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May 10 - May 29, 2023
The most important thing, he said, is to just be ourselves and live our lives as deeply and mindfully as we can.
To meditate is to look deeply and see the things that others cannot see, including the wrong views that lie at the base of our suffering.
There are three fundamental practices to help liberate us from these three wrong views: the concentrations on emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. They are known as the Three Doors of Liberation and are available in every school of Buddhism. These three concentrations offer us a deep insight into what it means to be alive and what it means to die. They help us transform feelings of grief, anxiety, loneliness, and alienation. They have the power to liberate us from our wrong views, so we can live deeply and fully, and face dying and death without fear, anger, or despair. We can also
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Bringing the mind to stillness is easy. You need only to pay attention to one thing.
The whole cosmos has come together to create the wonderful manifestation that we are. If we remove any of these “non-us” elements, we will find there is no “us” left.
About thirty years ago I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.”
think (too much), therefore I am (not there to live my life).
If we do not allow our beliefs to evolve, if we do not maintain an open mind, we risk waking up one day to discover that we have lost faith in what we once believed. This can be devastating. As practitioners of meditation, we should never accept anything on blind faith, regarding it as absolute, unchanging truth. We should investigate and observe reality with mindfulness and concentration, so our understanding and faith can deepen day by day.
The way out is in.
God is inside. God is not an external entity for us to seek, for us to believe in or not believe in. God, nirvana, the ultimate, is inherent in every one of us. The Kingdom of God is available in every moment. The question is whether we are available to it.
Aimlessness does not mean doing nothing. It means not putting something in front of you to chase after. When we remove the objects of our craving and desires, we discover that happiness and freedom are available to us right here in the present moment.
This is so counter to western, consumerist, christian thought.
Liberation, enlightenment, and happiness are possible each step of the way. There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.
it’s semantically absurd to say “everything is impermanent.” The truth is that everything is only for one brief instant.
Our suffering is impermanent, and that is why we can transform it. And because happiness is impermanent, that is why we have to nourish it.
As soon as we realize that in this very moment we already have enough, and we already are enough, true happiness becomes possible.
This.
The art of happiness is the art of living deeply in the present moment. The here and now is the only time and place where life is available and where we can find everything we are looking for, including love, freedom, peace, and well-being.
True happiness depends on our capacity to cultivate compassion and understanding and bring nourishment and healing to ourselves and our loved ones.
Freedom, peace, love, and understanding are not things we can obtain from the outside.
If you are depressed, try to practice mindfulness of breathing and walking with all your heart. Even if you do it for just one week, you will be able to transform your suffering and experience relief. Do not give up. Keep coming back to your breathing and walking.
When suffering comes up, we have to be present for it. We shouldn’t run away from it or cover it up with consumption, distraction, or diversion. We should simply recognize it and embrace it, like a mother lovingly embracing a crying baby in her arms. The mother is mindfulness, and the crying baby is suffering. The mother has the energy of gentleness and love.
I care very deeply for my students, but I would never want to send them to a heaven or any place where there was no suffering. We cannot create happiness in a place where there is no suffering, just as we cannot grow lotuses without mud. Happiness and peace are born from transforming suffering and pain. If there was no mud, how could a lotus grow? Lotuses cannot grow on marble.
Even after his enlightenment, the Buddha experienced suffering. From his teachings and stories about his life, we know that he suffered. But the key point is that he knew how to suffer. His awakening came from suffering: he knew how to make good use of his afflictions in order to experience awakening. And because of this, he suffered much less than most of us.
Time is not money. Time is life, and time is love.
