My teacher Suzuki Roshi would say, “Sitting meditation is to practice being ready for anything.”
Being ready for anything is different than gearing yourself up
to defend or to attack things as they come toward you.
You sit, and you’re ready for anything.
Edward Espe Brown, The Most Important Point
If there are mountains, I look at the mountains;
On days it is raining, I listen to the rain.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter.
Tomorrow too will be good.
Tonight too will be good.
Santoka, Japanese author and haiku poet, 1882 -1940
Do not become annoyed when faced with difficulties.
To do so merely adds difficulty to difficulty and further disturbs your mind.
By maintaining a mind of peace and non-opposition,
difficulties will naturally fall away.
Sheng-Yen (1931-2009) Resident teacher at the Chan Meditation Center in Elmhurst, New York
The mark of a moderate man
is freedom from his own ideas.
Tolerant like the sky,
all-pervading like sunlight,
firm like a mountain,
supple like a tree in the wind,
he has no destination in view
and makes use of anything
life happens to bring his way.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 59, translated Stephen Mitchell
Everything is ceremony
in the wild garden of childhood
Pablo Neruda
The comparing mind frequently takes us away from the unique form of our own life …
One morning the teacher announced to his disciples that they would walk to the top of the mountain. The disciples were surprised because even those who had been with him for years thought the teacher was oblivious to the mountain which looked serenely down on their town.
By midday it became apparent that the teacher had lost direction. Moreover, no provision had been made for food. The disciples grumbled but he continued walking, sometimes through underbrush and sometimes across crumbling rock.
When they reached the summit in the late afternoon, they found other wanderers there ahead of them who had strolled up a well-worn path.
The disciples complained to the teacher. He only said, “Those others have climbed a different mountain.”
From James Carse, Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Everyday Life
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