Friday, January 22, 2010

Get out of your own Way

There’s your cushion: you sit on it, it’s quiet, and it’s all there. That’s all you need, and the rest of it’s gone—whether or not you eat rice or wheat, and whether or not you enjoy the chanting. I like it when it all goes away and it’s quiet.

We just have to notice. We just get out of the way and all the answers are already there. And so the more stripped down it can possibly be, the more I like it.

- Jim Gollin, from "Corporate Takeover " (Summer, 2005)

Monday, January 18, 2010

no easy believing

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."


As quoted in the Kalama Sutra, as translated in The American Buddhist Directory (1985) by Kevin O'Neill, p. 7