Buddhist Thought of the Day

[Ngokpa]

9/10/06

Though not a Zen monk, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Japan’s greatest poet and one of the great lyric poets in any language, elevated the haiku form to the level of art and infused it with the spirit of Zen and the Tao. “Learn the rules well, and then forget them,” he advised his students. He also told them: “Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in so doing you must let go of your subjective preoccupation with yourself…. Your poetry arises by itself when you and the object have become one.”

Basho revered nature, children, the moon. He found the universe in the smallest detail, which he saw with the innocent eye of a child, and spent his later years on often lonely pilgrimages across Japan. “Old Pond,” his best-known haiku, has been interpreted as a kind of koan, the frog disclosing the final meaning of reality:

Old pond,
frog jumps in—
plop.

From The Little Zen Companion, by David Schiller

[Ngokpa]

9/11/06

In our community, every time we hear a bell, we stop--we stop our thinking, we stop our conversation, we stop our work, and we begin breathing--an inbreath, then an outbreath--and it is the same thing whether it is the telephone ringing or the clock chiming. In this way we have lots of opportunities to return to ourselves, to our true home, here and now, to touch peace. And what we are stopping, in order to be able to be alive, is our thinking. When you contemplate the full moon, if you are thinking then the full moon is not there and you are not there either. This is because thinking prevents us from living deeply in the present moment in our everyday life. When you are drinking water, drink water, drink only water. That is meditation. You must not drink other things, such as your worries, your plans--wandering around in the realm of your thoughts. Thinking prevents us from touching life deeply. I think, therefore I am really not there.

From True Love, by Thich Nhat Hanh

[Ngokpa]

9/12/06

The following real story happened in Godwin Samararatne's retreat center in Nilambe, Sri Lanka. Godwin had talked on generosity, about giving away what we find precious. One of the retreatants had bought herself one luxury at Harrods in London for this rather rigorous retreat: a beige cashmere stole. Morning after morning as she sat in her kuti (meditation hut) during the monsoon, she saw a little stick woman aged about seventy years, a tea picker, shivering in her traditional cotton dress. She had to give her the stole. Then morning after morning she saw the stole, not around the shoulders but on top of the head of this tea picker, folded like a pancake. Next thing she saw her washing the precious cashmere stole in the river, beating it on the rocks!

What a lesson in learning to let go!

From Living, Dreaming Dying, by Rob Nairn

[Ngokpa]

LAST DAYS

Things are
changing; things are starting to
spin, snap, fly off into
the blue sleeve of the long
afternoon. Oh and ooh
come whistling out of the perished mouth
of the grass, as things
turn soft, boil back
into substance and hue. As everything,
forgetting its own enchantment, whispers:
I too love obliveon why not it is full
of second chances. Now,
hiss the bright curls of the leaves. Now!
booms the muscle of the wind.

--From Twelve Moons, by Mary Oliver

[Ngokpa]

Better than a thousand hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.

Better than a thousand hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.

Better than a hundred hollow lines
Is one line of the law, bringing peace.

It is better to conquer yourself
Than to win a thousand battles.

Then the victory is yours.

It cannot be taken from you,
Not by angels or by demons,
Heaven or hell.

Better than a hundred years of worship,
Better than a thousand offerings,
Better than giving up a thousand worldly ways
In order to win merit,
Better even than tending in the forest
A sacred flame for a hundred years--
Is one moment's reverence
For the man who has conquered himself.

To revere such a man,
A master old in virtue and holiness,
Is to have victory over life itself,
And beauty, strength and happiness.

Better than a hundred years of mischief
Is one day spent in contemplation.
Better than a hundred years of ignorance
Is one day spent in reflection.

Better than a hundred years of idleness
Is one day spent in determination.

Better to live one day
Wondering
How all things arise and pass away.

Better to live one hour
Seeing
The one life beyond the way.

Better to live one moment
In the moment
Of the way beyond the way.

--From the Dhammapada (Shambhala Pocket Classics)

[Ngokpa]

9/15/06

Nothing in the world
Is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
Nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.

Therefore the Master remains
serene in the midst of sorrow.
Evil cannot enter his heart.
Because he has given up helping,
he is people's greatest help.

