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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Who knows that the mind is a fiction and does not contain any reality, also knows that his own mind neither exists nor does-not-exist. Mortals keep bringing life to the mind by insisting it exists. The Deathless keep denying the mind and insist it does not exist.”
— Bodhidharma
Love things the way they are,
and your love will be like the sun,
making the flowers grow.
~ Ajahn Brahm
@Bunks I like this. It is new-agey, magical, mystical AND more importantly very true. It demonstrates how the Theravadin seniors are in tune with the changing terminology and needs of students.
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
~Carl Jung~ (honorary Buddhist)
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the path.”
— Bodhidharma
“Freeing oneself from words is liberation.”
— Bodhidharma
“If you know that everything comes from the mind, don't become attached. Once attached, you're unaware. But once you see your own nature, the entire Canon becomes so much prose. It's thousands of sutras and shastras only amount to a clear mind. Understanding comes in midsentence. What good are doctrines? The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions… Don't cling to appearances, and you'll break through all barriers…”
— Bodhidharma
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“When you are deluded, there is a world to escape.
When you are aware, there is nothing to escape.”
— Bodhidharma
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“To seek is to suffer. Not to seek is bliss.”
— Bodhidharma
Westerners are generally in a hurry, so they have greater extremes of happiness and suffering. The fact that they have much kilesā, can be a source of wisdom later on.
To live the lay life and practice Dhamma, one must be in the world but remain above it.
Sīla, beginning with the basic Five Precepts, is the all important parent to all good things. It is for removing all wrong from the mind, removing that which causes distress and agitation. When these basic things are gone, the mind will always be in a state of samādhi.
At first, the basic thing is to make sīla really firm. Practice formal meditation when there is the opportunity. Sometimes it will be good, sometimes not. Don’t worry about it, just continue. If doubts arise, just realize that they, like everything else in the mind, are impermanent.
From this base, samādhi will come, but not yet wisdom. One must watch the mind at work — see like and dislike arising from sense contact, and not attach to them.
Don’t be anxious for results or quick progress. An infant crawls at first, then learns to walk, then to run and when it is fully grown, can travel half way round the world to Thailand.
I would take issue with that, to a certain extent. A lot of the base level of suffering — hunger, thirst, illness, old age — is down to things we often don’t have control over.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Do you know the story of Banzan? Before he became a great Zen master, he spent many years in the pursuit of enlightenment, but it eluded him. Then one day, as he was walking in the marketplace, he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. "Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer. And the butcher replied, "Every piece of meat I have is the best. There is no piece of meat here that is not the best." Upon hearing this, Banzan became enlightened.
Upon hearing this, Banzan became enlightened Vegan
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited December 2024
“The society is sick. Mother Earth has the capacity to heal herself. It may take a million years, or ten million. She is not in a hurry. We don’t have to die to return to Mother Earth. Mother Earth is within us now. She knows how to act. All we have to do is not act, and Mother Earth acts for us. Look at your breathing. In, out, it happens automatically. With your in breath, think ‘healing is taking place’. With your out breath, think ‘healing is taking place’. Do not act. Just relax. This is practice through non-practice. This way, we heal our society, and help Mother Earth.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Zen always aims at grasping the central fact of life, which can never be brought to the dissecting table of the intellect”
~D.T. Suzuki~
3
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Those who easily believe others are said by the Buddha to be foolish.”
— Ajahn Chah
4
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Meditation is hard for youngsters. Their teeth are strong, so they can enjoy their food. They sleep soundly. Their faculties are intact and the world is fun and exciting to them, so they get deluded in a big way. For the old ones, when they chew on something hard they’re soon in pain. Right there the devaduta (divine messengers) are talking to them; they’re teaching them every day.”
— Ajahn Chah
3
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Don't seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions.”
— Zen Proverb
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
"What, at this moment, is lacking?"
— Rinzai
3
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Every tree and every blade of grass will eventually become enlightened.”
