If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view.
If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.
Norman Fischer, Beyond Language
Sunday Quote: free
Tag: Present moment
Continual practice
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
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
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
Missing most of life
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
To give room
The pattern of things….is there from the start. Who you are is there from the beginning. Your task in life is to discern that pattern, listen for it, and give room for it to emerge. More commonly, though, we are all too busy trying to make things happen – to make ourselves happen. We may push and shove through most of a lifetime before realizing that another voice is whispering beneath the fret of our efforts and strategies.
Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Change Your Life
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