Best Of
Re: New? Introduce Yourself to NB Members!
Hi there, my name is Ivo. I became interested and fascinated with Buddhism two decades after seeing a biography about the life of the Tathagata on a television public broadcasting station. l while I was living with my uncle in the SF Bay Area. I started integrating meditation into my life about 7 years ago.I feel very fortunate to have found this website.I hope to gain more knowledge about the philosophy of the Blessed one! My goal is to travel to Thailand within the next year or two once I save up enough money to afford a plane ticket! Blessings
Ivomon77
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Good morning folks, thought I'd pop by and say hello.
It's been a while.
hope you're all well?
Bunks
Zazen is good
As my practice becomes deeper and more dedicated -two daily 30 minute sittings; maintaining contact with Treeleaf Zen sangha & NB forum- I have noticed that so many of my issues were demands due to preferences, none of which vital or essential for me to pursue a healthy and kind life. For example, not having internet in my room and simply accepting I had to go to another room to use my iPad. Also, noticing how many hours I spend on the internet / behind screens, absorbed in idle chatter. I sometimes feel that I've joined the Path a bit late because of how slow my progress has been. I know progress and improvement are conflicting terms in Zen, but I cannot deny (and I doubt anyone could) that zazen and Buddhist study has provided a lot of peace to me, my loved ones and my community. It has taken though a few years of starting, abandoning and repeating for it to really start to flourish.
Isn't Right view realising of this blessed opportunity, to do good and be kind, to not accumulate for garbage -materially, mentally, behaviourally- and to notice how the 4NT permeate this existence. It seems Buddhism sometimes is going a bit against your usual current: against what your biology has provided you to begin with (temperament & pre-conditioned preferences), our impulses, our self-satisfaction via self-indulgence, against the mass psychosis implemented by the news, ideologies, market, etc.
This without rejecting certain technology and pleasant treats (eating dark chocolate with sea salt as I write).
Good day to all!
Kotishka
The worth of things…
My father died exactly a year ago today. Last year around this time I had my first look at the contents of his apartment, which I found very confrontational because it was like he was still there, in the furniture he had chosen, his gadgets, his art. I had to wait several months for the legal issues to become clear. Then my mother and I had to inventory his apartment and find out what things were worth.
In the end it became clear to me that almost all the things in my father’s apartment would give more trouble to sell than the money I would get back for them. It was a good lesson in letting go. I kept a few things for sentimental reasons, but most of it went to charity shops, and to a clearance firm that I contracted.
In the course of a lifetime we gather many things, and then we need a home to store them in. But these things we cherish at the end of our lives have to be cleared up, often at a cost. Little that we leave behind still has value after we pass, and there is much to be said for living a life with minimal possessions, like our monk friends do.
Reflecting on things today…
Jeroen
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