Most people want to have pure clarity,
but sweep as you will,
you cannot empty the mind.
Keizan Jokin, Zen master, 1268–1325
Tag: balance
No gap
At the moment of going there, just go there.
At the moment of coming here, just come here.
There is no gap
Dogen, Guidelines for Studying the Way
Springing up and falling back
Happiness is not to be found through great effort and willpower.
It is already present in open relaxation and letting go. Don’t strain.
There’s nothing to do or to undo. Whatever momentarily arises in body–mind has no real import at all, has very little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with it and become attached to it, passing judgment on it and on yourself and others?
Far better simply to let the entire play just happen on its own, springing up and falling back again like waves, without ‘rectifying’ things or manipulating things.
Just noticing how everything vanishes and then magically reappears, again and again and again. Time without end.
It’s only our searching for happiness that prevents us from seeing it.
Lama Gendun Rinpoche, Free and Easy
Security from letting go of it
The bad news is: you are falling through the air,
nothing to hang on to, no parachute.
The good news is: there’s no ground
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.
Rumi
Developing a refuge
As I age I am grateful to find that a silence has begun to gather in me,
coexisting with my tempers and my fears,
unchanged by my joys or my pain.
Rachel Naomi Remen
photo of monastery garden Bolton Abbey Kildare
Getting closer to real meaning
May my silences become more accurate
Theodore Roethke, American poet, 1908 – 1963, Words for Young Writers
photo richard outram
