Buddhist discussion
Daily Dharma
2/24/14Insight into Impermanence
To those whose knowledge is developed, everything within and without oneself, within and without one’s house, within and without one’s village and town, is an object at the sight of which the insight of impermanence may spring up and develop.
- Ledi Sayadaw, “Meditation en Masse”
2/25/14Good for the Ego
We can nod and smile when our ego, like a slightly demented relative who means well, offers its endless array of opinions, judgments, and knee-jerk reactions, but know that our ego is merely doing what it does best: Valuate. More of that. Less of this. I don’t give a shit. Good for the ego. And thank goodness we’re more than just our egos!
- Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi, “Liberation”
Kristi, thank you very much for these inspiring quotes - they help all who read them as we walk The Path, blessings.
Eric wrote: "Kristi, thank you very much for these inspiring quotes - they help all who read them as we walk The Path, blessings."You're welcome. I've really enjoyed offering them for everyone.
2/26/14Freed from Fixation
Our lack of self frees us from the compulsion to secure ourselves within the world. We do not need to become more real by becoming wealthy, or famous, or powerful, or beautiful. We are able to realize our nonduality with the world because we are freed from such fixations.
- David Loy, "Healing Ecology"
Wednesday's Bonus DharmaSITTING PRACTICE
As a species, we should never underestimate our low tolerance for discomfort. To be encouraged to stay with our vulnerability is news that we definitely can use. Sitting meditation is our support for learning how to do this. Sitting meditation, also known as mindfulness-awareness practice, is the foundation of bodhichitta training. It is the home ground of the warrior bodhisattva.
Sitting meditation cultivates loving-kindness and compassion, the relative qualities of bodhichitta, which could be defined as completely awakened heart and mind. It gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies. It is a method of cultivating unconditional friendliness toward ourselves and for parting the curtain of indifference that distances us from the suffering of others. It is our vehicle for learning to be a truly loving person.
~Pema Chödrön, A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation
2/27/14The Necessity of Love and Compassion
There is no denying that our happiness is inextricably bound up with the happiness of others. There is no denying that if society suffers, we ourselves suffer. Nor is there any denying that the more our hearts and minds are afflicted with ill-will, the more miserable we become. Thus we can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion.
- H.H. the Dalai Lama, "Consider Yourself a Tourist"
2/28/14When Pain Happens
We suffer because we marry our instinctive aversion to pain to the deep-seated belief that life should be free from pain. In resisting our pain by holding this belief, we strengthen just what we're trying to avoid. When we make pain the enemy, we solidify it. This resistance is where our suffering begins.
- Ezra Bayda, "When It Happens to Us"
3/3/14The Point of Intention
As Shakyamuni Buddha said, 'Everything rests on the point of intention.' What prevents a performance of dharma from being dharma practice is precisely that our intention or motivation for practicing is contaminated by the eight worldly concerns, the ephemeral goals that render impossible any glimpse of the transcendental freedom that is the proper goal of Buddhist practice. In this sense, the eight worldly dharmas, as they are also known, are the very opposite of buddhadharma.
- Lama Jampa Thaye, "Parting from the Four Attachments"
3/4/14Accepting the Invitation
One way to read the injunction for Right Conduct, an essential part of the Eightfold Path, is to see it as calling us—as citizens—to translate the dharma into specific acts of social responsibility.
- Charles Johnson, “Accepting the Invitation”
3/5/14Kindness is Society
During a lecture while I was interpreting for the Dalai Lama, he said in what seemed to me to be broken English, 'Kindness is society.' I wasn’t smart enough to think he was saying kindness is society. I thought he meant kindness is important to society; kindness is vital to society; but he was saying that kindness is so important that we cannot have society without it. Society is impossible without it. Thus, kindness IS society; society IS kindness. Without concern for other people it’s impossible to have society.
- Jeffrey Hopkins, "Equality"
Wednesday Bonus DharmaLIVING WITHOUT AN AGENDA
Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong? Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way, because we’ll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again—to make ourselves or them either right or wrong. But true communication can happen only in that open space.
3/6/14Selective Wisdom
To decide that a certain teaching is worthwhile simply because it echoes our established opinion is very unwise. Along that easy course there is no new discovery of truth, only more stale habit.
- Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, "Selective Wisdom"
3/7/14The Vulnerability of Truth
Truth has no action. Truth is weak. Truth is not utilitarian, truth cannot be organized. It is like the wind: You cannot catch it, you cannot take hold of it in your fist and say, ‘I have caught it.’ Therefore it is tremendously vulnerable, impotent like the blade of grass on the roadside—you can kill it, you can destroy it. But we want it as a thing to be used for a better structure of society. And I am afraid you cannot use it, you cannot—it is like love, love is never potent. It is there for you, take it or leave it.
