If you look for the Buddha outside of your own mind,
the Buddha becomes the devil
Dogen, 1200 – 1253, Buddhist monk, founder of the Soto school of Zen.
Happiness is an inside job
Tag: Present moment
Relax the resistance
There is a saying attributed to Lao-tzu in which he defines a great being as someone who encounters difficulties – but never experiences them.
This is because problems are problems when we’re trying to find an answer to them or when we’re trying to get away from them. Problems are problems as long as we have the idea that there shouldn’t be any. But when problems, difficulties, obstacles and hindrances are taken as food – something that you learn to chew over, digest and take in – they become part of life, rather than something outside attacking you, something to be blamed.
But as long as we think about ourselves as being separate from what happens and from each other, we remain tiny and frightened. Handled wisely, the problem that confronts you, the issue or the person you want to keep out offer opportunities for you to grow larger. Relax the resistance, learn, and you’ll grow.
Ajahn Sucitto
Lift your eyes
How can we ever lose interest in life?
Spring has come again
And cherry trees bloom in the mountains.
Ryokan, 1758 – 1831, Zen monk, hermit and poet
Sunday Quote: listen
I tried to discover, in the sounds of forests and waves, words that others could not hear, and I opened up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.
[Je tâchais de découvrir, dans les bruits des forêts et des flots, des mots que les autres hommes n’entendaient point, et j’ouvrais l’oreille pour écouter la révélation de leur harmonie.]
Flaubert, November
A change of mind
If you really want to escape the things that bother you,
what you’re needing is not to be in a different place
but to be a different person.
Seneca
A pure, flowing river
The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that their minds become like a pure, flowing river that cannot be burned.
No matter what kind of material is thrown into it, it will not burn.
Many experiences – good, bad, and indifferent – are thrown into the flowing river of our lives, but we are not burned, owing to the power of the love in our hearts.
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
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