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Forget Language | August 28, 2014If you use a trap to catch fish, once you succeed you can forget the trap. And if you use language to find meaning, once you find it you can forget the language.
-Bodhidharma, "The Snaggletoothed Barbarian""
Far from Dharma | August 29, 2014At this moment in human history, the unrestrained extraction and burning of fossil fuels has brought us, in the industrialized nations, to the point where we are contaminating and pillaging the Earth to such an extreme that we are endangering all life on this planet. Nothing could be further from the intention and practice of dharma.
-Ven. Santussika Bhikkhuni, “Dharma in Action”
Dharmic Darwinism | September 1, 2014The Buddha intuited some type of evolutionary process that creates our bodies, and his essential point is that they are neither formed nor owned by us. We now have evidence that our bodies arise from the forces and elements that make up the entire universe, through a complex chain of interdependent events. Internalizing this understanding can help liberate us from the powerful sense of ownership and attachment we have to the body.
-Wes Nisker, “Evolution’s Body”
Always Free | September 2, 2014The two things that you are always free to do—despite your circumstances—are to be present and to be willing to love.
-Jack Kornfield, “Set the Compass of Your Heart”
Stinking Bones | September 3, 2014To stop the mind and contemplate stillness is a sickness, not Chan meditation. Constant sitting restricts the body—how could it help towards discovering truth? Listen to my verse:
You can sit without lying down from the moment you're born,
But when you die, you'll lie down, never again to sit.
How could you build a solid practice
On a set of stinking bones?!
- Master Huineng, "Direct and Gradual"
Wednesday Bonus Dharma:THE DHARMA SHOULD BE TAKEN TO HEART
The dharma should really be taken to heart, not just used as a way to get cozy and secure or to continue your habitual pattern of self-denigration or your habitual pattern of striving for perfection. Initially you may find that you use the dharma as you’ve always used everything else, but then, because it’s the dharma, it might occur to you that you’re using it to denigrate yourself or to become a perfectionist—“Oh my goodness! I’m using this to make the world into love and light or to make it a resentful, harsh place.”
~The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness by Pema Chödrön, page 86
Present to Rage | September 4, 2014Meditation is recommended here not as a way to eradicate our rage but as a way to become fully present to its energies. When you become uncomfortable or frightened, remember that difficult emotions are your most profound teachers. The more we can witness our experiences without judgment, the less suffering we will experience in our lives.
- Ruth King, "Soothing the Hot Coals of Rage"
Links of a Chain | September 5, 2014When we are young, we should look at and reflect on old people. This is karma, isn’t it? I tried to explain this to the Westerners, that if you discard people, you will also be discarded. When we are old, we should think about young people. When we see old people, we should think about young people. They are connected, like links of a chain.
- Ajahn Chah, "The Gift of Gratitude"
On Not Being Stingy | September 8, 2014The One, or Oneness, as we might say in Zen, never tries to turn a profit from anything at all. It wouldn’t even make sense. We, on the other hand, are always trying to turn a profit from every human exchange. We are always trying to get something—admiration, love, recognition, praise, acknowledgment, even just staying connected. Think how we manipulate and bargain and negotiate to turn a profit from every interaction. Much of this is subtle, unconscious habit. Even when we give, or serve, or love, or pay attention, we’re trying to get something. Sometimes it’s just to get back some of what we give.
- Sensei Nancy Mujo Baker, “On Not Being Stingy”
The Zen You Bring | September 9, 2014The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
- Robert Pirsig, "The Loneliest Road in America"
Chaotic Mind | September 10, 2014A mind devoid of insight into its own nature is a chaotic mind, a mind of unease.
- Kathleen Dowling Singh, "The Chaos Under the Hood"
Wednesday Bonus DharmaAT THE BEGINNING AND AT THE END
In the morning when you wake up, reflect on the day ahead and aspire to use it to keep a wide-open heart and mind. At the end of the day, before going to sleep, think over what you’ve done. If you fulfilled your aspiration, even once, rejoice in that. If you went against your aspiration, rejoice that you are able to see what you did and are no longer living in ignorance. This way you will be inspired to go forward with increasing clarity, confidence, and compassion.