- Krishnamurti, “A Question of Heart”
3/10/14The World Will Break Your Heart
Grief might be, in some ways, the long aftermath of love, the internal work of knowing, holding, more fully valuing what we have lost.
- Mark Doty, "Don't They Know?"
3/11/14Intimate Joy
When we are willing to be intimate with what actually is here now, to look directly at all of our experience, we might recognize that this is our life, however different from our thoughts and ideas about it.
—Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, “Simple Joy”
3/12/14Rising to the Occasion
We cannot eliminate all of the challenges or obstacles in life—our own or anyone else’s. We can only learn to rise to the occasion and face them.
—Dzigar Kongtrul, "Old Relationships, New Possibilities"
Wendsday Bonus DharmaHOW CAN JOY AND PEACE BE FOUND?
Recently I was teaching from a Buddhist text called The Way of the Bodhisattva, which offers guidance to those who wish to dedicate their lives to alleviating suffering and to bringing benefit to all sentient beings. This was composed in the eighth century in India by a Buddhist master named Shantideva. In it he has an interesting point to make about peace. He says something along the lines of “If these long-lived, ancient, aggressive patterns of mine that are the wellspring only of unceasing woe, that lead to my own suffering as well as the suffering of others, if these patterns still find their lodging safe within my heart, how can joy and peace in this world ever be found?”
Shantideva is saying that as long as we justify our own hard-heartedness and our own self-righteousness, joy and peace will always elude us. We point our fingers at the wrongdoers, but we ourselves are mirror images; everyone is outraged at everyone else’s wrongness.
Pema Chödrön in Buddha’s Daughters: Teachings from Women Who Are Shaping Buddhism in the West, page 69
3/13/14The Path to Restoration
My advice for people is to love the world they are in, in whatever way makes sense to them. It may be a devotional practice, it may be song or poetry, it may be by gardening, it may be as an activist, scientist, or community leader. The path to restoration extends from our heart to the heart of sentient beings, and that path will be different for every person.
—Paul Hawken, “The Movement With No Name”
3/14/14Great Questioning, Great Awakening
The most important part of the practice is for the question to remain alive and for your whole body and mind to become a question. In Zen they say that you have to ask with the pores of your skin and the marrow of your bones. A Zen saying points out: Great questioning, great awakening; little questioning, little awakening; no questioning, no awakening.
—Martine Bachelor, “What is This?”
3/17/14Samvega
I will tell of how I experienced samvega. Seeing people floundering like fish in small puddles, competing with one another—as I saw this, fear came into me. The world was entirely without substance. All the directions were knocked out of line. Wanting a haven for myself, I saw nothing that wasn’t laid claim to. Seeing nothing in the end but competition, I felt discontent.
—The Buddha, "The Dismay of Motherhood"
3/18/14No Silver Bullet
I don’t think that mindfulness is a silver bullet that’s going to solve all the world’s problems. That’s ridiculous. But having short moments of basic self-regulation, basic free attention, and basic grounding is crucial, and there are so many things in youth education contexts that can’t be done without that in place first.
—Chris McKenna, "An Interview with Chris McKenna"
Resting Meditation | March 19, 2014Many people are doing shamata meditation. This is a kind of resting meditation, also called 'calm abiding.' This is good, but in Buddhist training you must go deeper than this. It is important to go deeper into emptiness—not nothingness, but into understanding emptiness as the nature of mind. This is where wisdom and compassion come from.
—Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, "Trust Through Reason”
Wednesday Bonus Dharma: PAYING ATTENTION TO ALL THE DETAILS
With the commitment to not cause harm, we move away from reacting in ways that cause us to suffer, but we haven’t yet arrived at a place that feels entirely relaxed and free. We first have to go through a growing-up process, a getting-used-to process. That process, that transition, is one of becoming comfortable with exactly what we’re feeling as we feel it. The key practice to support us in this is mindfulness—being fully present right here, right now. Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness—fully present wakefulness. Chögyam Trungpa called it paying attention to all the details of your life.
Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön, page 52
Rising to the Challenge | March 21, 2014People are afraid that if they let go of their anger and righteousness and wrath, and look at their own feelings—and even see the good in a bad person—they're going to lose the energy they need to do something about the problem. But actually you get more strength and energy by operating from a place of love and concern. You can be just as tough, but more effectively tough.
—Robert Thurman, "Rising to the Challenge"
Real Intimacy | March 24, 2014There is no such thing as two people—whether baby and mother, two lovers, or teacher and student—being perfectly in sync with each other’s needs and wishes. Real intimacy arises from an ongoing process of connection that at some point is disrupted and then, ideally, repaired.
—Pilar Jennings, “Looking into the Eyes of a Master”
Hearing Silence | March 25, 2014Silence does not disappear when it is broken; for those who are not distracted, silence limns language as the necessary condition that exposes both its richness and its fragility. Silence is not just in the gaps and spaces that punctuate sentences but also within words as the lack that renders them fully articulate. To know what a person says, we must hear what remains unsaid. If we cannot hear silence, we do not know how to listen.
