Tag: impermanence

As fluid as the ocean

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A reminder to hold our thoughts, ideas and, even our identity, somewhat lightly.

The Buddha once said in verse:

“Of various elements is this body of Mine composed.
The time of its arising is merely an arising of elements;
The time of its vanishing is merely a vanishing of elements.
As these elements arise, I do not speak of the arising of an ‘I’,
And as these elements vanish, I do not speak of the vanishing of an ‘I’.
Previous instants and succeeding instants are not a series of instants that depend on each other;
Previous elements and succeeding elements are not a series of elements that stand against each other.
To give all of this a name, I call it ‘the meditative state that bears the seal of the Ocean’.“

We need to make a diligent effort to fully explore these words of the Buddha.


Dogen, 1200- 1253, Shobogenzo

Sunday Quote: free

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If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view.

If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.

Norman Fischer, Beyond Language

Good and bad habits

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It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route and make a beaten path for ourselves.

I had not lived there a week, before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct.

The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Beyond likes and dislikes

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The person who has gone beyond likes and dislikes, Sri Ramakrishna will say, is like an autumn leaf floating in the wind.

It floats gently here when the wind flows here, it goes there when the wind blows there, and slowly it settles to the ground.

Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living

Continual practice

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In Japan, cleaning is called “Soji” and valued as a way to cultivate our minds. Buddhist monks in a monastery put more time into practicing Soji than into practicing Zen meditation. A monk’s day begins with cleaning. We sweep the temple grounds and polish the temple building

One important thing Soji practice tells us is that we never complete cleaning. Just as leaves begin to fall after you sweep, desires begin to accumulate right after you refresh your mind. We continue cleaning the gloom in our hearts, knowing that we will never end it.

Shoukei Matsumoto, 1979 -,  author of A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind

Sunday Quote: the root cause

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I think we’re miserable partly because we have only one god, and that’s economics.

James Hillman, 1926 – 2011, American Jungian psychologist