Best Of
Re: Funny Stuff
I took my 8 year old daughter to the office on 'Take your daughter to work day'.
But then when we walked into the office she started to cry.
As concerned staff gathered around her, I ask her what was wrong.
She said " Daddy where are all the clowns you said you worked with?"
Shoshin1
Re: What is my practice? Where is my practice? Who is my teacher?
@Kotishka said:
. Meanwhile I practice shikantaza...that being.... I face the wall, eyes slightly open, straight back, and bam: let it start baby!
Hey Kotishka
Of course, one could always consider turning around and facing the other half of existence.
Bad zen joke!
A mind seeking a teacher or a better explanation of a practice, is not in itself a sign of a lost pilgrim. If you have a practice that allows an objective observation of the incoming data feeds of all your sense gates and can allow them a collegial co-existence with each other, equanimity and suffering's reductions will inevitably follow.
If you ever again think you're lacking because of the absence of a teacher, consider that whatever makes you reluctant to practice in any moment is actually your real teacher.
Forget about your strengths in meditation; they will take care of themselves.
Like the spokes of the 8 fold path where the entire wheel is only as strong as the weakest spoke, your meditative progression can simply be buttressed by how you practice wherever you are least inclined to meditate. Here, the right teaching for you might exist where ever its hardest for you to meditate.
Cheers
H.
how
Re: Buddhist quotes
"Since we were born, we have let our mind do what it likes, like a spoiled child, and we have to admit that nothing really positive has come of it. To take control of it is indispensable. That is something worth spending time on, even if it is just a little bit each day."
JIGME KHYENTSE RINPOCHE (b. 1964)
marcitko
Re: Our very own Yuletide Parade! Ho Ho Ho!!
Put my tree up a few days ago and told the kids to decorate it.
But they’ve avoided it so far for some reason.
They’re more excited about the new FNAF game coming out on Dec 16 I think.
Maybe my Xmas apathy is starting to rub off on them 😂
Bunks
Re: Bodhisattvas?
@Tavs said:
Are Bodhisattvas important to you or do you think the opposite and consider them irrelevant to your practice? Or somewhere in the middle?
Thank you for the question. Just some musings...
I am not well-acquainted with the 'requirements' for being considered an 'official' Bodhisattva, either in Theravada or Mahayana.
Maybe my personal definition would be someone that a) provokes in me and others a deeply wholesome sense of 'gimme some of that!' and b) provides tools that actually move me and others in that direction.
Since in offline life, with only a couple of exceptions, I am rather isolated in my spiritual meanderings (something to remedy), since I am mostly surrounded by decent but 'ordinary' people, and since the Buddha rightly said that good spiritual friends and mentors are the whole of the path, I consider such influences (whether from books or modern forms or people I meet and associate with) tremendously important in my development.
Finally, personally, I'd say that 'Bodhisattvahood' lies not in a binary distinction but on a continuum. Each one of us sometimes manifests 'Bodhisattva-action'. Some rarely, some often, and some (maybe) always. Each one of these 'Bodhisattva-actions' helps to lower aggregate suffering in the world and, maybe to some paradoxicaly, in self too. Great success!
I don't think that musing too much about the details of Bodhisattvahood is very helpful. One zen monk came to an elementary school and, in silence, wrote on the blackboard: 'Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom with the dishes'. Let us 'help mom with the dishes' with cheer, this is Bodhisattva-action. It's a training, like in the gym. We practice over and over and over again, keeping failing but slowly hitting the mark closer and more often, and slowly 'move up'.
marcitko