My teacher Suzuki Roshi would say, “Sitting meditation is to practice being ready for anything.”
Being ready for anything is different than gearing yourself up
to defend or to attack things as they come toward you.
You sit, and you’re ready for anything.
Edward Espe Brown, The Most Important Point
Everything is ceremony
in the wild garden of childhood
Pablo Neruda
The comparing mind frequently takes us away from the unique form of our own life …
One morning the teacher announced to his disciples that they would walk to the top of the mountain. The disciples were surprised because even those who had been with him for years thought the teacher was oblivious to the mountain which looked serenely down on their town.
By midday it became apparent that the teacher had lost direction. Moreover, no provision had been made for food. The disciples grumbled but he continued walking, sometimes through underbrush and sometimes across crumbling rock.
When they reached the summit in the late afternoon, they found other wanderers there ahead of them who had strolled up a well-worn path.
The disciples complained to the teacher. He only said, “Those others have climbed a different mountain.”
From James Carse, Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Everyday Life
Money is human happiness in the abstract;
He, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.
Schopenhauer
All beings are encompassed within one all-encompassing great energy:
This I understood from the coolness of this morning’s passing breeze
Wu-men Hui-k’ai, 1183 -1260, Chinese Chan Master
Incredibly warm Spring weather here these days, signs of growth all round
It’s the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us.
The question is not what you look at but what you see.
Henry David Thoreau
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