— Buddhist saying
"Our original Buddha-Nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any trace of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy-and that is all. Enter deeply in it by awakening to it yourself. That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete. There is naught besides. Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva's progress toward Buddhahood, one by one, when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature that has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all. You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream. That is why the Tathagata [the Buddha] said: I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment."
Huang Po
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Enlightenment is an accident, but through meditation it might happen to you sooner.”
— Aitken Roshi
3
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Give up evil and develop merit – give up the negative and develop what is positive. Developing merit, remain above merit. Remain above merit and demerit, above good and evil. Keep on practicing with a mind that is giving up, letting go and getting free. It’s the same no matter what you are doing: if you do it with a mind of letting go, then it is a cause for realising Nibbana.”
— Ajahn Chah
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited March 26
“It is the four Noble Truths, having the wisdom that knows tanha, which is the source of dukkha. Khamatanha, bhavatanha, vibhavatanha (sensual desire, desire for becoming, desire not to be): these are the origination, the source. If you go there, if you are wishing for anything or wanting to be anything, you are nourishing dukkha, bringing dukkha into existence, because this is what gives birth to dukkha. These are the causes.”
— Ajahn Chah
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited April 1
“If a fish swims in the sea, he never reaches the end of the ocean. If a bird flies in the sky, he never reaches the end of the sky. Therefore, neither fish nor bird can know the entirety of the ocean or the sky, before setting out on the journey or after.”
— Dogen, Genjokoan
3
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Hotei, a Zen master, was passing through a village. He was one of the most beautiful persons who have ever walked on earth. He was known to people as 'The Laughing Buddha' -- he used to laugh continuously. But sometimes he would sit under a tree -- in this village he was sitting under a tree, with closed eyes; not laughing, not even smiling; completely calm and collected.
Somebody asked: "You are not laughing, Hotei?"
He opened his eyes and he said, "I am preparing."
The questioner could not understand. He said, "What do you mean by 'preparing'?"
He said, "I have to prepare myself for laughter. I have to give myself rest. I have to go in. I have to forget the whole world so that I can come again rejuvenated and I can again laugh.””
Whenever problems come to us from beings or inanimate objects, if our mind gets used to perceiving only the suffering or the negative aspects of them, then even from a small negative incident great mental pain will ensue. For it is the nature of indulgence in any concept, whether suffering or happiness, that the experience of this happiness or suffering will thereby be intensified. — Tulku Thondup Rinpoche (1939–2023)
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“Every master has his unique method to express whatsoever he has attained -- it was laughter for Hotei. He went from one town to another, travelling continuously all his life -- laughing.
It is said that he would come to a town, stand in the middle of the village, and start laughing. And then people would start laughing at him, that a madman has come; then the crowd would gather and by and by the laughter would spread. It would become infectious and the whole crowd would surge with laughter. He would create waves of laughter: and in that laughter satsang was happening -- what in India we call 'satsang' -- the presence of the master.
Then, by and by, those who had eyes would start looking at him: 'He is not a madman -- in the garb of a madman a Buddha is standing there.' Then those who had ears to hear, they would start hearing that it was not just the laughter of a madman -- something of tremendous significance was transpiring between them and Hotei.
This was his way of expressing his being. This was his way of preaching -- a beautiful way.”
— Osho
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“1. Accept everything just the way it is.
2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.
3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.
4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
5. Be detached from desire your whole life long.
6. Do not regret what you have done.
7. Never be jealous.
8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.
9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.
10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.
11. In all things have no preferences.
12. Be indifferent to where you live.
13. Do not pursue the taste of good food.
14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.
15. Do not act following customary beliefs.
16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.
17. Do not fear death.
18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.
19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.
20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour.
21. Never stray from the Way.”
Comments
“Who knows that the mind is a fiction and does not contain any reality, also knows that his own mind neither exists nor does-not-exist. Mortals keep bringing life to the mind by insisting it exists. The Deathless keep denying the mind and insist it does not exist.”
