immortality.

Empty your heart.

Sit quietly on a mat.

In meditation we become one with All;

Tao billows like the vapors in a mountain valley,

And its supernatural power wafts into our soul.

Loy Ching-yuen

within us there is another beauty

try to break right through it

clayton cubitt

Search out the

point where your thoughts

arise and disappear. See where a thought

arises and vanishes. Keep this point in mind

and try to break right through it.

Take up this awareness as if

holding a sharp sword

in your hand.

Han Shan

the master of cold mountain

proper ☯️ principles

A healthy family, a healthy country,

a healthy world – all grow

outward from a single

superior person.

The hexagram Chia Jen concerns the proper foundation of human communities. The I Ching teaches that all clans must have a superior person at their center if they are to prosper and succeed. Therefore, in order to improve our family, company, nation, or world community, we must begin by improving ourselves.

If you will observe healthy families you will always see present in them three qualities: love, faithfulness, and correctness. When we truly love others, we are naturally kind, gentle, and patient with them. When we are faithful to others, we place proper principles and conduct above temporary influences like anger, desire, or greed. And when we practice correctness, we spiritually nourish ourselves and all those around us. When all three qualities are cultivated, a healthy clan springs naturally into being.

The difference between paying lip service to these ideals and practicing them is profound. If you advocate high ideals and actions to others but do not embody them yourself, your influence will disintegrate for lack of a proper foundation. Therefore, in order to inspire superior qualities in others, you must first instill them in yourself.

Concentrate not upon influencing others or external events but upon strengthening your inner devotion to proper principles. When modesty, acceptance, equanimity, and gentleness become deeply ingrained in your character, they will flow steadily out from from you.

Soon you will find yourself enmeshed in a web of healthy relationships, and in this there is great good fortune.