Arrive into each day

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~Rumi

Something about love...

Love is always fresh...!!

Source: Rumi

Gotta have a sense of humor about life

What is it to live...

Words

Word are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.

~Khalil Gibran

 

Prize Piglet

In conclusion

Just finished reading the book "Wind Bell: Teachings from the San Francisco Zen Center ." In conclusion to the entire experience of reading each of the teachings, the entire last chapter from the book is shared in the following lines; it begins with an introduction by Michael Wenger who is the editor of the book. Hope you like it! :)

This confrontation between Abbot Sojun Weitsman and Mitsuzen Lou Hartman took place on January 29, 1997 on the occasion of Sojun stepping down as Abbott of the San Francisco Zen Center. It is a moment in a thirty-year discussion between two practitioners of The Way. Dogen once said life is one continuous mistake. Dear reader, continue on! -M.W.

Mondo (Dharma Dialogue)

Mel Weitsman and Lou Hartman

Summer 1997

MITSUZEN LOU HARTMAN: One third of my life has been spent in this practice and you were my first teacher. I can still remember your original teaching. One morning, I ran into your old house on Dwight Way, waving Daisetz Suzuki's No Mind and saying, "I just have to talk to you about this book!" And you said "I don't have to talk with you about that book. But if you want to go up to the zendo and sit, that's fine with me."

   Well, I didn't realize it at the time, but that was my first step away from the practice "based on intellectual understanding." Now it's twenty-seven years later and not only don't I talk about books anymore; I don't write books anymore, and I don't even read them. So I'll tell you something--your advice was a big mistake. [laughter] So what do you have to say to me now?

SOJUN MEL WEITSMAN [without a pause]: Make the best of a bad mistake.

Timeless

These dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire...

The demon says to the child...

All actions are in the state without constancy,

Concrete existence is the arising and passing of natural laws,

After arising and passing have ceased the peace and quiet is pleasure itself.

Source: Jataka Tales

Awareness?

The practice of intentional awareness is the effort exerted to not entertain oneself by one's thoughts. 

- Koun

Dream?

I dream of the all-encompassing mysticism in which the naked self merges with a non-human world and yet somehow survives still intact, individual and separate.

Image Courtesy: Gregory Colbert

Change?

It's quite simple to understand change, really. My understanding of change is the process of including more into one's existent reality, and thus expanding as a result of the inclusion.

Life?

All of life is improvement of the mind, body, and soul; all other aspects are either conducive or resultant.

Love?

 ...

Vimalakirti replied, "Thereby, he generates the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings; the love that is peaceful because free of grasping; the love that is not feverish, because free of passions; the love that accords with reality because it is equanimous in all three times; the love that is without conflict because free of the violence of the passions; the love that is nondual because it is involved neither with the external nor with the internal; the love that is imperturbable because totally ultimate."

"Thereby he generates the love that is firm, its high resolve unbreakable, like a diamond; the love that is pure, purified in its intrinsic nature; the love that is even, its aspirations being equal; the saint's love that has eliminated its enemy; the bodhisattva's love that continuously develops living beings; The Tathagata's love that understands reality; the Buddha's love that causes living beings to awaken from their sleep; the love that is spontaneous because it is fully enlightened spontaneously; the love that is enlightenment because it is unity of experience; the love that has no presumption because it has eliminated attachment and aversion; the love that is great compassion because it infuses the Mahayana with radiance; the love that is never exhausted because it acknowledges voidness and selflessness; the love that is giving because it bestows the gift of Dharma free of the tight fist of a bad teacher; the love that is morality because it improves immoral living beings; the love that is tolerance because it protects both self and others; the love that is effort because it takes responsibility for all living beings; the love that is contemplation because it refrains from indulgence in tastes; the love that is wisdom because it causes attainment at the proper time; the love that is liberative technique because it shows the way everywhere; the love that is without formality because it is pure in motivation; the love that is without deviation because it acts from decisive motivation; the love that is high resolve because it is without passions; the love that is without deceit because it is not artificial; the love that is happiness because it introduces living beings to the happiness of the Buddha. Such, Manjusri, is the great love of a bodhisattva." 

...

Source: Excerpt from the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra 

WoW

If you see a baby's face when she's being fed something new -- just for a second the eyes get really big, like a big surprise. Yes. That's what it is, that's what I'm talking about.

It's that silly wonder which should never be lost.

This is my understanding of the Endless love which Lionel Richie sings about, or of the Beginner's mind which Zen master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi talks about.

Let it come, Let it be, Let it fall away

...

