Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot done on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Such human qualities as morality, compassion, decency, wisdom and so forth have been the foundations of all civilizations. These qualities must be cultivated and sustained through systematic moral education in a conductive social environment, so that a more humane world may emerge.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Better than a thousand useless words is one word that gives peace.

- Buddha

I believe in justice and truth, without which there would be no basis for human hope.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Greed is an imperfection that defiles the mind;
hate is an imperfection that defiles the mind;
delusion is an imperfection that defiles the mind.

- Buddha

When you are deluded, you are used by your body. When you are enlightened, you use your body.

- Bunan

Seeing ourselves plainly, we can change, and as we do so, it brings a feeling of great relief, as if we had dropped a heavy load.

- Ayya Khema

He who knows that all things are his mind,
That all with which he meets are friendly,
Is ever joyful.

- Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

Restorative Slumber -- Daily Om

As we focus on the many obligations we gladly undertake in order to create the lives we want, sleep is often the first activity that we sacrifice. We’re compelled by both external and internal pressures to be productive during many of our waking hours. While this can lead to great feats of accomplishment, it also disrupts the body’s natural cycles and leaves us craving rest. Napping represents a pleasurable remedy to this widespread sleep deprivation. Though judged by many as a pastime of little children or the lazy, the need for a nap is a trait that all mammals share and an acceptable part of the day in many countries. It is also a free and effortless way to improve our health and lift our spirits. A nap is relaxing and can improve our mood, vision, reflexes, and memory.

read on ...

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulness"

Spending Time in Nature -- Daily OM

In this modern age, we spend so much time indoors, focused on the busyness of our lives and disconnected from the earth. But much of what we truly need can only be found under the naked sky, alongside tall trees, on open plains, or in the sound of running water. Spending time in nature allows us to commune with other living beings and to find comfort in the nurturing embrace of Mother Earth. You can't help but experience a different sense of self while walking in a wood or traversing a mountainside. Being in nature connects us to the earth, grounding us as we walk, unhindered by concrete, upon her. Surrounded by other living beings, both bigger and smaller than we are, we remember that human beings are simply one form of life in this vast universe.

more ...

Flow with whatever may happen
and let your mind be free;
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate.

Chuang Tsu

Do not go after the past,
Nor lose yourself in the future.
For the past no longer exists,
And the future is not yet here.
By looking deeply at things just as they are,
In this moment, here and now,
The seeker lives calmly and freely.
You should be attentive today,
For waiting until tomorrow is too late.
Death can come and take us by surprise--
How can we gainsay it?
The one who knows
How to live attentively
Night and day
Is the one who knows
The best way to be independent.

Bhaddekaratta Sutra

A person getting enlightened is like the moon reflecting in the water. The moon does not get wet, the water is not disturbed. Though it is a great expanse of light, it reflects in a little bit of water; the whole moon and the whole sky reflect even in the dew on the grass; they reflect even in a single drop of water. Enlightenment not disturbing the person is like the moon not piercing the water. A person not obstructing enlightenment is like the dewdrop not obstructing the heavens.

Dogen, "Flowers Fall"

Remember the clear light, the pure clear white light from which everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe returns; the original nature of your own mind. The natural state of the universe unmanifest.

Let go into the clear light, trust it, merge with it. It is your own true nature, it is home.

Tibetan Book of the Dead

Since your mind is not physical,
No one else can destroy it.
But because of its attachments to the body,
It is harmed by physical suffering.

Bodhicharyavatara

If you wish to understand yourself, you must succeed in doing so in the midst of all kinds of confusions and upsets. Don't make the mistake of sitting dead in the cold ashes of a withered tree.

Emyo

 
Steve Benson - 02 April 2008

Genuine compassion is unbiased.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Even as a great rock is not shaken by the wind, the wise man is not shaken by praise or blame.

Buddha

Even though the training in ethics takes many forms, the ethics of abandoning the ten non-virtues is their basis. Of the ten non-virtues, three pertain to bodily actions, four to verbal actions, and three to mental actions.

The three mental non-virtues are:

1. Covetousness: thinking, "May this become mine," desiring something that belongs to another.
2. Harmful intent: wishing to injure others, be it great or small injury.
3. Wrong view: viewing some existent thing, such as rebirth, cause and effect, or the Three Jewels*, as non-existent.

The opposite of these ten non-virtues are the ten virtues, and engaging in them is called the practice of ethics.

*The core of Buddhism: Buddha, his doctrine (Dharma), and the Spiritual Community.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Don't cling to your own understanding. Even if you do understand something, you should ask yourself if there might be something you have not fully resolved, or if there may be some higher meaning yet.

Dogen

Crookedness and truth (straightness) are in their nature opposite and cannot dwell together more than frost and fire; for one who has become religious, and practices the way of straight behavior, a false and crooked way of speech is not becoming.

Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King

Contrary to what some people might believe, there is nothing wrong with having pleasures and enjoyments. What is wrong is the confused way we grasp onto these pleasures, turning them from a source of happiness into a source of pain and dissatisfaction.

Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Introduction to Tantra"

Not by silence
does someone confused
& unknowing
turn into a sage.
But whoever - wise,
as if holding the scales,
taking the excellent -
rejects evil deeds;
he is a sage,
that's how he's a sage.
Whoever can weigh
both sides of the world:
that's how he's called a sage.

Dhammapada, 19

Here, from within my heart, I make the vow to shun all evil - to achieve the good. From deep within my heart I seek my refuge.

Buddha

For some years now, students have not been getting to the root of the aim of Zen, instead taking the verbal teachings of Buddhas and Zen masters to be the ultimate rule. That is like ignoring a hundred thousand pure clear oceans and only focusing attention on a single bubble.

- Ying-an

Hey you, expecting results without effort! So sensitive! So long-suffering! You, in the clutches of death, acting like an immortal! Hey sufferer, you are destroying yourself!

Santideva, Bodhicaryavatara

Get rid of the tendency
to judge yourself
above, below, or
equal to others.

A nun who has self-possession
and integrity
will find the peace that nourishes
and never causes surfeit.

Therigatha

Don't cling to anything and don't reject anything. Let come what comes, and accomodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If good mental images arise, that is fine. If bad mental images arise, that is fine, too. Look on all of it as equal, and make yourself comfortable with whatever happens. Don't fight with what you experience, just observe it all mindfully.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

Conquer anger
with lack of anger;
bad, with good;
stinginess, with generosity;
a liar, with truth.

Dhammapada, 17

Honesty can be cultivated by transforming your inner language. For example, you might think: "I am no good" or "They are not good." Is this true? For some strange reason, people want to wallow in the idea of being either the best or the worst. What is true in this moment? How close can we get to the reality of our experiences?

Martine Batchelor, "Meditation For Life"

I come from the East, most of you [here] are Westerners. If I look at you superficially, we are different, and if I put my emphasis on that level, we grow more distant. If I look on you as my own kind, as human beings like myself, with one nose, two eyes, and so forth, then automatically that distance is gone. We are the same human flesh. I want happiness; you also want happiness. From that mutual recognition, we can build respect and real trust of each other. From that can come cooperation and harmony.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Flow with whatever may happen
and let your mind be free;
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate.

Chuang Tsu

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow, come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.

Buddha

A name is imposed on what is thought to be a thing or a state and this divides it from other things and other states. But when you pursue what lies behind the name, you find a greater and greater subtlety that has no divisions. Atoms of dust are not really atoms of dust but are merely called that. In the same way, a world is not a world but is merely called that.

Visuddhi Magga

Do you want to know what my body is? My body is the same as the whole earth.

Do you want to know what my mind is? My mind is the same as space itself.

Do you want to know what my vision is? I see there is nothing to see.

Do you want to know what I hear? I hear the unheard.

Since I have been seeing and hearing, why then do I speak of the unheard? "If you listen with your ears, after all you cannot understand; when you hear through your eyes, only then will you know."

Ssu-hsin

Even in the case of individuals, there is no possibility to feel happiness through anger. If in a difficult situation one becomes disturbed internally, overwhelmed by mental discomfort, then external things will not help at all. However, if despite external difficulties or problems, internally one's attitude is of love, warmth, and kindheartedness, then problems can be faced and accepted.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Wars arise from a failure to understand one another's humanness. Instead of summit meetings, why not have families meet for a picnic and get to know each other while the children play together?

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Every time a problem arises, the essential thing is to immediately become aware that the problem comes from our selfish mind, that it is created by self-cherishing thoughts. As long as you put the blame outside yourself, there can be no happiness.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

Neither from itself nor from another,
Nor from both,
Nor without a cause,
Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.

Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamaka-Karika

The most valuable learning is not about memorizing facts and figures. It is not about higher grade point averages and accumulating degrees. It is about life itself, and its impact is on the heart.

Rodney Smith, "Lessons From the Dying"

Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.

Genjo Koan

The problem isn't materialism as such. Rather it is the underlying assumption that full satisfaction can arise from gratifying the senses alone. Unlike animals whose quest for happiness is restricted to survival and to the immediate gratification of sensory desires, we human beings have the capacity to experience happiness at a deeper level which, when achieved, can overwhelm unhappy experiences.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Some people live closely guarded lives, fearful of encountering someone or something that might shatter their insecure spiritual foundation. This attitude, however, is not the fault of religion but of their own limited understanding. True Dharma leads in exactly the opposite direction. It enables one to integrate all the many diverse experiences of life into a meaningful and coherent whole, thereby banishing fear and insecurity completely.

- Lama Thubten Yeshe

We should not seek revenge on those who have committed crimes against us, or reply to their crimes with other crimes. We should reflect that by the law of karma, they are in danger of lowly and miserable lives to come, and that our duty to them, as to every being, is to help them to rise towards Nirvana, rather than let them sink to lower levels of rebirth.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

~

FYI: This is post #1000 - I've averaged 21.75 posts per month/.74 posts per day in the 1391 days since 4 October 2003.

Live in joy,
In love,
Even among those who hate.

Live in joy,
In health,
Even among the afflicted.

Live in joy,
In peace,
Even among the troubled.

