Β
Your mind, the primordial Buddha,
Searches elsewhere due to the power of desire.
Doesnβt it notice that it is wandering in samsara?
Now that you have obtained the precious human body,
You continuously get carried away by mundane actions.
Donβt you notice that your life is running out?
June 29, 2024 | Categories: Life, Mind, Time, Zen | Leave a comment
The only way is to enjoy your life. Even though you are practicing zazen, counting your breath like a snail, you can enjoy your life, maybe much better than making a trip to the moon. That is why we practice zazen. The kind of life you have is not so important. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being fooled by things.
June 23, 2024 | Categories: Joy, Life, Zazen, Zen | 1 Comment
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.
June 4, 2024 | Categories: Life, Purpose, Zen | Leave a comment
βThe purpose of having a long life is not just for our own happiness. The purpose of life, every day, every hour, every minute, every second, is to be useful for others, to be beneficial for others, to cause happiness for numberless other sentient beings. Those who are suffering, who need your help and support, who need your compassion, who need your loving kindness, are numberless. Whether it is one sentient being or many, the meaning of life every day is to make our lives beneficial for them. That is the purpose of living.β
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
May 8, 2024 | Categories: Happiness, Life, Purpose, Zen | Leave a comment
After death, our mind doesnβt come to a complete stop – like water drying up or a flame going out. There is continuity. Just as wherever the body goes, the shadow comes along with it – similarly, wherever our mind goes, our karma comes along too. You must have an unshakably firm belief in this.
β Khunu Rinpoche
April 12, 2024 | Categories: Bardo, Death, Life, Zen | Leave a comment
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January 9, 2024 | Categories: Death, Life, Time, Zen | Leave a comment
Modern life is on the fast drive. The sad thing is, it’s not really more efficient just because of that. Everybody’s running, running, running. Itβs like those rodents on a wheel. You’re just endlessly scrambling, scrambling, scrambling, until you fall off, completely exhausted or dead, and you haven’t gotten anywhere. Not really. This is why big organizations like Google and so forth sponsor mindfulness retreats for their employees. It’s not for the sake of the liberation of those poor employees β itβs to keep them from burning out and reduce their stress levels while they’re still on the wheel. We should think about this.During the day, just step back, relax, take a few deep breaths and bring yourself back into the present moment. For each one of us, only we can bring more awareness and clarity into our lives. It’s up to us. No one can do it for us. This doesn’t take time. It just takes attention, awareness, and being more conscious. When we do this, things get done just the same. Yet at the end of it all, you feel that sense of spaciousness, instead of feeling claustrophobic and exhausted. This is the training. We have to train the mind.
As the Buddha said, βLet the wise man tame his mind. A well-tamed mind brings happiness.β So why not have a happy mind?
– Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Jetsunma taking a moment to pause on a bench in Mumbai while a cab drives by in the background (January 2020)
November 17, 2023 | Categories: Happiness, Life, Mind, Relaxation, Stress, Zen | Leave a comment
“I live by letting things happen”
~Dogen
Caro HΓ€mmerli
November 12, 2023 | Categories: Life, Zen | Leave a comment
September 13, 2023 | Categories: Death, Life, Zen | Leave a comment
Β
“When the cast of the dice of my life is exhausted
And the relatives of this world avail me not,
When I wander alone in the Bardo,
Let it come that the Gloom of Ignorance be dispelled.
When the shapes of my own empty thought-forms dawn upon me
May the Buddhas in divine compassion
Cause it to come that there be neither doubt nor terror in the Bardo.
When the bright radiance of the Five Wisdoms shines upon me,
Let it come that I, neither awed nor terrified,
May recognize them to be of myself.”
Β
~Tibetan Book of the Dead
June 20, 2023 | Categories: Bardo, Death, Liberation, Life, Zen | Leave a comment
Always go with the river of life. Never try to go against the current, and never try to go faster than the river. Just move in absolute relaxation, so that each moment you are at home, at ease, at peace with existence.
Osho
Namasteΰ₯ Om
June 18, 2023 | Categories: Life, Peace, Relaxation, Zen | Leave a comment
What is Dhamma? Nothing isnβt.
April 29, 2023 | Categories: Dharma, Life, Zen | Leave a comment
This life passes as quickly as autumn clouds;
Family and friends are like passers-by in a market;
The demon of death approaches like twilight’s shadows;
What the future holds is like a translucent fish in cloudy waters;
Life’s experiences are like last night’s dreams;
The pleasures of the senses, like an imaginary party.
Meaningless activities are like waves
lapping on the surface of the water.
December 13, 2022 | Categories: Death, Life, Samsara, Zen | Leave a comment
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November 8, 2022 | Categories: Impermanence, Life, Zen | Leave a comment
“Many people cannot allow themselves the time to sit and do nothing but breathe. They consider it to be uneconomical or a luxury. People say βtime is money.β But time is much more than money. Time is life. The simple practice of sitting quietly on a regular basis can be profoundly healing. Stopping and sitting is a good way to focus on mindful breathing and nothing else.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Tao & Zen
October 26, 2022 | Categories: Breathing, Life, Time, Zen | Leave a comment
The only way is to enjoy your life. Even though you are practicing zazen, counting your breath like a snail, you can enjoy your life, maybe much better than making a trip to the moon. That is why we practice zazen. The kind of life you have is not so important. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being fooled by things.
September 14, 2022 | Categories: Life, Samsara, Zen | 1 Comment
This body is not me, I am not limited by this body. I am life without boundaries. I have never been born, and I have never died.
Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars, manifestations from my wondrous mind.
Since before time, I have been free. Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey. Birth and death are a game of hide and seek.
So laugh with me, hold my hand, let us say goodbye, say goodbye to meet again soon. We meet today. We will meet again tomorrow. We will meet at the source every moment. We meet each other in all forms of life.
~Thich Nhat Hanh~
May 17, 2020 | Categories: Death, Life, Zen | Leave a comment
Life on the practical level does not contain any subtle philosophy or subtle mystical experience. It just is. If we are able to see that isness, so to speak, then there is a sense of realization. We experience sudden enlightenment. Without a sense of hopelessness, there is no way to give birth to sudden enlightenment. Only giving up our projects brings about the ultimate, definite, positive state of being, which isΒ the realization that we are already enlightened beings here and now.
β ChΓΆgyam Trungpa
from the book “Crazy Wisdom”
May 13, 2020 | Categories: Life, Tibetan Buddhism | Leave a comment
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