Tag: Meditation

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

A fixed gaze

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Rinzai Gigen, the founder of the Rinzai school of Buddhism, said: “Be master wherever you go – then wherever you are, things are as they truly are.”

This means that no matter the circumstances, if you try your best to do what you’re capable of in the here and now, you will realize your potential protagonist, or who you’re meant to be. A protagonist is not misled by information run rampant, does not allow their focus to be drawn this way and that. Their gaze is fixed steadily in one direction. A protagonist stands firmly on the ground, carving a path of their resoluteness. You could even say they are leading their life with certainty.

We are all capable of becoming our own protagonists, anytime and anywhere. But first, we must focus our efforts. Concentrate on the here and now.

Why not begin there?

Shunmyo Masuno, Don’t Worry

All around

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Since the treasure does exist in this world,
consider no ruin empty of treasure….
If the inner eye has not been granted to you,
always think that treasure could be in anybody.

Rumi, The Mathnawi II: 2153-2155

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

Recognize what you have

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Focus on the positive things you have, rather than the size of the task ahead of you.

Jesus said to his disciples, “How many loaves have you? Mark 6:38

Why worry about the loaves and fishes?

If you say the right words, the wine expands.

If you say them with love and the felt ferocity of that love and the felt necessity of that love, the fish explode into many.

Imagine him, speaking, and don’t worry about what is reality, or what is plain, or what is mysterious.

If you were there, it was all those things.

If you can imagine it, it is all those things.

Eat, drink, be happy. Accept the miracle.

Accept, too, each spoken word spoken with love.

Mary Oliver, Logos

Missing most of life

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Once at a workshop, the instruction was to walk mindfully over to the lunchtime food across the room. In that short walk across the room, I noticed how automatically I get ahead of myself — how I lose track of these miraculous feet on the ground and miss the space in between. And I’m beginning to suspect that most of life is “in between“.

 David Rynick, This Truth Never fails: A Zen memoir in Four Seasons