Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.
When the mind has settled, we are
established in our essential nature, which
is unbounded consciousness.
Our essential nature is usually overshadowed
by the activity of the mind.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, c.400 AD.
Body and mind are one.
Thus, if you straighten your body, your mind is straight.
Miyazaki Zenji, 1901 – 2008, Zen abbot of Eiheiji Monastery
There is only one life you can call your own
and a thousand others you can call by any name you want.
David Whyte
Life is not accomplishing some special work
but attaining to a degree of consciousness and inner freedom which is beyond all works and attainments.
That is my real goal.
It implies “becoming unknown and as nothing”.
Thomas Merton
When things no longer have the ability to offend you,
they cease to exist in the old way.
Jianzhi Sengcan, died 606, the Third Zen Patriarch
The word dukkha is at the heart of the Buddhist understanding of life. It essentially means that life has an element of stress that is independent of, and resistant to, all our efforts to make it perfect or carefree. Translating the word is not so easy….
‘All is suffering’ is a bad modernist translation.
What the Buddha really said is:
It’s all a mixed bag. Shit is complicated.
Everything’s f**ked up, [yet] Everything’s gorgeous.
Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems
Mindfulbalance 