Tag: Meditation

Always other moments

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Today is All Souls Day and November was traditionally a time of remembering those who have gone before us.

Once a monk made a request of Joshu.
“I have just entered the monastery,” he said. “Please give me instructions, Master.”
Joshu said, “Have you had your breakfast?”
“Yes, I have,” replied the monk.
“Then,” said Joshu, “wash your bowl.”
The monk had an insight.

I love this koan. I am the student in the midst of my life, waiting for life to happen. I am the teacher pointing to this latte on my desk. I am the bowl that needs washing and the breakfast already eaten. How do we enter our life fully? It is right here. How do we want to live? Can we allow all the joys and sorrows to enliven us? Or do we just go along with all our patterns and habits? People who are dying always remind me: ‘I can’t believe I wasn’t here for most of my life.‘ That’s one of the most common things I hear, and the biggest regrets. Many people have not inhabited their life because they’re just waiting for other moments. Are we waiting for life to happen in the midst of life? How can we give ourselves fully to our lives, moment to moment? Don’t wait. Life is always right here.

Koshin Paley Ellison, Co-Founder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care

The nature of things

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All Saints Day. We sometimes think that saints and bodhisattvas have the ability to float above everything.

Life does continually go up and down. People and situations are unpredictable and so is everything else.

Everybody knows the pain of getting what we don’t want: saints, sinners, winners, losers. I feel gratitude that someone saw the truth and pointed out that we don’t suffer this kind of pain because of our personal inability to get things right.

Pema Chodron

In-between places

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In a similar fashion, they believed that Halloween was the time in the year when these two worlds were closest.

The ancient Druids are said to have taken a special interest in in-between things like mistletoe, which is neither quite a plant nor quite a tree, and mist, which is neither quite a rain nor quite air, and dreams, which are neither quite waking nor quite sleep. They believed that in such things as those they were able to glimpse the mystery of the two worlds at once

Frederick Buechner 1926 – 2022, American author, Presbyterian minister, preacher, and theologian

A clean bright heart

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Phenomenon are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart.

If you speak or act with a calm, bright heart, then happiness follows you, like a shadow that never leaves

Dhammapada Twin Verses, 2

Simple. Be present

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I don’t know anything about consciousness.

I just try to teach my students how to hear the birds sing

Shunryu Suzuki roshi, 1904 – 1971

Your great teacher

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What would happen if you put striving aside?

What if your practice was simply being present ?

Just open awareness. Just here. No longer anything to find. Just being present.

And then within that….letting your own heart teach you. Letting your own heart guide you.

What if you trusted that your own heart is really your great teacher?

Henry Shukman, Zen teacher, Mountain Cloud Zen Center