Sometimes I’d go to see old religious sites with ancient temple buildings, designed by architects, beautifully built by skilled craftsmen. In some places they would be cracked. Maybe one of my friends would remark, “Such a shame, isn’t it? It’s cracked. ” I’d say: “If that weren’t the case then there’d be no such thing as the Buddha, there’d be no Dharma. It’s cracked like this because it’s perfectly in line with the Buddha’s teaching.
Ajahn Chah
photo sookie
The 9th Century Zen Master Siubi was asked “What is the secret of Zen”
“Come back when there is no-one around and I shall tell you”
The inquirer returned and Siubi took him to a bamboo-grove, pointed to the bamboos and said
“See how long these are. See how short these are”
Suddenly the questioner had a flash of awakening. What did he see? He had a revelation of sheer existence. Where there is revelation, explanation becomes superfluous. Curiosity is dissolved in wonder.
John Welwood: Ordinary magic: Everyday life as Spiritual Path
Another quote on accepting that there are reasons we cannot see and that we do not always have to be in control.
Prompted by the swallows returning yesterday :
Break open the cherry tree:
But where are the blossoms?
Wait for spring time and see how they bloom!
Ikkyu, Zen Buddhist monk and poet, 1394 – 1481
photo andrew bossi
Most of us are very good at bringing suffering upon ourselves, by taking something that is happening and fixating on it, creating a worry and letting it take root inside us. We are less good at simply letting things be, without wanting to fix the world according to our preferences:
Sitting quietly,
doing nothing,
Spring comes,
and the grass grows,
by itself.
Matsuo Bashō, 1644 – 1694
Everyone, from time to time, experiences a challenge which makes life seem less safe, when things seem to tighten around them – a new job, relationship difficulties, facing an illness or being let down. Under these pressures we may stumble and even fall:
If there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe,
I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me.
But this was shown:
that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.
Julian of Norwich
photo of memorial for Captain Scott South Pole, by Barneygumble
There’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy.
Pema Chödrön
When we practice meditation, we practice a double movement: there is a movement of return to the breath, a movement of recollection of presence, of samadhi — and there is a movement of mindfulness, of allowing everything to be just as it is. Last Sunday, I realized that the movement of return can also be a movement of allowing, of self-forgiveness. All the prodigal sons and daughters of our thoughts and dreams and gnarly little complexes are welcome to come to the feast of this present moment.
Tracy Cochran, Be a Lighthouse
photo scem.info
