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Thought for the Day
Dhammika
Veteran
in Mindfulness
Thought for the day after reading too much of the disturbing news of the day:
"Since we don't identify our self with our feelings, they pass quietly away, leaving us at peace."
~Bhante Gunaratana
5
Comments
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" my thoughts for each and every day
When you stand
with your back to the sun,
your shadow is before you; but
when you turn and face the sun,
your shadow falls behind you
Hazrat Inayat Khan
That the bird of Sorrows fly around your head, you cannot prevent;
That it build a nest in your hair - this, you can prevent.
Chinese Proverb.
Or an alternate thought from Howard Zinn, in memory of his passing seven years ago today: "The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
Well said @Jason
I don't want to be at peace, too selfish, a future fit for cowards. I want the equinimity needed for picnicking in hell ...
Viva la revolution. (yep sometimes the naughty corner is for bodhisattvas)
"He alone has the right to break,
for he alone has the power to mend.
He that knows how to sew together
knows how to tear apart:
whatever He sells,
He buys something better in exchange.
He lays the house in ruins;
then in a moment
He makes it more liveable than before."
Rumi, Mathnawi I, 3882
Let me explain that in Buddhist rather than theistic terms ...
Yep Peace of Mind/equinimity good first base. However peace has many levels, we are working not only for our peace but like our cousins in other peace traditions, for a change in global consciousness. We are a single turn of the wheel. A ripple and resonance through the multiverse of Awakened Ones and Buddhas ...
What if you're bald?
Then may the bluebird of infinite happiness, shit on your pate.
I try to remind myself of what the great sage Martin Luther King Jr. said:
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
...And to be added by that modern-day sage Barack Obama in his farewell speech:
"I've lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were 10, or 20, or 30 years ago - you can see it not just in statistics but in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum."
They may have been talking about civil rights and black America, but I like both these quotes because honestly, I think they apply to everybody - directly refuting the negativity bias that believes that no matter how much progress is made, is still no better off than they were X years ago, or that things are worse than before.
Two steps forward, one step back is STILL progress. Bite it, haters. <not talking to the great folks on New Buddhist
)
"There are only two days of the year in which nothing can be done. One is called YESTERDAY and the other is called TOMORROW. That means TODAY is the ideal day to love, to believe, to create, and to live."
-Dalai Lama
“Look at children. Of course they may quarrel, but generally speaking they do not harbor ill feelings as much or as long as adults do. Most adults have the advantage of education over children, but what is the use of an education if they show a big smile while hiding negative feelings deep inside? Children don’t usually act in such a manner. If they feel angry with someone, they express it, and then it is finished. They can still play with that person the following day.”
―Dalai Lama
I think he's spot on with the first comment, and about as wide off the mark as you can get, with the second.
“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”
― Charles Dickens, 'Great Expectations'
I can safely say that every single person I have met, harbours some memory of a childhood incident (or maybe, sadly, more than one) where it still affects them, in one way or another, to this day. And many of those memories involve the actions their then peers.
Tell me I'm wrong.....
No thanks.
It's not every day I contradict HHDL, but you know.... He doesn't always have his finger firmly on the pulse. I'm actually surprised he would have said that....
I wonder if HHDL was more referring to toddlers, and not to that age when kids/young people/young teens can be quite cruel to one another.
I suppose that's a possibility yes...
"Suffer the little children to come unto me;
For such is the kingdom of Heaven..."
May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes
May all sentient beings not be separated from sorrowless bliss
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger
May we be well today...
Shouldn't really say this on a forum ... that would be hypocritical ...
Things that are empty make a noise,
the full is always quiet;
the fool is like a half-filled pot,
the wise one is like a deep still pool.
Sutta Nipāta 3.726
... Maybe ...
There are two kinds of speech and two kinds of silence. Speech is either truth or falsehood, and silence is either realization or unattentiveness. The words of one who speaks the truth is better than silence, but for the person who makes up lies, his silence is better than his speech.