True words seem paradoxical.

--From the Tao Te Ching, Steven Mitchell translation

[Ngokpa]

9/16/06

THE HEAVEN THAT'S ALREADY HERE

Just watch children playing.
Eat vegetable soup instead of duck stew.
Matsuo Basho's advice to poets

It is natural to look for the things you want outside of where you are now. That is the whole point of a journey. Yet this moment is all anyone has. So if freedom, love, beauty, grace, and whatever else is desirable are to appear, they must appear in a now. It would be nice if they appeared in the now you have now. And if they are to appear and endure they will have to be found in ordinary circumstances, since ordinary circumstances fill most of life. The marvelous, the lovely, will have to be right here in the room where someone is reading, someone is sick, someone is coughing, two people are making love, or a man is yelling at a dog. It will have to appear in the sound of rain splashing off trees, of a truck laboring up a grade, of TV from another room. It will have to appear in the sight of a child running, in the feeling of a headache, in the anxiety of preparing for exams, in worrying over a sick child. It will have to appear in what is ordinary, usual, commonplace, and right under your nose....

From Bring Me The Rhinoceros, by John Tarrant

[Ngokpa]

9/17/06

Let us make a beginning. Let us take a group of ten friends--that group of ten must start with one. Without one there would be no two, no three, no four. So start with just one of us. Now, how will A communicate to B, and how will A understand the A-ness of himself, say, before he has any idea of B? This is the real problem. This is the problem of communication. Now we have a tremendous problem of communication. In Buddhist terminology, this is called duality.

There is a tremendously thick wall built between us, between you and me, each of us like animals in a zoo. All of us are in cages. There is a monkey from China here, and a gorilla from Africa next door. Somehow we have to remove the bars. But if we are going to remove the bars, then we have to develop some kind of strength within us. This is what is really lacking. The whole trouble stems from here. And this strength comes from faith, real faithl. Faith is quite different from pride or being self-centered. This faith comes from a willingness to open out.

From "The New Age," by Chogyam Trungpa, published in 1969 and reprinted in the 3/04 Shambhala Sun

[Ngokpa]

A well-known Japanese Rinzai Zen master dropped by Sokoji to meet Suzuki Roshi. After they chanted a sutra together, the visiting priest asked to see a sutra book on the altar. He looked at it, then suddenly exploded, stamping his foot on the floor, and shouting, "This is not Zen!" He tore the book in two and threw it on the floor.

Suzuki squatted down and picked up the pieces. "Oh, this sutra book was donated to the temple when there was a memorial service for an old woman from a different sect," he said. "We accept everything here. We chant everything. We eat everything." For a moment the guest still looked angry. Then Suzuki said, "Let's go have some tea." A friendship began that continued as long as they were both alive.

From To Shine In One Corner of the World

[Ngokpa]

In the Buddhist teachings, the messy emotional stuff is called klesha, which means poison. There are three main poisons: passion, aggression, and ignorance. We could talk about these in different ways--for example, we could also call them craving, aversion, and couldn't care less. Addictions of all kinds come under the category of craving, which is wanting, wanting, wanting--feeling that we have to have some kind of resolution. Aversion encompasses violence, rage, hatred, and negativity of all kinds, as well as garden-variety irritation. And ignorance? Nowadays, it's usually called denial.

The three poisons are always trapping you in one way or another, imprisoning you and making your world really small. When you feel craving, you could be sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon, but all you can see is this piece of chocolate cake that you're craving. With aversion, you're sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and all you can hear is the angry words you said to someone ten years ago. With ignorance, you're sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon with a paper bag over your head. Each of the three poisons has the power to capture you so completely that you don't perceive what's in front of you.

The pith instruction is, whatever you do, don't try to make the poisons go away. When you're trying to make them go away, you're losing your wealth along with your neurosis. The irony is that what we most want to avoid in our lives is crucial to awakening bodhichitta. These juicy emotional spots are where a warrior gains wisdom and compassion. Of course, we'll want to get out of those spots far more often than we'll want to stay. That's why self-compassion and courage are vital. Without loving-kindness, staying with pain is just warfare.

