Posts Tagged → silence

spend your days silencing your mind

silent and still

 

Once you

merge your tracks

into the stream of zen,

you spend your days silencing

your mind and studying with your

whole being. You realize that this Great Cause

is not obtained from anyone else but is just a matter

of taking up the task boldly and strongly, and making constant

progress. Day by day you shed your delusions, and day by day you

enhance your clarity of mind. Your potential for enlightened perception

is like fine gold that is to be refined hundreds and thousands of times.

What is essential for getting out of the dusts, what is basic for

helping living creatures, is that you must penetrate

through freely in all directions and arrive at

peace and security free from doubt and

attain the stage of great

potential and great

function.

 

This work

is located precisely in

your own inner actions. It is just

a matter of being in the midst of the interplay

of the myriad causal conditions every day, in the confusion

of the red dusts, amid favorable and adverse circumstances and

gain and loss, appearing and disappearing in their midst,

without being affected and turned around by

them, but on the contrary, being able

to transform them and turn

them around.

 

…When you

go on grinding and polishing

like this for a long time, you are liberated

right in the midst of birth and death, and you look upon

the world’s useless reputation and ruinous projects as mere dust

in the wind, as a dream, as a magical apparition, as an

optical illusion. Set free, you pass through the

world. Isn’t this what it means to be a

great saint who has emerged from

the dusts of sensory

attachments?

 

Yuanwu

zen letters

with each step, a flower blooms

blossoms

 
A lot

of unimportant inner

litter and bits and pieces have

to be swept out first. Even a small head

can be piled high inside with irrelevant distractions.

True, there may be edifying emotions and thoughts, too, but

the clutter is ever present. So let this be the aim of the meditation:

to turn one’s innermost being into a vast empty plain, with none

of that treacherous undergrowth to impede the view. So that

something of “God” can enter you, and something of “Love,”

too. Not the kind of love-de-luxe that you can revel in

deliciously for half an hour, taking pride in

how sublime you feel, but the love

you can apply to small,

everyday things.
 

…

 

Looked

at Japanese prints

with Glassner this afternoon.

That’s how I want to write. With that much

space round a few words. They should simply emphasize

the silence. Just like that print with the sprig of blossom in the

lower corner. A few delicate brush strokes—but with what attention

to the smallest detail—and all around it space, not empty but inspired.

The few great things that matter in life can be said in a few words.

If I should ever write—but what?—I would like to brush in a

few words against a wordless background. To describe

the silence and the stillness and to inspire them.

What matters is the right relationship between

words and wordlessness, the wordlessness

in which much more happens than

in all the words one can

string together.

 

Etty Hillesum

 

The mind

can go in a thousand

directions, but on this beautiful

path, I walk in peace. With each step,

the wind blows. With each step,

a flower blooms.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

the way to enlightenment

gregory colbert

 

The way

to enlightenment

is through emptiness.

 

Quiet the senses,

forget the body, abandon

concepts and control and contention.

Transform the mind into a pile of cool

ashes, and then do non-doing until

stillness permeates inside

and out.

 

In this

way you can be

illuminated by the clarity

and silence of the

Oneness.

 

Wei wu Wei Ching, Chapter 1

Paperback / Kindle here

iPad/iPhone

iBooks

 

brian browne walker taoist app bundle ios ipad iphone

You

can now buy

Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a

five-app bundle of Taoist classics 

for iPhone or iPad for less than

the cost of one hardcover

book.

 

the way is without words

support sheldrick wildlife trust

 

In its essence,

the Way is without words.

All this talking and pointing

and carrying on, only signposts.

Gather too many of them

and they’ll weigh you

down. Just be

silent.

 

Wei wu Wei Ching, Chapter 58

Paperback / Kindle here

iPad/iPhone

iBooks

 

brian browne walker taoist app bundle ios ipad iphone

You

can now buy

Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a

five-app bundle of Taoist classics 

for iPhone or iPad for less than

the cost of one hardcover

book.