Loss is a fact of life. Impermanence is everywhere we look. We lose loved ones. We lose our health. We lose our glasses. We lose our memory. We lose our money. We lose our keys. We lose our socks. We have to come to terms with this reality. How we deal with them is what makes all the difference. For it is not what happens to us that determines our character, but how we relate to what happens.
Lama Surya Das, Working with Loss
Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.
Simone Weil, French Philosopher and writer,
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes.
Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
Alan Watts
It [our way] is never apart from this very place;
what is the use of traveling around to practice?
Dogen, General Advice on the Principles of Zazen
It is completely natural that thoughts keep on arising. The point is not to try to stop them, but to liberate them. This is done by remaining in a state of simplicity, which lets thoughts arise and vanish again without stringing onto them any further thoughts. When you no longer perpetuate the movement of thoughts, they dissolve by themselves without leaving any trace. When you no longer spoil the state of stillness with mental fabrications, you can maintain the natural serenity of mind without any effort. Sometimes, let your thoughts flow and watch the unchanging nature behind them.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Prompted by seeing a beautiful (almost) full moon in the clear Kildare sky last evening:
At night, deep in the mountains
I sit in meditation
The affairs of men never reach here
Everything is quiet and empty
The incense has been swallowed up
by the endless night;
My robe has become a garment of dew.
Unable to sleep, I walk into the woods;
Suddenly, above the highest peak,
the full moon appears.
Ryokan, Zen Buddhist monk, 1758 – 1831
photo Andrew Choy
Two quotes from Emerson on surprise and wonder to prompt us to look with fresh eyes today :
In liberated moments, we know that a new picture of life is already possible
The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire, is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles
photo D Sharon Pruitt