—Mark C. Taylor, “Hearing Silence”
Everyday Bodhisattva | March 26, 2014The bodhisattva aspiration is an everyday matter—everyday both in the sense of needing to be renewed as each day passes, and in the sense of applying to simple tasks, to ordinary actions motivated by a longing to reduce the difficulty and increase the happiness of those with whom we share our lives.
—Manjusura, "An Everyday Aspiration"
Wednesday Bonus DharmaNOTICE YOUR OPINIONS
There is nobody on the planet, neither those whom we see as the oppressed nor those whom we see as the oppressor, who doesn’t have what it takes to wake up. We all need support and encouragement to be aware of what we think, what we say, and what we do. Notice your opinions. If you find yourself becoming aggressive about your opinions, notice that. If you find yourself being nonaggressive, notice that. Cultivating a mind that does not grasp at right and wrong, you will find a fresh state of being. The ultimate cessation of suffering comes from that. Finally, never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others. Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.
-When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön, page 113
Integrating Realization | March 27, 2014Spiritual realization is relatively easy compared with the much greater difficulty of actualizing it, integrating it fully into the fabric of one’s daily life. Realization is the movement from personality to being, the direct recognition of one’s ultimate nature, leading toward liberation from the conditioned self, while actualization refers to how we integrate that realization in all the situations of our life.
—John Welwood, "The Psychology of Awakening"
Warrior Mind | March 28, 2014Fear diminishes me, makes me no bigger than that part of me which fears. Fearful, I am too small to contain thought, too small to hold real compassion. Protecting myself, I will hurt others.
—Sallie Tisdale, "Warrior Mind"
The Nature of Anger | March 31, 2014Because we imagine anger is never a good thing, it is easy to think we should practice simply not being angry. But that approach is too general and abstract. It’s important for each of us to be precise, to be real, to be personal and honest, to find out exactly what my anger is. To do that we need to ask ourselves lots of questions about its actual nature.
—Nancy Baker, "Precious Energy"
Some Space | April 1, 2014If we can allow some space within our awareness and rest there, we can respect our troubling thoughts and emotions, allow them to come, and let them go. Our lives may be complicated on the outside, but we remain simple, easy, and open on the inside.
—Tsoknyi Rinpoche, "Allow for Space"
Pure Gold | April 7, 2014Free passion is radiation without a radiator, a fluid, pervasive warmth that flows effortlessly. It is not destructive because it is a balanced state of being and highly intelligent. Self-consciousness inhibits this intelligent, balanced state of being. By opening, by dropping our self-conscious grasping, we see not only the surface of an object, but we see the whole way through. We appreciate not in terms of sensational qualities alone, but we see in terms of whole qualities, which are pure gold.
—Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, “Love Story”
All Politics are Local | April 8, 2014Why do I consider it so crucial to balance the outer aspects of nonviolence and compassion with the inner support of contemplative practice? Because in the end, all politics are local, and we cannot love life and humanity if we do not love each other, one on one.
—Lama Surya Das, "Why Sit?"
Simplicity | April 9, 2014I dream of simplicity, but I'm as far from it as ever. That is my practice, how to be in the world and remain simple. One day perhaps I'll accept the fact that I am never going to find the simple life. Maybe the first step toward simplicity will be to accept that my life will never be simple even if I go live in a cave and subsist on green nettles like Milarepa.
—Peter Matthiessen, "Emptying the Bell"
*Peter Matthiessen — prolific author, naturalist, activist, and Zen priest—passed away at his home in Sagaponack, NY, on Saturday, April 5. He was 86. His death—three days prior to the release of his newest novel, In Paradise—marks the end of his struggle with leukemia, for which he was undergoing chemotherapy.
Wednesday Bonus Dharma:WHERE DO THOUGHTS COME FROM?
When the thoughts arise it might occur to you to wonder where they come from. Where do they come from? It seems as if they come from nowhere. You’re just faithfully following your breath and—Wham!—you’re in Hawaii surfing. Where did it come from? And where does it go? Big drama, big drama’s happening, big, big, drama. And it’s 9:30 in the morning. “Oooh. Wow! This is extremely heavy.” A car horn honks, and suddenly you’re not in that drama anymore, you’re in another drama.
I was once instructed to meditate on thoughts. I investigated the nature of thought for two whole months. I can tell you firsthand that you can never find a thought. There is nothing there of substance, but with our mind we make it Extremely Big Deal.
~Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön, page 68
Even the Smallest Glimpse | April 10, 2014Even the smallest glimpse of freedom heightens our awareness of the pain we have created by our ego-fixation. Seeing the contrast is what inspires us to go forward on the path. In particular, each time we sit on the cushion and meditate, we relax and let go a little bit more. The notion we’ve held onto—that if we don’t keep up our ego-momentum something bad is going to happen—dissolves bit by bit.
