forget all about yourself

kodo sawaki roshi

 

Concentration is not

to try hard to watch something.

In zazen, if you try to look at one spot,

you will be tired in about five minutes. This is

not concentration. Concentration means freedom.

So, your effort should be directed at nothing. You should

be concentrated on nothing. In zazen practice we say that

your mind should be concentrated on your breathing,

but the way to keep your mind concentrated

on your breathing is to forget all about

yourself and just to sit and feel

your breathing.

 

…If you

continue this practice,

eventually you will experience the

true existence which comes

from emptiness.

 

Shunryu Suzuki

 

what is meant by emodying the tao

john kraus / apod

 

Dualistic thinking is

a sickness. Religion is a distortion.

Materialism is cruel. Blind spirituality is unreal.

Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur

of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred

than simply breathing, religious robes

no more spiritual than

work clothes.

 

If you wish

to attain oneness with the tao,

don’t get caught up in spiritual superficialities.

Instead, live a quiet and simple life, free of ideas and

concepts. Find contentment in the practice

of undiscriminating virtue, the only

true power.

 

Giving to others

selflessly and anonymously,

radiating light throughout the world

and illuminating your own darknesses,

your virtue becomes a sanctuary

for yourself and all beings.

This is what is meant by

embodying the

tao.

 

Hua hu Ching, Chapter 47

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all the myriad things make one whole

it’s gonna be okay honey bunny

 

All the myriad things

are neither opposed to nor contrary

to your true self. Directly pass through to

freedom and they make one whole.

It has been this way from time

without beginning.

 

The only problem

is when people put themselves

in opposition to it and spurn it and impose

orientations of grasping or rejecting, creating a

concern where there is none. This is

precisely why they are not

joyfully alive.

 

Yuanwu

zen letters