The Pocket Pema Chödrön, page 59
The Origin of Philosophy | September 11, 2014The origin of philosophy is wonder. It’s a sense of being astonished, a sense of waking up to the fact that you’re here rather than not here. And I would take that also to be what the Buddha was awakened to on seeing a sick person, an old person, a corpse.
- Stephen Batchelor, "Going Back to the Source"
The So-Called Real World | September 12, 2014The so-called real world is a perpetual cycle of suffering and discontent called samsara, in which base emotions such as hatred, envy, grasping, and ignorance reign. In our own time the materialistic outlook is completely dominant and almost impossible to resist. Only by removing our blindfolds and confronting these forces of negativity can they be overcome.
- Judith L. Lief, "Welcome to the Real World"
A Never-departing Shadow | September 22, 2014All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind,
And happiness follows,
Like a never-departing shadow.
- The Buddha, "'We are what we think."
Touch the Core of Time | September 23, 2014Through spiritual practice we can go beyond our egoistic point of view. We can touch the core of time, see the whole world in a moment, and understand time in deep relationship with all beings. Then we cannot be isolated and cold people. We become beautiful and warm people, appreciating and helping all beings.
- Dainin Katagiri, "Time Revisited"
Addiction to Thoughts | September 24, 2014When it comes to addiction we’re usually talking about alcohol or substance abuse, but there can also be an addictive quality to our thinking.
- Robert Chodo Campbell, "Just Shut Up"
Wednesday Bonus DharmaTHE PATH OF PAUSING
The primary focus of this path of choosing wisely, of this training to de-escalate aggression, is learning to stay present. Pausing very briefly, frequently throughout the day, is an almost effortless way to do this. For just a few seconds we can be right here. Meditation is another way to train in learning to stay, or, as one student put it more accurately, learning to come back, to return to being present over and over again. The truth is, anyone who’s ever tried meditation learns really quickly that we are almost never fully present. I remember when I was first given meditation instruction. It sounds so simple: Just sit down, get comfortable, and bring light awareness to your breath. When your mind wanders, gently come back and stay present with your breath. I thought, “This will be easy.” Then someone hit a gong to begin and I tried it. What I found was that I wasn’t present with a single breath until they hit the gong again to end the session. I had spent the whole time lost in thought.
Back then I believed this was because of some failing of mine, and that if I stuck with meditation, soon I’d be perfect at it, attending to each and every breath. Maybe occasionally I’d be distracted by something, but mostly I would just stay present. Now it’s about thirty years later. Sometimes my mind is busy. Sometimes it’s still. Sometimes the energy is agitated. Sometimes calm. All kinds of things happen when we meditate—everything from thoughts to shortness of breath to visual images, from physical discomfort to mental distress to peak experiences. All of that happens, and the basic attitude is, “No big deal.” The key point is that, through it all, we train in being open and receptive to whatever arises.
~Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears by Pema Chödrön, pages 13–14
Hanging Off a Rock | September 25, 2014Hanging off a rock is an exaggerated experience of facing the unknown. It is exhilarating, scary, and completely vibrant. When we can’t find a foothold, the mind falls into an open stillness—the same brief pause we encounter in any situation where we lose our familiar reference points. If we have the wherewithal to relax, we find our way.
- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, "Open Stillness"
The Things That Matter | September 26, 2014If you’re not really what you stand for, then the things that matter the most are always going to be at the mercy of the things that matter the least.
- Cheri Maples, "She's Got the Beat"
Lifting the Veil | September 29, 2014With study and practice, we can move beyond our reductive thinking, lifting the veil to reveal the true nature of reality.
- Wendy Hasenkamp, "Brain Karma"
Nothing Else to Do | September 30, 2014The practice is to make the non-arising of grasping and clinging absolute, final, and eternally void, so that no grasping and clinging can ever return. Just that is enough. There is nothing else to do.
- Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, "A Single Handful"
Body as Illusion | October 1, 2014There is no 'body' in the limbs,
But from illusion does the idea spring,
To be affixed to a specific shape—
Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man.
- Shantideva, "What Body?"
Wednesday Bonus Dharma:RELAX AS IT IS
We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything—not about winning or losing—but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. That is what we are doing when we sit down to meditate. That attitude spreads into the rest of our lives.