—Judy Lief, “Letting Go”
Study and Practice | April 11, 2014Deepening study can inform and empower practice and deepening practice can bring meaning to what you are studying. That unity of practice and learning can be informed by understandings of our contemporary world.
—John Makransky, "Bridging the Gap"
The Healing We Seek | April 14, 2014Perhaps we all carry an immemorial wound, an infinite loss, a self-exile we perpetrate on ourselves. It turns us into isolated entities stalking the earth in search of what we think we need—the temporary stays against ennui, despair, loss, and terror. But sooner or later, the wound can carry us toward its own remedy, if we only let it.
—Henry Shukman, “Beautiful Storm”
Giving Up Addictions | April 15, 2014Starting to wake up is a lot like giving up an addiction. You’re going to go through withdrawal symptoms, weaning yourself from this addiction to habitual, small-minded patterns of perception. You could say enlightenment is no more addiction. You’re just fully awake, fully on the spot, without having to hide out.
—Pema Chödrön, "No Right, No Wrong"
The Truth Is Never Far Away | April 16, 2014We tell stories about who we are and what life is, but seldom see that they’re only stories. The good news is that the truth is never far away. It’s right here, in fact, posing as backdrop.
—Erik Hansen, “The Island”
Bonus Wednesday DharmaINVOLUNTARY ESCAPES
Many of our escapes are involuntary: addiction and dissociating from painful feelings are two examples. Anyone who has worked with a strong addiction—compulsive eating, compulsive sex, abuse of substances, explosive anger, or any other behavior that’s out of control—knows that when the urge comes on it’s irresistible. The seduction is too strong. So we train again and again in less highly charged situations in which the urge is present but not so overwhelming. By training with everyday irritations, we develop the knack of refraining when the going gets rough. It takes patience and an understanding of how we’re hurting ourselves not to continue taking the same old escape route of speaking or acting out.
Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön, page 31
Commit to Love | April 17, 2014To commit to love is fundamentally to commit to a life beyond dualism. That’s why love is so sacred in a culture of domination, because it simply begins to erode your dualisms: dualisms of black and white, male and female, right and wrong.
—bell hooks, "Agent of Change"
Let Go in a Discerning Way | April 18, 2014When you let go of the body, let go in a discerning way. Don't let go in a way in which delusion and misunderstanding overcome the mind. Don't get disgusted with the body so that the mind becomes restless and agitated and stops meditating. That kind of dislike is wrong. When we look at things we don't like—such as the inconstancy, the stressfulness, and the unattractiveness of the body—remember that they're part of the noble truths.
—Phra Ajaan Suwat Suvaco, "This Body of Mine"
Union of Compassion and Wisdom | April 21, 2014The essence of Buddha’s teaching is the union of compassion and wisdom, the view of interdependence and emptiness. An altruistic attitude is altruistic. It is not confused in itself. But without wisdom, we can act with obscured compassion or stupid compassion.
—Matthieu Ricard, “Karma Crossroads”
Complete Transformation | April 22, 2014If spirituality is only about self-transcendence—about seeing through the story of ‘me’ that we habitually inhabit—then it runs the risk of cutting us loose from that story so that we no longer take care of the human wounds of self and other. No matter how imaginary the self proves to be, we return to its world. If spiritual or transcendent insight doesn’t lead to healing and transformation in our actual daily lives, it is clearly incomplete.
—Henry Shukman, “Light and Dark”
Suffering Ends, Wisdom Begins | April 23, 2014When it’s time to suffer, you should suffer; when it’s time to cry, you should cry. Cry completely. Cry until there are no more tears and then recognize in your exhaustion that you’re alive. The sun still rises and sets. The seasons come and go. Absolutely nothing remains the same and that includes suffering. When the suffering ends wisdom begins to raise the right questions.
—Seido Ray Ronci, “The Examined Life”
Wednesday Bonus Dharma:THE OPPOSITE OF SAMSARA
The opposite of samsara (the cycle of suffering) is when all the walls fall down, when the cocoon completely disappears and we are totally open to whatever may happen, with no withdrawing, no centralizing into ourselves. That is what we aspire to, the warrior’s journey. That is what stirs us: leaping, being thrown out of the nest, going through the initiation rites, growing up, stepping into something that’s uncertain and unknown.
-Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion by Pema Chödrön, page 65
Books mentioned in this topic
In Paradise (other topics)The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (other topics)
The Chance to Serve
The body breaks, things change, life ends. Only when impermanence is fully apprehended do we really have the chance to serve, to give without bargaining.
- Bonnie Myotai Treace, Sensei, "The Sword Disappears in the Water"