The past is already past — Don’t try to regain it.
The present doesn’t stay — Don’t try to hold onto it over and over.
The future isn’t here yet — Don’t ponder it beforehand.
When we can see the three times as non-existent,
the mind is the same as awakened nature.
Layman P’ang, c740 – 808, Chinese Zen
The thing that blinds us and deafens us is the ceaselessly moving mind, the preoccupation we have with our thoughts. It is the incessant internal dialogue that shuts out everything else. ….All day long we talk to ourselves. We preoccupy ourselves with the past, or we preoccupy ourselves with the future, and while we preoccupy ourselves, we miss the moment and miss our lives. Looking, we do not see. It is as if we were blind. Listening, we do not hear. It is as if we were deaf. Loving, we do not feel. It is as if we were dead. Preoccupied, we do not notice the reality around us. How can we be present? How can we taste and touch our lives?
The answer to these questions is not outside yourself. To see this truth requires the backward step, going very deep into yourself to find the foundation of reality and of your life. To see it is not the same as understanding it or believing it. To see it means to realize it with the whole body and mind.… Know that deep within each and every one of us, under layers of conditioning, there is an enlightened being, alive and well. In order to function, it needs to be discovered.
John Daido Loori, 4, 1931 – 2009, Zen Buddhist rōshi
Souls never die, but always on quitting one abode pass to another.
All things change, nothing perishes.
The soul passes hither and thither, occupying now this body, now that . . . As a wax is stamped with certain figures, then melted, then stamped anew with others, yet it is always the same wax. So, the Soul being always the same, yet wears at different times different forms.
Pythagoras, Greek Philosopher, 570 – c. 495 BC
It is imperative to cut off the mind road.
If you do not cut off the mind road, you will be a ghost, clinging to the grass.
Wu Men Hui-k’ai,, 1183–1260, Chinese Chán master
I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success or money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.
Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis generally disappears
Jung, Autobiography
A long weekend here in Ireland.
My home can be anywhere, heaven or earth.
All I need is room in my heart.
And a good source of water, of course.
You need room in your heart . . . a big empty space
To sort out what’s real from what’s not.
Hsu Yun, 1840 – 1959, renowned and influential Chinese Chan Buddhist master
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