The Pocket Pema Chödrön, page 138
A Fathomless Foundation | October 2, 2014Buddhism is fundamentally a path of inquiry, a practice of looking at the mind’s tendency to cling, to adhere to opinions, beliefs, memories, emotions, moods. This is a remarkable foundation, because it’s fathomless. For as every moment gives way to the next, we come face to face with an infinite freshness of experience—a freshness that, if we have truly surrendered to the practice, cannot be solidified into a doctrine.
- Noelle Oxenhandler, "Glass of Water, Bare Feet"
Too Busy Talking to Ourselves | October 3, 2014Most of us are too busy talking to ourselves to even contemplate what might be vivid and apparent should we ever learn to shut up.
- Bonnie Myotai Treace, Sensei, "The Sword Disappears in the Water"
Cultivating Equanimity | October 20, 2014Classical mindfulness, unlike popular mindfulness, is all about the cultivation of equanimity. One is able to experience both pleasure and pain without clinging to anything in the world.
- Andrew Olendzki, "The Mindfulness Wedge"
Faith is Action | October 21, 2014Faith is not about preaching or philosophy. It is action to which you dedicate your whole being.
- Shinjo Ito, "Good Work Summer 2011"
The Depths of Our Experience | October 23, 2014The work of Buddhism is to awaken, to come out of the sleepy dreams and notions of reality that we hold to be true and replace them with a direct experience of what is more accurately occurring. To awaken in this way, we need to become conscious of what’s actually going on at the very depths of our experience.
- Will Johnson, "Full Body, Empty Mind"
Rest Wherever We Are | October 24, 2014Through meditation we learn how to work skillfully with thoughts and emotional patterns that interfere with simply being able to rest wherever we are, with full presence.
- Mark Coleman, "A Breath of Fresh Air"
The Longer View | October 25, 2014Mindlessness, however petty, is reckless at its heart. It only postpones; it never takes us anywhere. Mindfulness, by contrast, is patient, careful. It takes a longer view.
- Joan Duncan Oliver, "Do I Mind?"
Discipline and Joy | October 26, 2014Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.
- Joan Gattuso, "The Balancing Buddha"
The Brain in Space | October 27, 2014What’s important is not just what is inside the brain but what the brain is inside of—the larger space of the body and culture. That is where we find mind and meaning.
- Evan Thompson, “The Embodied Mind”
A Guide to Sanity | October 28, 2014Feeling alarm or devastation can guide us to a deep sanity, reminding us of who we are and what we need. Our power to act, our power to take part in the healing of our world, our power to bring things back into balance, comes from the same source as that devastation. Our pain for the world, and our power to take part in the healing of our world, both come from the same place.
- Joanna Macy, "Allegiance to Life"
How to Regard All People | November 3, 2014The myriad dharmas, absolutely everything, are within the nature of all people. If you can regard all people, the bad as well as the good, without grasping or rejecting, free of any clinging, your mind will be like empty space. Thus, it can be called 'great,' maha.
- Huineng, “Prajna”
Dharma on No Dollars a Day | November 4, 2014Take that which comes without a price tag and cherish it as a holy text.
- Walker Douglas, "Dharma on No Dollars a Day"
Surrender and Engagement | November 5, 2014We must walk a fine line between surrender and engagement. As we individuate, we learn to remain open to the nature of uncertainty in the journey, allowing ourselves to fearlessly unfold. At the same time, our active participation in the process functions as a kind of dialogue between the ego and our Buddha-nature. We still pay the bills, do the washing up, and take the kids to school.
- Rob Preece, "The Solace of Surrender"
Apply Yourself | November 17, 2014If you separate from . . . everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future . . . and apply yourself to living the life that you are living—that is to say, the present—you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity.
- Marcus Aurelius, "The Present Moment"
The Great Heart Way | November 18, 2014If we learn to keep our mind quiet through meditation, to just stay present with our feelings, to connect with our heart, to let go of the story lines, and to directly feel all the unpleasant sensations associated with our emotional hurts, then the heart will open and we can approach each situation from a wider perspective.
