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Posts tagged with "Zen"
In Summer & Winter, Dress & Eat
Nov. 27 | No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.– Alan Watts The greater part of Zen literature consists of mondo, of brief dialogues between masters and pupils, which illustrate its peculiar method of instruction,...
Arrange Things Simply To Simplify Your Mind
Nov. 6 | When getting what needed, you only need to get what is good enough, and it is good enough. – Shilashanti The relationship between the mind and the body is like that between the chicken and the egg. If you cultivate a simplified mindset, your body, too,...
Eat Clean With Your Whole Heart
Oct. 30 | Consume mindfully with compassion and wisdom or consume mindlessly with greed and delusion. – Shilashanti Do not neglect your meals: Make your meals about the eating When you eat, are you focused on the act of eating? Breakfast is something you race...
A Stoic’s Daily Zen-like Self-Review
Jul. 24 | Our spiritual health demands that we let go of anger, or else it will never let go of us. – Seneca Seneca, to judge by his self-presentation in his writings, was a self-reflective and inward-looking man. He describes, in one of the passages...
‘Spider-man: Homecoming’ To Buddha-Nature?
Apr. 10 | Some say ‘clothes maketh the man’. There is some truth in this, but only to some extent. The idea is that how well you dress can somehow lead to how well you succeed. It is a little like the concept of ‘fake it till you make it’...
A Zen Master’s 3 Lessons
Oct. 25 | If you think you are either superior or inferior to someone, an invisible wall goes up between you. Treat him like an old friend you haven’t seen in a while. When you let your guard down, so will he. – Haemin Sunim I heard a story from Korea…...
The Glass Is Already Broken
Oct. 4 | [Mis]fortune falls heavily on those for whom she’s unexpected. The one always on the lookout easily endures. – Seneca (On Consolations To Helvia, 5.3) There is a story of a Zen Master who has a beautiful prized cup. The master would repeat to...
The Obstacle Is The Way
Jul. 26 | The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. – Marcus Aurelius (Meditations) There is an old Zen story about a king whose people had grown soft and entitled. Dissatisfied with this state of affairs, he hoped to teach...
The Hitter And The Hit
Jul. 4 | Practise to be as deliberate as you can now, so that you can be as free as you can later. – Shilashanti In the case of archery, the hitter and the hit are no longer two opposing objects, but one reality… Zen is the ‘everyday mind’;...
‘Justice League’ On Bodhisattva Heroism
Jan. 24 | When Commissioner Gordon asked, ‘How many of you (i.e. heroes) are there (in the Justice League to be)?’, Batman replied with ‘Not enough!’ How many then, are enough? When everyone of us become heroic in nature, with none of...
Do Not Be A Wild Fox Zen ‘Master’!
May. 6 | 学说之误人， 只在最初几希之间。 其后之结果， 则无法可收拾矣。 – 净土宗十三祖印光大师 (复谢慧霖居士书十六) Those saying theoretical teachings that mislead others, only, in the beginning, [do not take]...
Why A Monk Shattered His One Precious Bowl
Feb. 24 | 若人欲拿金碧峰， 除非铁鍊锁虛空， 虛空若能锁得住， 再來拿我金碧峰。 – 金碧峰禅师 If one desires to seize Jin Bifeng, unless able to use metal chains to lock empty space, [and] if empty space is able to be locked...
The ‘Go Drink Tea’ Koan (‘吃茶去’的公案)
Jan. 19 | 何为禅？ 何非禅？ 何须问？ 吃茶去！ What is Zen? What is not Zen? Why need ask? Go drink tea! 《赵州禅师语录》: 师问二新到：’上座曾到此间否？’ 云：’不曾到。’ 师云：’吃茶去。’ From...
Just Do The Needed Now
Jul. 1 | Just do the needed now, but be sure it is truly what is needed now. – Stonepeace | Books A student was on Mount Tiantong in China, studying Chan [Chinese Zen], when one day he encountered an old monk who was working as chief cook. It was midsummer,...
