Nobody said it was easy, to stay in the fire, stay alert, and forebear.
But the alternative is to suffer what is, anyway,
but with no true or reliable relationship with it
Susan Murphy, Upside-Down Zen
Stay Alert
Tag: Present moment
Sunday Quote: The secret
The secret of Zen is just two words: not always so.
[In Japanese it is two words]
Suzuki Roshi
Being aware
How do we accurately evaluate our options and make purposeful decisions when we are so powerfully influenced by our past? Our capacity to be here, now, is always highly problematic.
Holding on to consciousness when history floods us is one of the most difficult things we ever do. And achieving it now is no guarantee that we can do the same tomorrow. Only the sustained effort to remain conscious simultaneously of our own unique journey and the earlier, blocking paradigm, brings the possibility of mature choice.
James Hollis, The Eden Project
Resting kindly
Where is our comfort but in the free, uninvolved, finally mysterious beauty and grace of this world, that we did not make, that has no price?
Where is our sanity but there?
Where is our pleasure but in working and resting kindly in the presence of this world?
Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace
Ingrained filters
Out of nowhere, the mind comes forth.
The Diamond Sutra
Working with this koan alters how I might meet the world in two ways. In one twist, it opens life up in a way where I can’t expect anything to happen outside of the now, and in another, the koan takes my attention to my thoughts and opinions about what I come into contact with each moment. …
The fact that I take mundane shrubs, trees, stray cats, and rain squalls for granted or even consider them to be inconvenient nuisances is something the koan quietly forces me to examine more closely. What would life be like without these images, moments, and experiences? Do I create an inner world in which only some of what is present makes it through my ingrained mental filters? If yes, what would happen if I deconstructed these borders and removed them? Maybe everything that graces my life has a subtle extraordinariness and that allowing this connection to blossom on its own is a practice that takes place naturally when I just begin to notice.
Don Dianda, commentary on Zen koans in the Huffington Post
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Sometimes it is better, when we we feel groundless and uncertain, to resist the drive to make a situation right or wrong, and instead to trust in an underlying flow.
Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.
There are already enough names.
One must know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop averts trouble.
All things end in the Tao, like a river flowing home to the sea.
Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, 32
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