- Gerry Shishin Wick, Roshi, "The Great Heart Way"
Foundation, Practice, Fulfillment | November 19, 2014Starting with this most simple of expressions—When this is, that is—[Thich Nhat Hanh] explicated dependent origination as a vision of radical interdependence, or what he called “interbeing,” in which all beings support and are in turn supported by all other beings. This elaboration . . . encompassed the foundation, the practice, and the fulfillment of spiritual life.
- Andrew Cooper, "The Debacle"
Bonus Wednesday Dharma:HOW TO BUILD INNER STRENGTH
You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. Embracing the totality of your experience is one definition of having loving-kindness for yourself. Loving-kindness for yourself does not mean making sure you’re feeling good all the time—trying to set up your life so that you’re comfortable every moment. Rather, it means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty. In this way you become more attuned to seeing when you’re biting the hook, when you’re getting caught in the undertow of emotions, when you’re grasping and when you’re letting go. This is the way you become a true friend to yourself just as you are, with both your laziness and your bravery. There is no step more important than this.
Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön, page 53
The Role of Faith | November 20, 2014As a factor of the Buddhist path, faith (saddha) does not mean blind belief but a willingness to accept on trust certain propositions that we cannot, at our present stage of development, personally verify for ourselves.
- Bhikkhu Bodhi, "The Role of Faith
No Goal | November 21, 2014Just as a clay Buddha cannot go through water and a wood Buddha cannot go through fire, a goal-oriented healing practice cannot permeate deeply enough. We must penetrate our pain so thoroughly that illness and health lose their distinction, allowing us just to live our lives.
- Darlene Cohen, "The Practice of Nonpreference"
Developing a Healthy Body Image | November 24, 2014Because the modern obsession with impossibly perfect body images has taught so many people to hate their bodies to a pathological degree, we’ve come to identify all positive body images as psychologically healthy, and all negative body images as psychologically sick. . . .From the Buddha’s perspective, though, this attitude is radically deluded.
- Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "Under Your Skin"
Realizing Guiltlessness | November 25, 2014From the Buddhist point of view we can understand that all the things we do to harm ourselves and others come from deep-rooted confusions and ignorance but that the mind is by its very nature pure and enlightened. When we feel a tremendous amount of guilt, we forget this view.
- Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, "Realizing Guiltlessness"
Holding All Beings Dear | December 29, 2014Encountering a person we view as vile, we are given the chance to see our rebellion against a truly altruistic attitude as well as the enormity of the task of holding all beings dear. The vile provide opportunities to build character and to practice patience, and hard times are a great opportunity for advancement along the path.
- Jeffrey Hopkins, "Breaking the Habit of Selfishness"
No More Worry | December 30, 2014One in All
All in One—
If only this is realized,
No more worry about your not being perfect!
- Sosan Ganchi Zenji, "Shin Jin Mei"
The Economy of Salvation | January 21, 2015Vital to Buddhist doctrine is the conviction that all people, regardless of social position, are capable of becoming enlightened, of becoming buddhas. Poverty and the stress it entails, however, can be real barriers to spiritual development. The Buddha recognized that becoming free of worries about our material welfare enables us to develop our potentials.
- Alex Caring-Lobel, "The Economy of Salvation"
August 24, 2015Conscientious Compassion
When compassion and justice are unified, we arrive at what I call conscientious compassion. This is compassion, not merely as a beautiful inward feeling of empathy with those suffering, but a compassion that gives birth to a fierce determination to uplift others, to tackle the causes of their suffering, and to establish the social, economic, and political conditions that will enable everyone to flourish and live in harmony.
- Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, "Conscientious Compassion"
Books mentioned in this topic
In Paradise (other topics)The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (other topics)
STEADFASTNESS
We’re encouraged to meditate every day, even for a short time, in order to cultivate steadfastness with ourselves. We sit under all kinds of circumstances—whether we are feeling healthy or sick, whether we’re in a good mood or depressed, whether we feel our meditation is going well or is completely falling apart. As we continue to sit we see that meditation isn’t about getting it right or attaining some ideal state. It’s about being able to stay present with ourselves. It becomes increasingly clear that we won’t be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are.
~Pema Chödrön in A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation: Practical Advice and Inspiration from Contemporary Buddhist Teachers, page 161