Tag: impermanence

the deepest insight

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The Bodhisattva of Compassion,
while practicing deeply with
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore,
suddenly discovered that
all of the five Skandhas are equally empty,
and with this realisation
he overcame all Ill-being.


This Body itself is Emptiness
and Emptiness itself is this Body.
This Body is not other than Emptiness
and Emptiness is not other than this Body.

The same is true of Feelings,
Perceptions, Mental Formations,
and Consciousness.

The Heart Sutra

[The five skandhas – aggregates or clusters – are form [body] feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. Empty means that they don’t exist in an autonomous, enduring manner because everything depends on, or is interconnected with something else. We strongly hold on to the permanence of things and of our story; this teaching focuses on fluidity ]

To let go of

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The journey to acceptance is about discovering what we need to let go of, rather than what we need to start doing.

By noticing moments of resistance throughout the day, you can start to become more aware of what prevents acceptance from naturally arising. This in turn will allow you to view the thoughts and feelings that arise during your meditation with a much greater sense of ease.

Andy Puddicombe, Ten Tips for Living more Mindfully

Not getting stuck in the hassles of each day

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You should train yourself thus: In what is seen, there is only the seen. In what is heard, there is only the heard. In what is sensed, there is only the sensed. In what is understood, only the understood.

This is how you should train yourself. When for you there is in what is seen, only the seen, in what is heard, only the heard, in what is sensed only the sensed and in what is understood only the understood, then there is no you in connection with what is seen, heard, sensed or cognized, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor there nor anywhere in-between.

This and only this is the end of stress and unhappiness

The Buddha in the Bāhiya Sutta.

Derailing the sense of lack

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Enlightenment involves derailing and deconstructing the sense of lack.  

It is getting rid of that piece of psychology that in every moment says, “There’s something else that I should be having right now. There’s something else that I should be right now. There’s somewhere else that I could go right now. There’s somebody else who’s got it better than me right now. I’m not complete right now. I need to be something right now”.

Ajahn Sucitto, Parami: Ways to Cross Life’s Floods

Decide how to behave

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Sometimes the situation calls for change behaviours and other times it calls for letting go behaviours, sometimes to act, sometimes to not act, sometimes to hold on, sometimes to let go.

If you can’t stop the world,

Stop your mind.

Ajahn Amaro’s summary of Ajahn Chah’s teaching

Sunday Quote: Let things be

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If the eye never sleeps, all dreams vanish by themselves.

If the mind stops making discriminations,

The ten thousand things are as they are.

Seng T’san, The Third Zen Patriarch, 529 – 606,  The Hsin Hsin Ming.