The Finger
lobster
Crusty Veteran
You are Avalokiteshvara: a great treasure of unaimed affection, Manjushri: a commander of flawless wisdom, Vajrapani: a destroyer of all hordes of demonic forces, Tsongkhapa: the crown jewel of the erudite masters of the Land of Snows, at your feet, Lozang-dragpa, we make you requests.
Most of us are familiar of how the Buddha started zen by holding up a flower. Here is another finger pointing at the mooning ...
"Bhikkhus [monks, the Buddha said, holding a fleck of dung on his fingernail], if even if that much of permanent, everlasting, eternal individual selfhood/metaphysical being (Pali: attabhava), not inseparable from the idea of change, could be found, then this living the holy life could not be taught by me."
Samyutta Nikaya III 144
Just lately, perhaps under the influence of yoga I have been doing a bit more mantra such as migtsema above - the rite of formal right speech ...
Any change to practice?
Comments
I am always intrigued about what I am going to find when I read your subject headers mate.
Thumbs up!!
"....writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
I wondered how or whence Omar Khayyám got his inspiration...
Two thumbs eh?
Tee Hee.
“Better to drown at the bottom of the sea for eternity than to seek liberation by following the wise,”
Shitou, or Stone Head (Soto Zen Master)
https://www.lionsroar.com/koans-for-troubled-times/
No rest for the drowning ...
Most of us (well me anyway) follow an idiot, our understanding. However what about our overstanding? That requires the shoulders of giants ... For example Bodhi Om Ah Koan that @federica mentions ...
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/quotes.html
Whenever I have a moment when I’m seduced by my imagination, I enjoy the colours, the vividness with which it paints the world. I tend to just let it runs it’s course, eventually while I stand still it runs out of energy, like a clockwork winding down. As long as you are not drawn along, it will run out eventually.
In my dreams I see spaceships, aqueducts, bridges floating in the sky, vast engine rooms, teams of people working at computers, underwater empires. It’s all very colourful, and some distance from the real world, which is more considered.