Emanuel > Emanuel's Quotes

“Finding Wonder – Loving What Is and What Isn’t

Practice isn’t simply being integrated or being healthy or being a good person, though all of these things are part of practice. Practice is about the wonder. If you want to check your own practice, the next time something comes up in your life that you can’t stand, ask yourself, “where’s the wonder here?” That’s what increases as we practice. We gain the ability to see the wonder of life no matter what it is and regardless of whether we like it or don’t like it. For example when we approach a relationship in this way, we can say, “I love you for what you are and I love you for what you are not.” Instead of faultfinding, “ You talk too much. You never talk. You leave your clothes everywhere. You never clean off the kitchen counter. You pick on me all the time” - when you say, “I love you for what you are and I love you for what you are not” the wonder shines through.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: A Zen Buddhist Guide to Awakening Through Daily Life's Feelings, Relationships, and Work

“Posted 7/17/18

The Breath – Let the Breath be the Boss

When we begin sitting, it’s good to begin with several big breaths, filling up the abdominal area,, the middle chest, and the upper chest until we’re full of air, and then just letting it out and holding the exhalation for a moment. Do this three or four times. In a sense, it’s artificial, but it helps to create a certain balance and forms a good basis for sitting.

Once we’ve done this, the next step is to forget it: forget controlling our breath. We won’t entirely forget, of course, but it’s useless to control the breath. Instead, just experience it, which is very different. We’re not trying to make the breath long, slow, and even, as many books suggest. Instead, what we want is to let the breath be the boss, so that the breath is breathing us.

If the breath is shallow, let it be that. As we become our breathing, the breath of its own accord starts to slow down. The breath stays shallow because we want to think rather than experience our lives. When we do this everything becomes more shallow and controlled.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: A Zen Buddhist Guide to Awakening Through Daily Life's Feelings, Relationships, and Work

“Peaceful Dwelling

In the service we do, one of the dedications states, “Unceasing change turns the wheel of life.” Experiencing, Experiencing, Experiencing, change, change, change.
“Unceasing change turns the wheel of life, and so reality is shown in all its many forms. Peaceful dwelling as change itself liberates all suffering sentient beings, and brings them to great joy.”

Peaceful dwelling as change itself means feeling the throbbing pain in my legs, hearing the sound of a car: just experiencing, experiencing, experiencing. Just dwelling with experience itself. Even the pain is changing minutely, second by second by second. “Peaceful dwelling as change itself liberates all suffering sentient beings, and brings them to great joy.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: A Zen Buddhist Guide to Awakening Through Daily Life's Feelings, Relationships, and Work