— Bodhidharma
@Bunks I like this. It is new-agey, magical, mystical AND more importantly very true. It demonstrates how the Theravadin seniors are in tune with the changing terminology and needs of students.
Kind of a Buddhist quote:
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
~Carl Jung~ (honorary Buddhist)
“Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the path.”
— Bodhidharma
“Freeing oneself from words is liberation.”
— Bodhidharma
“If you know that everything comes from the mind, don't become attached. Once attached, you're unaware. But once you see your own nature, the entire Canon becomes so much prose. It's thousands of sutras and shastras only amount to a clear mind. Understanding comes in midsentence. What good are doctrines? The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions… Don't cling to appearances, and you'll break through all barriers…”
— Bodhidharma
“When you are deluded, there is a world to escape.
When you are aware, there is nothing to escape.”
— Bodhidharma
“To seek is to suffer. Not to seek is bliss.”
— Bodhidharma
Westerners are generally in a hurry, so they have greater extremes of happiness and suffering. The fact that they have much kilesā, can be a source of wisdom later on.
To live the lay life and practice Dhamma, one must be in the world but remain above it.
Sīla, beginning with the basic Five Precepts, is the all important parent to all good things. It is for removing all wrong from the mind, removing that which causes distress and agitation. When these basic things are gone, the mind will always be in a state of samādhi.
At first, the basic thing is to make sīla really firm. Practice formal meditation when there is the opportunity. Sometimes it will be good, sometimes not. Don’t worry about it, just continue. If doubts arise, just realize that they, like everything else in the mind, are impermanent.
From this base, samādhi will come, but not yet wisdom. One must watch the mind at work — see like and dislike arising from sense contact, and not attach to them.
Don’t be anxious for results or quick progress. An infant crawls at first, then learns to walk, then to run and when it is fully grown, can travel half way round the world to Thailand.
~ Ajahn Chah
As usual, excellent enlightened advice from Ajahn Chah-Cha, the dancing Tea Buddha...
“It has been well said that Buddhism is Hinduism stripped for export.”
— Alan Watts
I would take issue with that, to a certain extent. A lot of the base level of suffering — hunger, thirst, illness, old age — is down to things we often don’t have control over.
Do you know the story of Banzan? Before he became a great Zen master, he spent many years in the pursuit of enlightenment, but it eluded him. Then one day, as he was walking in the marketplace, he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. "Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer. And the butcher replied, "Every piece of meat I have is the best. There is no piece of meat here that is not the best." Upon hearing this, Banzan became enlightened.
“The society is sick. Mother Earth has the capacity to heal herself. It may take a million years, or ten million. She is not in a hurry. We don’t have to die to return to Mother Earth. Mother Earth is within us now. She knows how to act. All we have to do is not act, and Mother Earth acts for us. Look at your breathing. In, out, it happens automatically. With your in breath, think ‘healing is taking place’. With your out breath, think ‘healing is taking place’. Do not act. Just relax. This is practice through non-practice. This way, we heal our society, and help Mother Earth.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Zen always aims at grasping the central fact of life, which can never be brought to the dissecting table of the intellect”
~D.T. Suzuki~
“Those who easily believe others are said by the Buddha to be foolish.”
— Ajahn Chah
“Meditation is hard for youngsters. Their teeth are strong, so they can enjoy their food. They sleep soundly. Their faculties are intact and the world is fun and exciting to them, so they get deluded in a big way. For the old ones, when they chew on something hard they’re soon in pain. Right there the devaduta (divine messengers) are talking to them; they’re teaching them every day.”
— Ajahn Chah
“Don't seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions.”
— Zen Proverb
"What, at this moment, is lacking?"
— Rinzai
“Every tree and every blade of grass will eventually become enlightened.”
