Daily Buddhist Verses
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Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present....Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now -
"In Zen Buddhism, poetry and practice always go together."
- Thich Nhat Hanh
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"Dzogchen is the Natural Buddha Meditation, based on seeing things as they are. We call this "resting in the View". The View is like the vast sky without limits, corners, distortions or bias. It's clear, radiant and complete. It's simple, profound, peaceful and naturally at rest. This is the nature of the sky; it is also the nature of mind. These are all qualities of nirvana itself. When we are able to rest in the View, seeing things as they are, boundaries drop away; we see into luminous infinity. All we have to do is open to the truth about who we are.
Stay open-minded and inclusive. Pure presence is a state of non-judgemental, non-interfering choiceless awareness or panoramic attention to the "is-ness" and "now-ness" of all things. Be open to your experience. Let go."
- Lama Surya Das (Awakening To The Sacred)
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As for teachings: there are priests and popular preachers who are given to ritual and ceremony and who are skilled in the various incantations and in the art of eloquence; they should not be honored nor reverently attended upon, for what one gains from them is emotional excitement and worldly enjoyment; it is not the Dharma. Such preachers, by their clever manipulation of words and phrases and various reasoningÂ’s and incantations, being the mere prattle of a child, as far as one can make out and not at all in accordance with truth nor in unison with meaning, only serves to awaken sentient and emotion, while it stupefies the mind. As he himself does not understand the meaning of all things, he only confuses the minds of his hearers with his dualistic views.
- The Lankavatara Sutra -
it does remind me of some places in singaporeOriginally posted by Cenarious:- The Lankavatara Sutra
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The best way to appreciate life is to practise mindfulness. Death sweeps away those unawake. ~ me
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Breathe, you are alive! ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
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Mindfulness is the way to the Immortal, unmindfulness the way to death. Those who are mindful do not die, (whereas) the unmindful are like the dead.
Mindful among the unmindful, wide awake among the sleeping, the man of good understanding forges ahead like a swift horse outdistancing a feeble hack.
~ Appamadavagga - Mindfulness (verses 21-32)
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15. The doting man with mind set on children and herds, death seizes and carries away, as a great flood (sweeps away) a slumbering village. 287.
(Dhammapada) -
After enlightenment.. Chop wood, carry water!!Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Buddha is Sanskrit for what you call aware, miraculously aware. Responding, perceiving, arching your brows, blinking your eyes, moving your hands and feet, it's all your miraculously aware nature. And this nature is the mind. And the mind is the buddha. And the buddha is the path. And the path is zen. But the word zen is one that remains a puzzle to both mortals and sages. Seeing your nature is zen. Unless you see your nature, it's not zen.
- Bodhidharma
Bodhidharma's Bloodstream Sermon
(zen saying) -
The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts. This is normal, and it is insane. 'Problem' means that you are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of your sense of self. You become so overwhelmed by your life situation that you lose your sense of life, of Being.
-Eckhart Tolle -
In other words, if your initial premises are wrong you cannot hope to reason your way to an accurate conclusion.
Dream World
A Commentary on The Lankavatara Sutra
By Stephen L. Klick -
In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
I have discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color - something which exists before all forms and colors appear. This is a very important point. No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea .... In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you will have no time for composure. But if you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from
nothing.... then at that moment you will have perfect composure.
When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually, There is just one whole world.
~ Shunryu Suzuki -
Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.
—Thich Nhat Hahn -
“Just as all the oceans have but one taste, the taste of salt, so the teachings of the Dharma have but one taste, the taste of freedom.” ~ The Buddha
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Here are some meditation advises which I found useful, by Dharma Dan:
If you can perceive one sensation per second, try for two. If you can perceive two unique sensations per second, try to perceive four. Keep increasing your perceptual threshold in this way until the illusion of continuity that binds you on the wheel of suffering shatters. In short, when doing insight practices, constantly work to perceive sensations arise and pass as quickly and accurately as you possibly can. With the spirit of a racecar driver who is constantly aware of how fast the car can go and still stay on the track, you are strongly advised to stay on the cutting edge of your ability to see the impermanence of sensations quickly and accurately.
Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Adobe/.pdf version, by Arhat, Dharma Dan
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These meditation objects and postures are not that important, but understanding impermanence directly is.
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I sometimes meditate when reclining before sleep, when reclining in the morning
before I have to get up, when I wake up in the middle of the night, before catnaps on the couch, during boring lectures and meetings, and in the lounge of the school I attend before afternoon classes. I have come to the conclusion that five minutes of really engaged, clear and focused practice in poor circumstances can often produce more benefits for me than an hour of poor, vague and distracted practice in “optimal conditions.” -
He abused me, he laughed at me, he struck me. Thus one thinks and so long as one retains such thoughts, one's anger continues. Anger will never disappear so long as there are thoughts of resentment in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.
~ Buddha -
Then you can quit being human...Originally posted by An Eternal Now:He abused me, he laughed at me, he struck me. Thus one thinks and so long as one retains such thoughts, one's anger continues. Anger will never disappear so long as there are thoughts of resentment in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.
~ Buddha
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Tao Te Ching :
All the world knows beauty
but if that becomes beautiful
this becomes ugly
all the world knows good
but if that becomes good
this becomes bad
the coexistence of have and have not
the coproduction of hard and easy
the correlation of long and short
the codependence of high and low
the correspondence of note and noise
the coordination of first and last
is endless
thus the sage performs effortless deeds
and teaches wordless lessons
he doesn't start all the things he begins
he doesn't presume on what he does
he doesn't claim what he achieves
and because he makes no claim
he suffers no loss
Hsin Hsin Ming :
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood,
the mindÂ’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail. -
Traditionally, books on meditation spend a lot of time discussing the possible hindrances to meditation. I will not. The hindrances are an important topic, but they can easily begin to seem more ominous than they really are. Hindrances are just anything of which we were not mindful and of which we did not investigate the truth. Now that we know to be mindful and investigate the Three Characteristics of all moment-to-moment experiences, there will only be hindrances when we forget to do this.
Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Adobe/.pdf version, by Arhat, Dharma Dan
If we do not forget to do this, there will be no hindrances. No phenomena are inherently a hindrance unless we do not understand them. If we did not understand at least one of the Three Characteristics of each of the sensations that make up a phenomenon, no matter what it was, it was a hindrance. Remember that the content of reality is not our concern in insight meditation, but the ultimate truth of the sensations that make up experiential reality is. So whatever seems to be in the way of your practice, remember that the experience of that moment is the practice and contains all the truth you could ever need! All phenomena are of the nature of ultimate truth. When we know deeply that these are all of the nature of ultimate truth, phenomena cease to be a fundamental problem. -
From a pure insight practice point of view, you can’t ever fundamentally “let go” of anything, so I sometimes wish the popularity of this misleading and indifference-producing admonition would decline, or at least be properly explained. However, if you simply investigate the truth of the Three Characteristics of the sensations that seemed to be a solid thing, you will come to the wondrous realization that reality is continually “letting go” of itself! Thus, “let it go” at its best actually means, “don’t give a bunch of transient sensations an excessive sense of solidity.” It does not mean, “stop feeling or caring,” nor does it mean, “pretend that the noise in your mind is not there.”
Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Adobe/.pdf version, by Arhat, Dharma Dan -
"If you can't understand and see all of the teachings taking place right Now, then it is not true knowledge." ~ Thusness
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...That night the abbot played a tape of a man describing the stages of insight. It blew my mind, as he described exactly what I had gone through in the previous 13 days. I could clearly see how the stages he was describing had unfolded, exactly where I was and what I had to do. I was also astounded that the path could be so reproducible and straightforward, that I could just follow moronically simple instructions and have it all happen. Those who want to get lost in the reaction, “No, it isn’t so simple. Awakening is a great and intractable mystery! You are lying! It mustn’t be so!” should take a few moments to seriously question exactly how this disempowering and inaccurate view helps them feel good about themselves. They should then take a few moments to find another, more empowering view that helps them feel good about themselves, step up to the plate, and hit a home run...
