Tag: Meditation

In the ordinary

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pots_pans
One of the monks asked a renowned Forest Ajahn: ‘What’s it like to see things as they really are?’ There was an understandable air of expectation in the room: to ‘see things as they really are’  is the vision of the Awakened Mind. What mystical insight was about to be revealed?

‘It’s ordinary’, said the Ajahn in his customary succinct and matter-of-fact way.

Ajahn Sucitto, Awakening: Nameless and Stopped

A work of art

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File:Monet - Seerosen 1906.jpg

I would say to young people a number of things. Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can do — every one — our share to redeem the world despite of all absurdities and all the frustration and all disappointments. And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live life as it if were a work of art. You’re not a machine. When you are young, start working on this great work of art called your own existence.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Step by step

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We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

Heartfulness

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File:The pure clean spring water of Lowthorpe Beck - geograph.org.uk - 222624.jpg
“How cruel the whites are: their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by holes. Their eyes have a staring expression. They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something, they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want, we do not understand them, we think that they are mad.”
I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.
“They say they think with their heads,” he replied.
“Why, of course. What do you think with?” I asked him in surprise.
“We think here,” he said, indicating his heart”.
C. G. Jung,  Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Conversation with Ochwiay Biano, an elder of the Taos Pueblo Tribe, New Mexico, 1925

Becoming the observer

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Movie hobbies
The reason we often can’t see the true nature of things is thatwe’re involved with them too subjectively and are afraid of whatthey might reveal about our egos. But if we step back from these phenomena, they become not so much ‘my story’ as just ‘a story’. It’s similar to watching a movie that’s extremely enjoyable – when it ends you can say, ‘Well, that’s not my story. That’s not me.’ You may have been taken through all kinds of impassioned human emotions (if the film is really good), but then you can go peacefully back to your own ordinary life.
Ajahn Thiradhammo, Contemplations on the Seven Factors of Awakening

Beyond duality

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File:Downy Birch, Priory Park - geograph.org.uk - 1291964.jpg

In our actual experience of life, our life is not plural, not only plural, but also singular. Each one of us are independent and dependent. We…after some years we will die. That will be the end of our life but if we think that is our end of life, that is wrong understanding.  And if we think we do  not die, that is also wrong understanding: we die and we do not die and that is right understanding.

Suzuki Roshi, Lecture on posture

photo Ian Capper