Buddhism may be summed up in two phrases: “Let go!” and “Walk on!”
Drop the craving for self, for permanence, for particular circumstances, and go straight ahead with the movement of life
Alan Watts
Moving, not holding on
Sunday Quote: An Autumn chant
Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
[“Gone, Gone, Gone beyond, Completely gone to the Other Shore. Oh what an Awakening”]
The final lines of the Heart Sutra considered by some Buddhists the perfection of all wisdom – Pragya Paramita- finding a pace of rest, a stability that is beyond all coming or going.
Three lessons
Last Sunday I passed some young children gathering chestnuts, which was always a big thing this time of year when I was young. We would gather then to play the game of “conkers” in school, a yearly challenge which was taken very seriously. The chestnut plays a role in different traditions and cultures including in Italy where carrying one around in your pocket for winter was thought to prevent colds.
Seeing one of them on the ground reminded me of this passage and its message of trust.
And I saw a tiny thing, the size of a nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought: ‘What is this?’ And this is the answer that came to me: ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled how it could survive, it was so small that I thought that it might disintegrate. And in my mind I heard this answer: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.
In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.
Julian of Norwich c. 1342–c. 1416, Revelations
One breath
Life may not always offer the conditions to rest in the ways we long for. A nap or afternoon in the park would be delightful, but raising kids, working two jobs, caregiving for others compete for our time and energy. Nonetheless, we can all learn to touch the stillness of being for even short moments.
Our breath can teach us how simple and natural it is to rest: the body breathes in, receiving vitality. The body breathes out, releasing and letting go.
What’s it like to pause and rest for even one breath?
Oren Jay Sofer
Insisting and contracting
What is craving? Basically, experientially, it’s contracting onto a wish and getting insistent about it. A highly insistent contracting around something we want. And we can include in that things we don’t want also, because not wanting something is wanting something to be absent. Or wanting something to be different.
So, if we want to suffer less, we need to find where we are getting insistent and contracted around how we would like things to be. So don’t look at the suffering and say: I want that to stop. Look for craving instead…. try to find it, and just leave it at that for now. Just see the craving, and let it be. If we can just learn to do that, that’s a great big lesson.
Henry Shukman, Mountain Cloud Zen Center Blog
Who is in control?
The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.
To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly – you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease.
You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.
Eckhart Tolle
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