Keep asking “What idea of self have I dreamed up today?
Zenkei Blanche Hartman,1926-2016, Soto Zen teacher
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Tag: Awareness
Patient
The monk who bakes bread
no longer believes in the measure-for-measure God of the recipe books,
has little faith, if any, in the predestined endings set forth by timers,
the finely sifted claims to inerrancy held by cups and spoons.
Blended to life, call his a leavened devotion to resurrection
appearing from within each cracked tomb of grain,
the hunger that presses his hands dawn after dawn,
deep into the just-risen flesh.
Cowl white as the flour he scoops, mixes,
forms pat pat into loaves shaped like naves,
it is his chest, filled with the invisible yeast of breath,
that knows by heart the patient kneading together of days,
how long love takes to rise.
Daniel Skach-Mills, American poet.
Remember
Joy is the happiness
that doesn’t depend on what happens
David Steindl-Rast
The mind’s natural state
Silent illumination is the realization of … wakefulness, stillness and awareness… all of which are different ways to describe mind’s natural state. Experiencing it for the first time is like suddenly dropping a thousand pounds from your shoulders – the heavy burdens of self-attachment, vexations, and habitual tendencies. Self-attachment, vexations, and habitual tendencies run deep. So practitioners must work hard to experience enlightenment again and again until they can simply rest in mind’s natural state. The key is to practice diligently but seek no results.
Guo Gu, You Are Already Enlightened
Sunday Quote: Dancing with life
God ..[is].. more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea.
There is Someone dancing with you now, and you are not afraid of making mistakes.
Richard Rohr
Out of nowhere
The Diamond Sutra says,
“Out of nowhere, the mind comes forth.”
Working With the Koan : Usually people work hard to make things happen. Yet it might be that things happen by themselves, coming out of nowhere. When you forget your carefully assembled fiction of who you are, you can find a natural delight in people, in the planet, the stones, and the trees. There is no observable limit to this beauty, and no one is excluded from it.
John Tarrant, Bring Me The Rhinoceros and other Zen Koans that will save your life
Mindfulbalance 