Look within.
Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of the way.

- from the Dhammapada

At a time when people are so conscious of maintaining their physical health by controlling their diets, exercising and so forth, it makes sense to try to cultivate the corresponding positive mental attitudes too.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 1963

Even more so now that I think about it.

On the basis of the belief that all human beings share the same divine nature, we have a very strong ground, a very powerful reason, to believe that it is possible for each of us to develop a genuine sense of equanimity toward all beings.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Listen to the sound of water. Listen to the water running through chasms and rocks. It is the minor streams that make a loud noise; the great waters flow silently.

The hollow resounds and the full is still. Foolishness is like a half-filled pot; the wise man is a lake full of water.

-Sutta Nipata

In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.

-Genjo Koan

In my own experience, the period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life. ...Through a difficult period, you can learn, you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problem. Who gives you this chance? Your enemy.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

To probe deep into your roots:
The ignorance and confusion are you yourself.
The preconceptions which are yourself
Are envoys and agents sent by yourself.

"Drinking the Mountain Stream: Songs of Tibet's Beloved Saint, Milarepa"

As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality of calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Contrary to what some people might believe, there is nothing wrong with having pleasures and enjoyments. What is wrong is the confused way we grasp onto these pleasures, turning them from a source of happiness into a source of pain and dissatisfaction.

-Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Introduction to Tantra"

In meditation, don't expect anything. Just sit back and see what happens. Treat the whole thing as an experiment. Take an active interest in the test itself, but don't get distracted by your expectations about the results. For that matter, don't be anxious for any result whatsoever.

-Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, "Mindfulness in Plain English"

Just as sharp-bladed grass,
if wrongly held,
wounds the very hand that holds it--
the contemplative life, if wrongly grasped,
drags you down to hell.

-Dhammapada

The experience of studying Zen is like hiding your body in fire: even if you have iron guts and a brass heart, here they will surely melt and flux.

-Chien-ju

The realm of reality is as vast as cosmic space; it is the knowing mind of sentient beings that is small. Just as long as you do not become egotistic and selfish, you will be ever sated with the spiritual food of nirvana.

-Pao-chih

When all the myriad streams that flow in different places, each with its own color and taste, enter the great ocean, they blend and become just one taste, with one name. In the same way, stupidity and wisdom both become one in the awakened mind. When one first starts along the path, there seems to be a distinction that this is stupidity and that is wisdom. But later, when one penetrates more deeply, one finds there is no difference between stupidity and wisdom.

- Visuddhi Magga

When you are completely clear, there is no subjective distortion; when you are completely pure, there is true perception. But even if you are thus through and through, this is still now the transcendental key. When the wind and waves have died out, the ocean of mind is as is; when you get to the bottom of the ocean of mind, for the first time you see the black pearl.

-Tzu-te

Let us not talk of karma, but simply of responsibility toward the whole world.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "Imagine All the People"

------

More Buddhist Widsom

Let your actions be like clouds going by; the clouds going by are mindless. Let your stillness be as the valley spirit; the valley spirit is undying. When action accompanies stillness and stillness combines with action, then the duality of action and stillness no longer arises.

- Pei-chien

Even though the training in ethics takes many forms, the ethics of abandoning the ten non-virtues is their basis. Of the ten non-virtues, three pertain to bodily actions, four to verbal actions, and three to mental actions.

The three mental non-virtues are:

    Covetousness: thinking, "May this become mine," desiring something that belongs to another.

    Harmful intent: wishing to injure others, be it great or small injury.

    Wrong view: viewing some existent thing, such as rebirth, cause and effect, or the Three Jewels*, as non-existent.

The opposite of these three non-virtues are the ten virtues, and engaging in them is called the practice of ethics.

*The core of Buddhism: Buddha, his doctrine (Dharma), and the Spiritual Community.

Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

As free human beings we can use our unique intelligence to try to understand ourselves and our world. But if we are prevented from using our creative potential, we are deprived of one of the basic characteristics of a human being.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hell. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit--such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

As a Buddhist monk my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Oslo, December 1989

Speak harshly to no one,
or the words will be thrown
right back at you.
Contentious talk is painful,
for you get struck by rods in return.

- Dhammapada, 10, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Now if only I could do this, I would not keep getting hit with those darn rods.
And them rods can be painful!

Never give up
No matter what is going on
Never give up
Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country is spent
Developing the mind instead of the heart.
Be compassionate not just to your friends but to everyone
Be compassionate.
Work for peace in your heart and in the world.
Work for peace and I say again
Never give up.
No matter what is happening,
No matter what is going on around you,
Never give up.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

According to Buddhist psychology, most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for, attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities. The pursuit of the objects of our desire and attachment involves the use of aggression and competitiveness. These mental processes easily translate into actions, breeding belligerence. Such processes have been going on in the human mind since time immemorial, but their execution has become more effective under modern conditions. What can we do to control and regulate these 'poisons' - delusion, greed and aggression? For it is these poisons that are behind almost every trouble in the world.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

It is said that there are only two tragedies in life:
not getting what one wants,
and getting it.

- Bhanta Henepola Gunaratana,
"Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness"