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
Without distinction
Tag: balance
The leaf falls
This sublime poem by Ryōkan, written toward the end of his life, sees all of life in the falling maple leaf. Just like the leaf shows both front and back, life is filled with good times and challenging times, moments of happiness and unhappiness, ups and downs. We can learn from Ryōkan who simply observes the naturalness of what’s happening, without adding “it’s sad the leaf is dying. It’s sad it is falling down.” The existence of the leaf is a series of transformations and it will turn into soil, to support new life.
Showing its front
Showing its back
The maple leaf falls
Ryōkan, 1758 – 1831, Buddhist monk and hermit
Quiet power
Sorcerers maintain that talking about ourselves makes us accessible and weak, while learning how to be quiet fills us with power.
A principle of the path of knowledge is to turn your own life into something so unpredictable that not even you yourself knows what’s going to happen.
Carlos Castaneda
The key
The key to our deepest happiness
lies in changing our vision
of where to find it
Sharon Salzberg, Finding your Way
What happiness is
I have come to see that our problem is that we don’t know what happiness is. We confuse it with a life uncluttered by feelings of anxiety, rage, doubt, and sadness. But happiness is something entirely different. It’s the ability to receive the pleasant without grasping and the unpleasant without condemning.
Mark Epstein
Go with the flow
Get out of the construction business!
Stop building bridges across the raging waters of samsaric existence, attempting to reach the “far shore,” nirvana.
Better to simply relax, at ease and carefree, in total naturalness, and just go with the primordial flow, however it occurs and happens.
And remember this: whether or not you go with the flow, it always goes with you.
Nyoshül Khenpo Rinpoche, 1932 – 1999 , Tibetan lama
