Very like the warm Indian Summer weather we have been having in Ireland this last week, along with a full moon, as the Autumn Equinox approaches:
The rain has ceased, the clouds have passed away, and the weather is bright again.
If your heart is clear, all things in your world become clear.
Hold this passing world lightly, hold yourself lightly
and then the moon and the flowers will guide you along the way
Ryokan, 1758 – 1831, Japanese Zen monk and poet
The 14th-century Tibetan master Longchenpa said there are five characteristics we should cultivate in order to practice the four immeasurables:
(1) A fundamental attitude as vast as space;
(2) A mind as constant as the depths of the ocean;
(3) Seeing all occurrences, inner and outer, as mist floating in the sky;
(4) A compassionate attitude as even as the rays of the sun;
(5) Sensing negativities to be like specks of dust in our eyes.
Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Journal, 2019 The Four Immeasurables Leave Nothing Untouched
The giant pine tree
grows from a tiny sprout.
The journey of a thousand miles
starts from beneath your feet.
Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion,
you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course.
Tao Te Ching, 64
Monks, eight worldly winds spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight winds: Gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. These are the eight worldly conditions that spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions.
The Buddha, Lokavipatti Sutta
A falling leaf does not hate the wind
Lin Yutang, 1895 – 1976, Chinese philosopher, linguist, novelist, and translator.
Things haven’t changed much in 2,000 years.
Everyone hurries their life on
and suffers from a yearning for the future and a weariness of the present.
But the one who bestows all of their time on their own needs,
who plans out every day as if it were their last,
neither longs for, nor fears, the next day.
Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae [On the Shortness of Life] AD 49
We all have moments of agitation in our thoughts and feelings. We tend to identify with these as us. We are also always grasping after something that we think will finally complete us. The legendary Bodhidharma points here to a fluid way of working with the mind: See it, and the self, as a process, not a solid, unchanging entity.
Huike said to Bodhidharma, “My mind is always restless. Please give it some calm.”
To which Bodhidharma replied, “OK. Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it.”
Huike said, “Although I have tried to find it, I cannot hold it fast”
Bodhidharma then said, “See, there, I have just stilled your mind.”
Case 41 in the Gateless Gate, “Pacifying the Mind”.
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