it’s like putting red paint on a rose
August 4, 2010
Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.
– Dogen
tao art
May 14, 2010
When rain-washed coils of mountain
Appear in the sky
A refreshing wind sweeps away
The fog and clouds.
Where did you acquire the mastery
Of Yongmyon
To paint exquisite beauty
Beyond human art?
– Jaewol Kyunghun (1542-1632)
big mind
May 7, 2010
Deaf, he hears his own nature.
Blind, he sees his Original Mind.
The empty, clear moon
In the water rises
Where heart and mind are forgotten.
– Jungkwan Ilson (1533-1608)
gratitude is the gateway to generosity
May 5, 2010
Gratitude, the simple and profound feeling of being thankful, is the foundation of all generosity. I am generous when I believe that right now, right here, in this form and this place, I am myself being given what I need. Generosity requires that we relinquish something, and this is impossible if we are not glad for what we have. Otherwise the giving hand closes into a fist and won’t let go.
– Sallie Jiko Tisdale, from “As if There is Nothing to Lose”
the last sunny day in carmel
May 2, 2010
rain or sun
cool or warm
the rhythm of the ocean
and the smell of the pines
make leaving this place a solemn event.
east meets west
material rises to the spiritual
ultimately falling short.
one is recollected in time
and reality is contained in the now.
make your home your resort and
repose is wherever you are.
– dsk
equanimity
April 23, 2010
Spiritual practitioners thrive in unpredictable conditions, testing and refining the inner qualities of heart and mind. Every situation becomes an opportunity to abandon judgment and opinions and to simply give complete attention to what is. Situations of inconvenience are terrific areas to discover, test, or develop your equanimity.
How gracefully can you compromise in a negotiation? Does your mind remain balanced when you have to drive around the block three times to find a parking space? Are you at ease waiting for a flight that is six hours delayed? These inconveniences are opportunities to develop equanimity. Rather than shift the blame onto an institution, system, or person, one can develop the capacity to opt to rest within the experience of inconvenience.
– Shaila Catherine, from “Equanimity in Every Bite”
orange
April 23, 2010
There is an old Zen saying that you can try to explain to someone how an orange tastes, but how can you describe it, really? Until you’ve tasted an orange, you have no way of truly knowing. And once you’ve tasted one, what is there to say?
– unknown
good vacation
April 19, 2010
For ten miles the mountains rise
Above the lake. The beauty of
Water and mountains is
Impossible to describe.
In the glow of evening
A traveler sits in front
Of an inn, sipping wine.
The moon shines above a
Little bridge and a single
Fisherman. Around the farm
A bamboo fence descends to
The water. I chat with an
Old man about work and crops.
Maybe, when the years have come
When I can lay aside my
Cap and robe of office,
I can take a little boat
And come back to this place.
– Chu His (1130-1200)
laughing
April 17, 2010
“Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may as well burst out in laughter!”
– Longchenpa
all that is
April 17, 2010
Pine trees murmur in the wind.
Spring water bubbles in stone.
The moon sets at dawn.
An owl hoots in the mountains.
– Jinkag Haesim (1178-1234)
You Are IT 