buddha

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Sitting

Tao&Zen3

Sitting with grief does not seem to lend itself to a meditative calm. Perhaps the Practice needs be so second nature that it—the Something that reaches out to soothe, to comfort, is summoned then and there. Or perhaps it is the message that even grief, in its own justification for being, is something that feeds the ego. The ego of self.

explorLifAndPracSpirituality

Posted by Tao and Zen

When the walking is difficult we sit. When the sitting is difficult we lie down in our beds. When that cannot be done, it no longer matters.

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Today’s Birthday

Again late, my friends. Apparently I am only able to acknowledge birthdays a day past. Nonetheless, here it is.

Gary Snyder…sometimes called the poet of the earth. Some of his poems transcend, may cause an altered state. A caution might precede the poetry: warning, may cause thinking, even loving.

Beat hero, steward of the earth, Zen Buddhist—in his mid-eighties, poet Gary Snyder looks back on an honorable life at the leading edge.

Gary Snyder. Photo by Festival of Faiths.

Gary Snyder. Photo by Festival of Faiths. In Lion’s Roar Buddhist Magazine

I want to share a GS poem with you. Here’s one.

My home was at Cold Mountain from the start,
Rambling among the hills, far from trouble.

Gone, and a million things leave no trace
Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies
A fountain of light, into the very mind—
Not a thing, and yet it appears before me;
Now I know the pearl of the Buddha-nature
Know its use: a boundless perfect sphere.

 

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Depression

It’s not always what it seems, this depression thing. It’s a matter of yes but then you’re not talking about what is called “clinical depression,” or the big D. Lao is the man, as is Buddha, as is the Tao for the get-up-in-the-morning-and-sing variety of depression.

But the decent into the Great Blackness—which is a very different color of Black—that’s something else entirely. When your mind takes hold of itself into a grip with an iron fist that repeats words and phrases and threats and obscenities that are more than a word like Torture can convey, that’s Depression. Imagine buried alive in a coffin of darkness. Imagine a jail filled with horrors beyond Bosch. When the only way out is to silence the thought-hell entirely, that’s Depression.

Whatever. When not there you do not want to conjure it. It’s the film-flam of the Devil. So until then, Lao Tzu will do. Until then, this works.

quantamWorld

Posted by Quantum World 

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Trying to Sit

When sitting becomes healing you cannot sit to heal

As Buddha said, “When, for you, in the thought is just the thought, then you shall be free…”