Tag: Stones on the Path

All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher–reality. It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One is not better than the other; each can be quite boring; and they both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and its good results make the very activities of our life into the path.
~ Gary Snyder

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings, in destruction; meetings, in separation; births, in death. Knowing this, one should from the very first renounce acquisition and heaping-up, and building and meeting, and … set about realizing the Truth. Life is short, and the time of death is uncertain. So apply yourselves to meditation.
~Milarepa

All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher–reality. It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One is not better than the other; each can be quite boring; and they both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and its good results make the very activities of our life into the path.
~ Gary Snyder

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings, in destruction; meetings, in separation; births, in death. Knowing this, one should from the very first renounce acquisition and heaping-up, and building and meeting, and … set about realizing the Truth. Life is short, and the time of death is uncertain. So apply yourselves to meditation.
~Milarepa

As flying is the essential thing for a bird to be a bird, to study the self is the essential thing for us human beings to be human.
~ Shohaku Okumura

The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.
~ Henry Miller

Zen is the ultimate fact of all philosophy. That final, psychic fact takes place when religious consciousness is heightened to extremity. Whether it comes to pass in Buddhists, in Christians, or in philosophers, it is, in the last analysis, incidental to Zen.
~ D.T. Suzuki

From Anna Quindlen’s Commencement Address at Barnard College, NY June 2005:

Here is what awaits you: you will be offered the option of now becoming exhausted adults, convinced that no achievement is large enough, with resumes as long as short stories. But what if that feels like a betrayal of self, a forced march down a road trodden by other feet, at the end of which is–nothing you truly care for?

Fear not. Remember Pinocchio? There is a Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder.

It is you, your best self, the one you can trust. The only problem is that it is sometimes hard to hear what it says because all the external voices and messages are so loud, so insistent, so adamant. Voices that loud are always meant to bully.

Do not be bullied.

Earlier this year I attended a session of Dennis Dalton’s Political Theory class. The students were studying the Tao. Professor Dalton graciously gave me my own pocket-sized copy. I now read it every day, especially this passage. It makes me despair of ever saying anything original. And it keeps me honest. It says:

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
When you are content to be simply yourself, And don’t compare or compete, Everybody will respect you.

Only within our own body, with its heart and mind, can bondage and suffering be found, and only here can we find true liberation.
~ The Buddha

No, no, you’re not thinking, you’re just being logical.
~ Niels Bohr

Goof friends, how then are meditation and wisdom alike? They are like the lamp and the light it gives forth. If there is a lamp there is light; if there is no lamp there is no light. The lamp is the substance of light; the light is the function of the lamp. Thus, although they have two names, in substance they are not two. Meditation and wisdom are also like this.
~ The Platform Sutra

The Buddha said that all sentient beings possess Buddha Nature. Because of that we have this natural purity, peacefulness and power. We can rest the mind naturally because we are already in possession of these qualities. If one can rest the mind naturally, that’s the best meditation. Non-meditation is the supreme meditation.
~ Mingyur Rinpoche