Al-Hujwiri
http://www.rodneyohebsion.com/sufism.htm
"Let yourself be guided by the strange pull of what you love. It will not lead you astray."
Rumi
“All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well...desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to deceive oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj
(courtesy of the wonderful http://DailyZen.com)
The Dalai Lama obviously never played with girls.
Gone, Gone, Gone beyond Gone utterly beyond
Heart Sutra
http://www.sanghalou.org/oldsitebackup/heart_suttra.htm
I have translated it into French mantra:
OOH LA LA
"What we're looking for is what is looking"~Wei Wu Wei (or St. Francis depending on your search)
All man's joys are reflections of the sexual joy. It is therefore a great sadness that man does not have a better relationship with his sexual self, and rarely reaches a point where he can engage with it without guilt.
(Paraphrased from Osho, The Tantra Vision vol1 ep9)
Non-Thinking
"When Priest Yaoshan was sitting in meditation a monk asked,
“What do you think about, sitting in steadfast composure?”
Yaoshan said, “I think not thinking.”
The monk said, “How do you think not thinking?”
Yaoshan said, “Non-thinking"
I had a powerful dream last night, in which I was in a refugee camp, and in order to reach my very important goal I had to trade the virtue of an innocent young boy in a wheelchair to one of a lecherous pair of priests. On some level as events unfolded I was aware that I was in the presence of a source of man's wickedness to man, this ruthless choice which was being presented to me. On waking out of the dream a voice said to me, "you have brought a prophecy to me".
As I woke, I thought to myself, in situations like that, it is better to just drop the very important goal and instead spend a little time with the source of innocence, preserving its beauty.
Oooh, wow. 'Powerful' indeed.....
If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the top.
Zen Proverb from Dogen
This is one of my favourite quotes from John Lennon
"When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down "happy." They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life"
By that I meant to say it was a "strong" dream, very vivid and full of colour and realism
Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. No man is free who cannot control himself.
Pythagoras
Strength of mind rests in sobriety; for this keep your reason unclouded by passion.
Pythagoras
In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other:
“Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
The point Útmutató a Léleknek seems to be making is that ridiculing a belief in an afterlife, is like ridiculing life after a baby's birth.
Apples and oranges. One is a Biological Scientific Theory. The other is a Religious scriptural theory.
And that concludes my Thought (process) For The Day.
"I have always had this view about education: we pay attention to brain development, but the development of warmheartedness we take for granted"
The Dalai Lama
My thoughts on the Útmutató a Léleknek quote above:
Don't know about afterlife, pre-life or the inner lives of others, but I do believe that I will always have a Mother.
I wish I could remember who to attribute this to but I can't. I like it though:
When alone, watch your mind.
When with others, watch your speech.
Important point/Reminder to (non)self:
Peace within oneself is to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It’s not found in a forest or on a hill top, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run towards it.
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.
Someone commented, “I can observe desire and aversion in my mind, but it's hard to observe delusion.” “You're riding on a horse and asking where the horse is,” was Ajahn Chah's reply.
http://ajahnchah.org
Yes indeed. I don't really differentiate much between speech and mind, alone and company.
So when alone speak kindly.
When with others think of them.
Good reminder from @Dhammika / Ajahn Chah
So apt.
You can run but you can't hide (from yourself) - that is why it is useful to know through and through - no-self = know thy self.
Thanks guys for daily inspiration. Remember to kick trump in the pussy
It is the kind thing to do and perfectly wrathful and loving ... 
[naughty corner for lobster ... ah well ...] 
I don't think @federica is around right now to send you to the corner @lobster...lol
Thought for the day? Iam trying to start fresh every second with beginners mind, open to what ever happens in the present moment.
He's got so used to it, he sends himself. I just stand here, arms akimbo, tapping my foot.....
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe."
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794
Love that quotation, @Kerome. It kind of reminds me of the saying (we used to use in Counselling) that went "Be careful if what they say is different to what they do...."
Kind of.
Tee hee.
Belief is no substitute for knowing. Dharma is a gnostic not a belief system.
"Unbelievable!"
DJ trump