— Buddhist saying
"Our original Buddha-Nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any trace of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy-and that is all. Enter deeply in it by awakening to it yourself. That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete. There is naught besides. Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva's progress toward Buddhahood, one by one, when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature that has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all. You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream. That is why the Tathagata [the Buddha] said: I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment."
“Enlightenment is an accident, but through meditation it might happen to you sooner.”
— Aitken Roshi
“Give up evil and develop merit – give up the negative and develop what is positive. Developing merit, remain above merit. Remain above merit and demerit, above good and evil. Keep on practicing with a mind that is giving up, letting go and getting free. It’s the same no matter what you are doing: if you do it with a mind of letting go, then it is a cause for realising Nibbana.”
— Ajahn Chah
“It is the four Noble Truths, having the wisdom that knows tanha, which is the source of dukkha. Khamatanha, bhavatanha, vibhavatanha (sensual desire, desire for becoming, desire not to be): these are the origination, the source. If you go there, if you are wishing for anything or wanting to be anything, you are nourishing dukkha, bringing dukkha into existence, because this is what gives birth to dukkha. These are the causes.”
— Ajahn Chah
“If a fish swims in the sea, he never reaches the end of the ocean. If a bird flies in the sky, he never reaches the end of the sky. Therefore, neither fish nor bird can know the entirety of the ocean or the sky, before setting out on the journey or after.”
— Dogen, Genjokoan
“Hotei, a Zen master, was passing through a village. He was one of the most beautiful persons who have ever walked on earth. He was known to people as 'The Laughing Buddha' -- he used to laugh continuously. But sometimes he would sit under a tree -- in this village he was sitting under a tree, with closed eyes; not laughing, not even smiling; completely calm and collected.
Somebody asked: "You are not laughing, Hotei?"
He opened his eyes and he said, "I am preparing."
The questioner could not understand. He said, "What do you mean by 'preparing'?"
He said, "I have to prepare myself for laughter. I have to give myself rest. I have to go in. I have to forget the whole world so that I can come again rejuvenated and I can again laugh.””
— Osho
Whenever problems come to us from beings or inanimate objects, if our mind gets used to perceiving only the suffering or the negative aspects of them, then even from a small negative incident great mental pain will ensue. For it is the nature of indulgence in any concept, whether suffering or happiness, that the experience of this happiness or suffering will thereby be intensified. — Tulku Thondup Rinpoche (1939–2023)
https://www.buddhistdoor.net/wisdom-for-today/
“Every master has his unique method to express whatsoever he has attained -- it was laughter for Hotei. He went from one town to another, travelling continuously all his life -- laughing.
It is said that he would come to a town, stand in the middle of the village, and start laughing. And then people would start laughing at him, that a madman has come; then the crowd would gather and by and by the laughter would spread. It would become infectious and the whole crowd would surge with laughter. He would create waves of laughter: and in that laughter satsang was happening -- what in India we call 'satsang' -- the presence of the master.
Then, by and by, those who had eyes would start looking at him: 'He is not a madman -- in the garb of a madman a Buddha is standing there.' Then those who had ears to hear, they would start hearing that it was not just the laughter of a madman -- something of tremendous significance was transpiring between them and Hotei.
This was his way of expressing his being. This was his way of preaching -- a beautiful way.”
— Osho
“1. Accept everything just the way it is.
2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.
3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.
4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
5. Be detached from desire your whole life long.
6. Do not regret what you have done.
7. Never be jealous.
8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.
9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.
10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.
11. In all things have no preferences.
12. Be indifferent to where you live.
13. Do not pursue the taste of good food.
14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.
15. Do not act following customary beliefs.
16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.
17. Do not fear death.
18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.
19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.
20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour.
21. Never stray from the Way.”
― Miyamoto Musashi
@Miyamoto
Nah!
When you abandon your body, your honour is gone too...
Different times, bro! No need for weapons except a sharp mind these days... Not that I have either...