Best Of
Good People
In all cultures and in all religions, there are good people of high repute, wisdom and example.
So that is where we set our markers. We do not need to 'understand' or tolerate the impeded directions and warped viewpoints. Nobody human is entirely clear of their lesser tendencies. That is how we start. Sorting useful, skilful, helpful teaching and teachers and qualities in our being.
In a sense we are all the centre of our universe. Also we are responsible for others well being.
It is up to us too make good of what we know and share. We are good people, right?
lobster
Re: Good People
Personally, I don't really try to meet a standard of being a "good person". What that is exactly and how it gets defined tends to shift and change with the times and the cultural context. Its also part of the comparing mind Buddhism tries to shift us away from. I think its better to focus on the trainings and leave goodness or badness to others.
person
Re: Good People
I'm reminded of this...
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
~Steven Weinberg~
Shoshin1
Re: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Some cultures put a lot of attention on the minutia of a meditative posture.
It is not uncommon when folks first run into these posture prescriptions of formal meditative positions to think that they all need to be right or there is a problem, but the underlying purpose is actually to have our attention on the various aspects of the body to be no less embracing than the attention that we more commonly apply to the mind.
The mind can be likened to a Primadonna, mostly occupied with commandeering most of the space on the stage that we call life.
Meditative practice can simply describe that process of returning a more collegial usage of that stage space back to the other actors that represent all that we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel of life.
To the degree that such a balance can be manifested, equanimity becomes possible.
To this degree, zen is as much or is as little of posture as it is of mind.
Body & mind are....
how
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is.”
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Jeroen
Re: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
“What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.”
― Shunryu Suzuki
“Emotionally we have many problems, but these problems are not actual problems; they are something created; they are problems pointed out by our self-centered ideas or views.”
― Shunryu Suzuki
“The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes... Zen practice is to open up our small mind.”
― Shunryu Suzuki
There’s a lot of good stuff packed in that small volume. I wouldn’t get too caught up in everything about posture, what happens in the mind is more truly Zen than the perfected art of sitting.
Jeroen
Re: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.
Shunryu Suzuki
I have had cake like that, reminds me of eucharist 
Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
Shunryu Suzuki
Ah ha … that means better cake …
Leave your front door and your back door open.
Allow your thoughts to come and go.
Just don't serve them tea.
Unless they bring cake?
lobster
Re: Help Needed - offered
@lobster said:
- Celery is not comfort food. yuk!
Give carrot sticks a try. Quickly becoming my frustration food of choice after stale baguettes.