~ Dharma Dan -
LPP: The idea of Buddhism is to clear up the citta so it drops back to purity. That's its natural state.
Q: So the citta is in its natural state when it's pure and the kilesas are eliminated?
LPP: Yes. That's really the case. Yes.
Q: So, I know that this might not be a question that has an answer, but when the citta is pure and the body dies, and I imagine then that the citta goes into Nibbana? Is that how that...?
LPP: That is Nibbana.
Q: That is Nibbana?
LPP: Yes. Really there's nothing it goes into.
Q: Ah ha
LPP: It isn't going into. That's the Safe. Just there.
Q: Yeah.
LPP: And that's what we should be, really. All of us. The thing that takes such a long time is the developing of the citta to accept that this world is not what we think it is. It always reverts to the world. It always jumps back. -
[...]
Emptiness of mind is not nothingness, nor a state of torpor, for it possesses by its very nature a luminous faculty of knowledge, which is called Awareness. These two aspects, emptiness and Awareness, cannot be separated. They are essentially one, like the surface of the mirror and the image, which is reflected in it.
Thoughts manifest themselves within emptiness and are reabsorbed into it like a face appears and disappears in a mirror; the face has never been in the mirror, and when it ceases to be reflected in it, it has not really ceased to exist. The mirror itself has never changed. So, before departing on the spiritual path, we remain in the so-called "impure" state of samsára, which is, in appearance, governed by ignorance. When we commit ourselves to that path, we cross a state where ignorance and wisdom are mixed. At the end, at the moment of Enlightenment, only pure wisdom exists. But all the way along this spiritual journey, although there is an appearance of transformation, the nature of the mind has never changed: it was not corrupted on entry onto the path, and it was not improved at the time of realization.
The infinite and inexpressible qualities of primordial wisdom "the true nirvana" are inherent in our mind. It is not necessary to create them, to fabricate something new. Spiritual realization only serves to reveal them through purification, which is the path. Finally, if one considers them from an ultimate point of view, these qualities are themselves only emptiness.
[...]
From:
Buddha Nature
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
For the full essay:
click here -
The natural, real Buddha nature is always inherently complete and luminous; it was thus before our parents gave birth to us, it is thus right now, and it will always be thus forever.
Originally there is not a single thing. Since thereÂ’s not a single thing, what is to be called original? If you can see into this, you will save the most mental energy. When divergent thoughts arise, adamantly cut them off yourself. This is expediently called concentration and insight, but it is not reality; this mind itself is inherently concentrated and at once insightful.
Huang-po said, “This mind is always intrinsically round and bright, illuminating everywhere. People of the world don’t know it, and just recognize perception and cognition as mind. Drop perception and cognition, and the road to mind comes to an end. If you want to know the mind, it is not apart from perception and cognition; and yet original mind is not limited to perception and cognition either.”
When you come to this, it is really essential for you to look into yourself; it is not a matter of verbal explanation. The more the talk, the further removed from the way. Those who are successful at introspection know for themselves when the time comes and do not need to ask anyone. All false imagination and emotional thoughts naturally disappear. This is the effect of learning the Way.
A thousand falsehoods do not compare to a single truth. If you are not thus, even if you consciously apply your mind, seeking effectiveness daily, it is all in the realm of impermanence, becoming and passing away.
Ta-tu (17th century) -
"He who by good deeds covers the evil he has done, illuminates this world like the moon freed from the clouds.
Blind is this world, here only a few possess insight. Only a few, like birds escaping from a net, go to the realm of bliss."
-extracted from Dharmapada, verse 173 & 174.
Cherrio