when times of great difficulty visit
The Ultimate Way
is without difficulty; just
avoid picking and
choosing.
Posts Tagged → realization
subtle wonder within mysterious darkness
Tao is beyond words
and beyond understanding.
Words may be used to speak of
it, but they cannot
contain it.
Tao existed before
words and names, before heaven and earth,
before the ten thousand things. It is the unlimited
father and mother of all limited things. Therefore, to see
beyond all boundaries to the subtle heart of things,
dispense with names, with concepts,
with expectations and ambitions
and differences.
Tao and its many manifestations
arise from the same source: subtle wonder
within mysterious darkness. This
is the beginning of all
understanding.
🦋
This reality
cannot be covered by the skies
or held up by the earth. Space cannot contain it.
It abides within all sentient beings and is the support
on which all of them rest. It has always been
clean and naked. There is nowhere
it does not pervade.
🐞
sieze the day gently
We
drove her aqua
Ford convertible into the country
with a sack of red apples. It was a perfect day
with her sun-brown legs and we threw ourselves into
the future together seizing the day. Fifty years later we hold each
other looking out the windows at birds, making dinner, a life
to live day after day, a life of dogs and children and the
far wide country out by rivers, rumpled by
mountains. So far the days keep
coming. Seize the day gently
as if you loved
her.
completely absorbed in your breathing
When you are completely
absorbed in your breathing, there is no self.
What is your breathing? That breathing is not you, nor air.
What is it? It is not self at all. When there is no self,
you have absolute freedom. Because you have
a silly idea of self, you have
a lot of problems.
To Shine One Corner of the World
calmness & activity are not different
Dogen Zen-ji says,
“Even though it is midnight, dawn is here.
Even though dawn comes, it is nighttime.” This kind
of statement conveys the understanding transmitted from
Buddha to the Patriarchs, and from the Patriarchs to Dogen,
and to us. Nighttime and daytime are not different.
The same thing is sometimes called nighttime,
sometimes called daytime. Nighttime
and daytime are one thing.
Zazen practice and
everyday activity are one thing.
We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.
But usually we think, “Now zazen is over, and now we
will go about our everyday activity.” But this is not the
right understanding. They are the same thing. We
have nowhere to escape. So in activity there
should be calmness, and in calmness
there should be activity. So
calmness and activity
are not different.