In Dogen's Body and Mind Study of the Way he says: "In this manner the mind studies the way running barefoot -- who can get a glimpse of it? The mind studies the way turning somersaults -- all things tumble over with it." When I think about that image of running barefoot it makes me feel vulnerable-thinking about letting the foot meet the earth directly, not knowing what will be there. Very different from meeting the earth with a foot that's laced into a shoe. Allowing ourselves to meet out experience without a shoe protecting the foot is really trusting ourselves and what we meet. Are we willing to allow our foot to mold itself to meet whatever it is there, to take the shape of whatever is under it? Rock, pebble, sand, pavement? And the line "The whole world is turning somersaults with you" made me think of the gymnasts in the Olympic games, and what it must be like to throw your body into the air and do a couple of twists, not knowing exactly where you will come down. The abandon and trust it takes to be physically disoriented in that way, trusting that you will land upright. Letting things appear as they appear, letting a new mental and emotional configuration come -- that's the kind of effort Dogen was talking about.

...

I think it is true we don't know what is happening here in the deepest sense. And if we can stay with that not knowing, and trust it, enjoy it, we will be able to experience our life in some fundamental different way. That's our miraculous power.

Source: Excerpt from Katherine Thanas' lecture (Pages 77 to 82) in the book "Wind bell : teachings from the San Francisco Zen Center"

What is it to live...

Death

 - Khalil Gibran

Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death."
And he said: You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Freedom

To talk about freedom is quite easy. But actually to have it is not so easy at all. Unless you are able to have freedom from yourself, you will never have freedom from anything. Or, if you only have freedom from yourself, you will have freedom from everything.

Source: Wind Bell - Teachings from the San Fransisco Zen Center

Fascinating

Passion

Passionate, Weird, and Strange; these are good adjectives.

...

Parkour! There it is; the name to Spiderman's skills.

Aspiration

"Aim high! The future you see, is the person you will be." 

- Jim Cathcart

Youth

Youth is not just a chapter in your life, but a state of the soul: consisting of a certain form of will power and preparedness to dream and fantasize. It's an emotional power that lets courage prevail over timidness and cowardice.
It's not the fact that you've lived a lot of years that makes you feel old; but that you might have given up your own ideals in life. Like the years that are carving their traces in our bodies, its the renunciation of enthusiasm that carves lackluster mediocrity in our souls.
The young needs to preserve a sense of awe and wonderment for life and what it has to offer for the one who seeks. You'll stay young as long as your heart can communicate, and receive the messages of beauty and courage..... 

Klauss Hoffman Houch

Habit

My mom shared stories with me, of how I'd given her a hard time whenever it came to brushing my teeth, as a kid. Most times I'd hide the toothbrush in some clearly obvious place (hahaha...), and then one time I'd emptied the toothpaste into the toilet, and off-course, how can we not have the typical chase of mother, toothbrush in hand, after child, in all this drama. And then as time progressed the resistance went away. On looking a little deeper, I now understand that the resistance went away primarily because of two reasons: 1. Whether I wanted to brush my teeth or not was never a consideration. So every time being forced to brush my teeth, my will (which was clearly misdirected) was silenced, a little bit at a time, and 2. The act of brushing the teeth was performed everyday without fail. By this, the mind started loosing it's sense of surprise of the action and started including it; again, a little bit at a time.

Moral of the story - To develop any new habit (which is discerned as beneficial) the self-willfulness consideration must be cancelled and the practice needs to be carried out everyday. Everyday.

Lǎozǐ says...

Kindness in words creates confidence,

kindness in thinking creates profoundness,

kindness in feeling creates love.

Certainly he speaks from experience; his legacy lives on even to this day. They say truth lasts for eternity; surely they know.

Guidance

Nature

Nature speaks eloquently to those who listen; to others, she barely shows herself.

The quote above has been shared from the book "Eat Sleep Sit" by Kaoru Nonomura. In the book, the author describes his experience of living a year at Japan's most rigorous Zen temple Eiheiji. In some way, which I cannot seem to put a finger on now, the book profoundly touched my heart. In order to make an attempt at expressing this intense feeling, allow me to say that reading the book revealed a certain inescapable truth expressed in meek human nature.

Puzzles

Darkness covers refined and common words

Brightness distinguishes clear and murky phrases

The above two lines have been taken from the "Harmony of Difference and Equality" Zen Sutra (like poetry). The entire Sutra has about 30 paragraphs which at first read, or even the first few reads, seem puzzling. But when read over a long period of time (weeks or months), it's fascinating how the meanings start unraveling themselves little by little, and finally we are gifted with this beautifully interwoven, meaningful selection of words.

It stands to testify how every word in the Sutra embodies life.

Ratatouille

Django: This is the way things are. You can't change nature.
Remy: Change is nature, Dad. The part that we can influence. And it starts when we decide.

The Power of One

We cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. Toward this end, each of us must work for his own highest development, accepting at the same time his share of responsibility in the general life of humanity—our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.

- Madame Curie

Authentic Practice

Authentic Practice

The reason the blog-post ( link ) has been shared above is not to advocate a certain form of spiritual practice, but to bring home the point, minus labels, that realizing self happens with shedding away, and actualizing self happens with building up. It is a process of becoming by acting counter to the voices echoed by the will most times. Is it easy? No. Is it strengthening? Yes.