After learning from Dogen and the Japanese Zen tradition yesterday, today we can learn from Bodhidharma, (6th Century), the larger-than-life transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, who similarly reminds us that direct knowing is often richer than understanding reality just by thinking.
If you use your (thinking) mind to study reality,
You won’t understand either your mind or reality.
If you study reality without using your mind
You’ll understand both.
photo oxfordian kissuth
First, come into the present. Flash on what’s happening with you right now. Be fully aware of your body, its energetic quality. Be aware of your thoughts and emotions.
Next, feel your heart, literally placing your hand on your chest if you find that helpful. This is a way of accepting yourself just as you are in this moment, a way of saying “This is my experience right now, and it’s ok”
Then go into the next moment without any agenda.
Pema Chodron, Living Beautifully
photo elvert barnes
We have only now,
only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us,
day and night.
Jack Kornfield
We have what we seek
it is there all the time
and if we give it time,
it will make itself known to us.
Thomas Merton
photo the mightyquill
I hadn’t noticed
till a death took me outside
and left me there
that grass lifts so quietly
to catch everything
we drop and we drop
everything.
Leonard Nathan, Kind, American Poet, 1924 – 2007
photo jenny downing
