Daily Words of the Buddha
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One who, while himself seeking happiness,
does not oppress with violence other beings
who also desire happiness,
will find happiness hereafter.
Dhammapada 132
Saturday, November 30, 2002
great fuzzy churn
I have a reconditioned mind. I will hang around at the keyboard to see what it turns up. I now have total faith in ‘my’ ability to create something to occupy the attention centre. There is thus no need to fear boredom. The mind’s ability to lock on to issues and activities is totally dependable.
The mind conjures up topics for attention - endlessly. If the external environment (as internally interpreted) does not appear to have much to offer, then the internal environment (as if there was anything else!) is a bottomless pit of images, emotions and story lines.
Daydreaming is like channel hopping on the telly except that (a) there is no telly and (b) there are no channels. The rational brain tries to set up dualities and construct categories and preferences but, in reality, one thing slides into another in that great, fuzzy churn which is the flux as interpreted by my reconditioned mind.
I have a reconditioned mind. I will hang around at the keyboard to see what it turns up. I now have total faith in ‘my’ ability to create something to occupy the attention centre. There is thus no need to fear boredom. The mind’s ability to lock on to issues and activities is totally dependable.
The mind conjures up topics for attention - endlessly. If the external environment (as internally interpreted) does not appear to have much to offer, then the internal environment (as if there was anything else!) is a bottomless pit of images, emotions and story lines.
Daydreaming is like channel hopping on the telly except that (a) there is no telly and (b) there are no channels. The rational brain tries to set up dualities and construct categories and preferences but, in reality, one thing slides into another in that great, fuzzy churn which is the flux as interpreted by my reconditioned mind.
Friday, November 29, 2002
meditation-against-terrorism
I put the phrase into Google and this is what turned up - power to the elbow of our Himalaya brothers
I put the phrase into Google and this is what turned up - power to the elbow of our Himalaya brothers
Thursday, November 28, 2002
Places the United States has Bombed
So many places, so much violence. What goes on in the heads of people who make these things happen?
So many places, so much violence. What goes on in the heads of people who make these things happen?
Thich Nhat Hanh at Plum Village
A Vietnamese buddhist master and social activist who writes simply and clearly
A Vietnamese buddhist master and social activist who writes simply and clearly
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Fat and sunburn
Exchange the boring old, business as usual mind for the deluxe version that is hiding behind your curtain - Tantra according to the late (and reincarnated?) Lama Yeshe
Exchange the boring old, business as usual mind for the deluxe version that is hiding behind your curtain - Tantra according to the late (and reincarnated?) Lama Yeshe
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
The Communication Initiative - theories - Buddhist Concept of Communication
"In the Aristotelian [Western] notion of communication the idea of manipulation is central. In the Buddhist model, however, the notions of sharing and mutuality are important."
"In the Aristotelian [Western] notion of communication the idea of manipulation is central. In the Buddhist model, however, the notions of sharing and mutuality are important."
Monday, November 25, 2002
Spiritual lion or ordinary goat
“The primary concern of Indian Philosophy has always been a radical changing of man’s nature and, therewith, a renovation of his understanding both of the outer world and of his own existence; a change as complete as possible, such as will amount, when successful, to a total conversion or rebirth.”
“The primary concern of Indian Philosophy has always been a radical changing of man’s nature and, therewith, a renovation of his understanding both of the outer world and of his own existence; a change as complete as possible, such as will amount, when successful, to a total conversion or rebirth.”
"Man's Work" for Lama Osel
"From the age of 19 months, when he was identified as the reincarnation of a Tibetan lama, Osel Hita Tores has lived like no other child. Transported from a Spanish village to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in India, he is now, at age 11, the subject of what is described as 'potentially the most exciting experiment in education, done anywhere, at any time.' "
"From the age of 19 months, when he was identified as the reincarnation of a Tibetan lama, Osel Hita Tores has lived like no other child. Transported from a Spanish village to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in India, he is now, at age 11, the subject of what is described as 'potentially the most exciting experiment in education, done anywhere, at any time.' "
More valuable than the Dalai Lama?
