Posts Tagged → practice

wake up! don’t waste time

tassajara zen center

 

I often see

those who are trying

to study Buddhism just use

their worldly intelligence to sift

among the verbal teachings of the buddhas

and ancestral teachers, trying to pick out especially

wondrous sayings to use as conversation pieces to display

their ability and understanding. This is not the correct view

of  the matter. You must abandon your world view and sit

quietly with mind silent. Forget entangling causes

and investigate with your whole being. When

you are thoroughly clear, then whatever

you bring forth from your own

inexhaustible treasure of

priceless jewels is sure

to be genuine and

real.

 

So first

you must awaken

to the Fundamental and

clearly see the essence where

mind equals buddha. Detach from

all false entanglements and become free

and clean. After that respectfully practice all

forms of good, and arouse great compassion to bring

benefits to all sentient beings. In all that you do, be even and

balanced and attuned to the inherent equality of all things —

be selfless and have no attachments. When wondrous

wisdom manifests itself and you penetrate through

to the basic essence, all your deeds will

be wonder-working. Thus it is said,

“Just manage to accept the

truth — you won’t be

deceived.”

 

Make

enlightenment your

standard, and don’t feel bad

if it is slow in coming.

Take care!

 

Yuanwu

 

let this monkey go

nacho libre

 

The ego

is a monkey

catapulting through

the jungle. Totally fascinated

by the realm of the senses, it swings from

one desire to the next, one conflict to the next,

one self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it,

it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go.

Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts

go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and

death go. Just remain in the center,

watching. And then forget

that you are

there.

 

from Hua hu Ching, Chapter 10

 

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everything has the same value

the shaggy dog

 

There is no distinction

between heaven and earth, man and woman,

teacher and disciple. Sometimes a man bows to a woman;

sometimes a woman bows to a man. Sometimes the disciple bows

to the master; sometimes the master bows to the disciple. A master

who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to Buddha.

Sometimes the master and disciple bow together

to Buddha. Sometimes we may bow

to cats and dogs.

 

In your big mind,

everything has the same value.

Everything is Buddha himself. You see something

or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is.

In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to

each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there

is Buddhahood. Then Buddha bows to Buddha,

and you bow to yourself. This is

the true bow.

 

Shunryu Suzuki

zen mind, beginner’s mind

 

create from joy

hamid sardar-afkhami

 

The most

beautiful paintings and

sculptures, the greatest poetry,

have not always been born from torment

or bitterness. Often they have sprung from

contemplation, from joy, from an instinct or wonder

toward all things. To create from joy, to create from wonder,

demands a continual discipline, a great compassion…With time

and sincerity, you will discover a way to work and write that does

not harm you spiritually, that does not tempt you to vanity,

that is the deepest expression of your spirituality. You

will find a voice that is not your voice only, but the

voice of Reality itself. . . If you can be empty

enough, that voice can speak through you.

If you can be humble enough, that

voice can inhabit you

and use you.

 

Thuksey Rinpoche

 

the path is perfect


 
Those who have not reached the source think that the Path is extremely abstruse and mysterious. They think that the ultimate reality of the Path lies before the empty aeon, before the differentiation of the primeval chaos, before heaven and earth were formed. They think it is something silent and dark and vague, something impossible to fully fathom or investigate or probe, and that only the sages can experience or know it. Thus they know the words of the sages, but they do not know their meaning. How can we talk to them about this matter?

People who think like this are far from realizing that the Path is perfect and complete right under everyone’s feet, that it is pure and naked in the midst of everyday activities. It encompasses all mental moments and is omnipresent in all places. There is no dark place it does not illuminate and no time it is not in operation.

It is just that people have been running off in the opposite direction for a long time, branching off in aberrant ways, unwilling to believe in their own buddha nature, always seeking externally — that is why the more they seek, the further away they get from the Path. 

This is why Bodhidharma came from the West and and just pointed directly to the human mind. This mind is the unconcerned mind in its normal equilibrium. Its natural potential spontaneously extends forth, without constraints and without clinging, without abiding anywhere or getting attached to anything. It shares in the powers of heaven and earth and merges with the light of the sun and moon.

There is no room here to set up arbitrary opinions. You flood out into great comprehension and merge into a state free from conditioned mind and its contrived actions and obsessive concerns. If you set up the slightest trace of dualism between subject and object and self and others, then you are blocked off and obstructed, and you will never penetrate through to it.

As the saying goes: “The real nature of ignorance is buddha nature, and the empty body of illusory transformation is the buddha’s body of reality.” If you can witness real nature within the shell of ignorance, then instantaneously the essence underlying ignorance is brought into play. If you can see the body of reality within the shell of the physical body, then instantaneously the essence underlying the empty body is wholly illuminated…

Once you have penetrated through to this true essence, and you have discovered that the empty body of ignorance is not separate from it, then none of the myriad forms of being is outside it. When your state is genuine and true, then it is totally inclusive at all times, leaving nothing outside of it, and you can put down your body and mind anywhere. Haven’t you seen the ancients say that along with sensory afflictions come the seeds of enlightenment?

When you reach this level, observing the reality of physical existence is the same as observing buddha. Then worldly phenomena and the buddhadharma are fused into one single whole. You are completely free and at ease as you eat food and put on clothes…

When you arrive at these ultimately simple, ultimately easy wonders of the Path that are right under your feet, the infinite gates to reality open up and appear before you all at once. You penetrate through birth and death to liberation, and you attain the supremely wondrous fruit of enlightenment. How could this be hard?
 

Yuanwu