Tag: Meditation

Totally still

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File:Still Water At Dusk.jpg
Ajahn Chah would ask “Have you ever seen still water?” They would nod, “Yes, of course, we’ve seen still water before.” Then he would ask, “Well then, have you ever seen flowing water?”  They’d respond, “Yes, we’ve seen flowing water.”“So, did you ever see still, flowing water?” “No. That we have never seen.”   He loved to get that bewilderment effect.

Ajahn Chah would then explain that the mind’s nature is still, yet it’s flowing. It’s flowing, yet it is still. He would use the word “citta” for the knowing mind, the mind of awareness. The citta itself is totally still. It has no movement; it is not related to all that arises and ceases. It is silent and spacious. Mind objects — sights, sounds, smell, taste, touch, thoughts, and emotions — flow through it. Problems arise because the clarity of the mind gets entangled with sense impressions. By contemplating our own experience, we can make a clear distinction between the mind that knows (citta) and the sense impressions that flow through it. By refusing to get entangled with any sense impressions, we find refuge in that quality of stillness, silence, and spaciousness.  This policy of  non-interference allows everything and is disturbed by nothing.

Ajahn Amaro,  Small Boat

photo Miguel Virkkunen Carvalho

Sunday Quote : Holding things lightly

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File:LarusFishingD.jpg

Coming, going,
the waterbirds
don’t leave a trace,
don’t follow a path.

Dogen, On Non-Dependence of Mind

photo Thermos

Like a therapist

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File:US Navy 060822-N-2832L-128 Navy Lt. Rachel Oden, of Casa Grande, Ariz., a physical therapist plays with a young girl during her first day of physical therapy for her neuromuscular control deficits.jpg

We are trying to develop a different relationship with the mind.  Awareness contributes to the subduing of harmful emotions and this awareness extends to everything, including ourselves. We need to treat ourselves with the same objective distance that a therapist uses for her clients. By subduing the harmful emotions and afflictive states of mind, our aim is to increase our helpful emotions or mental states, like empathy, gentleness, compassion, wisdom, generosity, warmth and so on. The more we become aware of our inner workings, the more adept we become at applying the mental balancing techniques that will offer us true mental health

Karuna Cayton, The Misleading Mind

U.S. Navy photo of physical therapist Rachel Oden

Moving and not moving

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geese

(Practice) ……. is not to be found in moving forwards,

nor in moving backwards,

nor in standing still.

This, Sumedho, is your place of nonabiding.

Ajahn Chah,  Letter to Ajahn Sumedho

On being gentle

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push and pull

The most difficult times for many of us

are the ones we give ourselves

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

False friends

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File:Lobster trap.jpg

The greatest trap in life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection, doubting who we truly are. Success, popularity and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions.

Henri Nouwen