"Environmentalists and left-leaning economists have been tryin to get
people interested in sustainable development for nearly two decades, and
now they're getting a new breath of life from Columbia University, says
the Wall Street Journal, reporting that Columbia has disclosed that it is
housing its new star economist, Jeffrey Sachs, in an $8 million townhouse
near Central Park West in Manhattan, which will double as a place where
Sachs can entertain world dignitaries to push his wide-ranging views about
the environment, infectious disease and Third-World poverty."
"Environmentalists and left-leaning economists have been tryin to get
people interested in sustainable development for nearly two decades, and
now they're getting a new breath of life from Columbia University, says
the Wall Street Journal, reporting that Columbia has disclosed that it is
housing its new star economist, Jeffrey Sachs, in an $8 million townhouse
near Central Park West in Manhattan, which will double as a place where
Sachs can entertain world dignitaries to push his wide-ranging views about
the environment, infectious disease and Third-World poverty."
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Dalai Lama's speech after being awared the Nobel Peace Prize
"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. True peace with oneself and with the world around us can only be achieved through the development of mental peace. The other phenomena mentioned above are similarly interrelated. Thus, for example, we see that a clean environment, wealth or democracy mean little in the face of war, especially nuclear war, and that material development is not sufficient to ensure human happiness."
Meditation - audio teachings
Fast loading bits of chat from the guru lady from Singapore who sounds as if she learned English in Boston.
Fast loading bits of chat from the guru lady from Singapore who sounds as if she learned English in Boston.
Taming the Monkey Mind
"The title of the book, Taming the Monkey Mind, was inspired by Lama Yeshe, one of my teachers. He often compared our minds to monkeys: just as monkeys play with an object for a few moments and leave it in boredom and dissatisfaction to look for another thing to amuse them, so too do we run from thought to thought, emotion to emotion, place to place, trying to find some lasting happiness. Always searching for happiness outside ourselves, we overlook the real cause of happiness and unhappiness: our minds. Through taming our monkey minds, we can contact our inner beauty and human potential. This book gives an inkling how this is done."
Ven. Thubten Chodron
"The title of the book, Taming the Monkey Mind, was inspired by Lama Yeshe, one of my teachers. He often compared our minds to monkeys: just as monkeys play with an object for a few moments and leave it in boredom and dissatisfaction to look for another thing to amuse them, so too do we run from thought to thought, emotion to emotion, place to place, trying to find some lasting happiness. Always searching for happiness outside ourselves, we overlook the real cause of happiness and unhappiness: our minds. Through taming our monkey minds, we can contact our inner beauty and human potential. This book gives an inkling how this is done."
Ven. Thubten Chodron
Another explanation of how to sit Zazen
"During zazen, thoughts, conscious and subconscious, naturally and continuously rise to the surface of our mind. Don't try to stop these thoughts from arising. But at the same time, don't get involved with the thoughts or let them take you away from concentration on posture and breathing. Just let the thoughts pass, like clouds in the sky, neither opposing them nor attaching to them. Shadows pass and vanish. Images arise from the subconscious, then disappear. The brain becomes deeply calm. One arrives at the deep unconscious, beyond thought, to hishiryo consciousness, true purity.
Hishiryo is the unconscious of Zen--universal mind. In Japanese, shiryo is thinking, fushiryo non-thinking. But hishiryo is absolute thinking, beyond thinking and non-thinking. Beyond categories, opposites, contradictions. Beyond all problems of personal consciousness. Our original nature, Buddha nature, the Cosmic unconscious."
"During zazen, thoughts, conscious and subconscious, naturally and continuously rise to the surface of our mind. Don't try to stop these thoughts from arising. But at the same time, don't get involved with the thoughts or let them take you away from concentration on posture and breathing. Just let the thoughts pass, like clouds in the sky, neither opposing them nor attaching to them. Shadows pass and vanish. Images arise from the subconscious, then disappear. The brain becomes deeply calm. One arrives at the deep unconscious, beyond thought, to hishiryo consciousness, true purity.
Hishiryo is the unconscious of Zen--universal mind. In Japanese, shiryo is thinking, fushiryo non-thinking. But hishiryo is absolute thinking, beyond thinking and non-thinking. Beyond categories, opposites, contradictions. Beyond all problems of personal consciousness. Our original nature, Buddha nature, the Cosmic unconscious."
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