mountains and rivers
February 23, 2010
Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253) says that mountains and rivers at this very moment are a revelation of Truth. Mountains are conditioned, relative, and connecting Beings and are perfect exactly as they are. Mountains and rivers, in their relative and absolute nature, have no identity that is separate or distinct from anything else. Mountains express rivers and rivers express mountains. Mountains are hidden in rivers and rivers are hidden in mountains. Mountains and rivers are mandalas that have all qualities as potentials within them.
– Joan Halifax Roshi, from “The Fruitful Darkness”
be nice
February 21, 2010
It’s rather embarrassing to have given one’s entire life to pondering the human predicament and to find that in the end one has little more to say than, “try to be a little kinder.”
– Aldous Huxley, as quoted by Huston Smith
one and the same
February 18, 2010
While awakening from delusion is sudden, the transformation of an unenlightened person into an enlightened person is gradual. Sudden enlightenment means that although beings have been deluded from time without beginning, recognizing the four elements as their body and deluded thoughts as their mind and taking both together as constituting their self, when they meet a good friend who explains to them the meaning of the absolute and conditioned aspects of suchness, the nature and phenomenal appearance, the essence and its functioning, then they at once realize that their own marvelous awareness and vision is their true mind, that the mind, which is from the beginning empty and tranquil,boundless and formless, is the dharmakaya, that the nonduality of body and mind is their true self, and that they are no different from all Buddhas by even a hair.
– Tsung-mi
crooked cucumber
February 18, 2010
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.
– Shunryu Suzuki
live like there’s no tomorrow
February 15, 2010
Now I teach you to be like someone who has died the great death. If you truly can be like someone who has died the great death, then why should you spend time on intense effort, or on studying Ch’an and the Way, or on bowing and burning incense? It is a lot of wasted effort. I have been the abbot at five different monasteries, and what I have taught my followers at all of them does not go beyond this: be like someone who has died the great death.
– Ch’an-t’i Wei-chao (1084-1128)
faithful concentration
February 14, 2010
Truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
Jesus, from Matthew 17:20
A monk who is skilled in concentration can cut the Himalayas in two.
Buddha, from Anguttara Kikaya 6.24
go with the flow
February 7, 2010
Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river.
– Lao Tzu
no gaining idea
February 6, 2010
Practice without an idea of gaining is called Buddha’s practice. If we become attached to enlightenment or to the profundity of the teaching, we will lose the point. When we just practice zazen as a human being without any idea of gaining we have the universality of the teaching, and also its individuality and validity. If we attach to some idea of perfection, we will lose the validity of the teaching, although we may have its universality. But this is no longer religion: it is philosophy or science.
So the point is to practice our pure way as human beings with sincerity and without an idea of gaining. That is pure practice. It is not important whether it is the first stage or the second stage or the third one, that is not the point. Just to practice with a pure-way seeking mind, that is true Zen and true Buddhism.
– Shunryū Suzuki, from an early afternoon lecture in November, 1965
impermanent poem
February 6, 2010
wood is good
sun is warm
water on leaf falling
breeze is light
sky is blue
hear the old crow calling
– dsk
first things first
February 6, 2010
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
– Siddhartha Gautama