From Comfortable With Uncertainty, by Pema Chodron

[Ngokpa]

It's said that during the Second World War the emperor of Japan decreed that all Japanese should support the war effort. Some people refused, and a number were tortured to force them to comply. Among these was a Zen monk.

The monk was subjected to water torture. He was strapped to a bed with his head clamped so that movement was impossible. Water was dripped at steady intervals onto his forehead. Most people can bear this for a little while, but after some time they go mad or will do anything that is asked of them.

The monk lay there without any apparent distress. At length the torturers gave up and he went his way.

Many years later he was walking down a street in Tokyo when a stranger stopped him.

"Excuse me, sir, but were you not subjected to the water torture during the war?"

"Yes," said the monk, "I was."

"Well, I was the one who tortured you, and I have never forgotten you, because of all the people who were subjected to the torture, you were the only one who seemed unaffected by it. How did you do it?"

The monk reflected for a moment.

"Ah, now I remember. Every drop was the first drop!"

--From Living, Dreaming, Dying, by Rob Nairn

[Ngokpa]

...unless doctrine is studied skillfully, it can mislead us into thinking we know something, and that is a deadly state of mind. There is a story that illustrates this, which comes from Eastern Europe. It is about an old Hassid rabbi who would cross the village square every morning on his way to the temple to pray. One morning, a large Cossack soldier, who happened to be in a vile mood, accosted him, saying, "Hey Rebby, where are you going?"

And the rabbi said, "I don't know."

This infuriated the Cossack. "What do you mean, you don't know? Every morning for twenty-five years you've crossed the village square and gone to the temple to pray. Don't fool with me. Who are you, telling me you don't know?"

He grabbed the old rabbi by the coat and dragged him off to jail. Just as he was about to push him into the cell, the rabbi turned to him, saying, "You see, I didn't know."

--Joseph Goldstein, in Speaking of Silence

[Ngokpa]

Beginning meditators frequently come up with the following remarks and questions.

Oh, I couldn't get rid of that feeling. Mindfulness is not about getting rid of feelings.

I couldn't get rid of that thought. It is not about getting rid of thoughts.

I couldn't make my mind go blank. It is not about making the mind go blank.

I couldn't empty my mind. It is not about emptying the mind.

This is what's so difficult for us to understand. Mindfulness is not about doing anything to the mind we observe. We leave that mind as it is. We do not intervene or interfere in any way. It's like sitting beside a river, watching the water flow by. We don't jump in, we don't throw things into it, we don't build a dam. We don't do anything. We simply observe the river flowing and let it go by.

From Living, Dreaming, Dying, by Rob Nairn
9/22/06

[indigo]

I love your thread, thank you.

indigo

[Ngokpa]

As a motivation for living our lives, "Have a nice day" is very confining. It keeps us trapped in dissatisfaction, self-involvement, and fear. We feel defensive and claustrophobic. We are running on speed, need, and greed. And we are often moving so quickly that we don't even notice that we have a motivation. That sense of oppression is maintained by our bewildered, untrained mind. It's all-pervasive, deep, as if we're dreaming. This is suffering.

There is a different approach to our lives. We can wake up to our enlightened qualities: unconditional love and compassion; uninhibited, total ease with ourselves; a clear and sharp mind. In order to open our courageous warrior heart, however, we first have to understand the nature of our bewilderment. What's going on in samsara, this cyclical existence that entraps us? From the Buddhist point of view, we've created our own situation. We're operating out of a basic and habitual misunderstanding. Even though we're dreaming, we think we're real. No matter what we do to hold ourselves together, the truth is we're always falling apart. As soon as we wash our car, it rains. So what are we going to do about it? The Buddha suggests that rather than resist samsara, complain about it, or keep trying to outsmart it, we take a good long look and say, "Let's figure out what's happening here."

From Turning the Mind into an Ally, by Sakyong Mipham

[Ngokpa]

People often ask, "How do I let go? I know I'm holding on, but how do I let go?" I would reply, "If you were holding a hot burning coal in your hand, would you be asking how to let go?" You would drop it because you would be aware of the suffering involved. As we pay attention to our experience in a precise and accurate way, we see and experience the suffering of attachment. By being attached to what is changing, we create our own suffering. Having that awareness, letting go takes place naturally.

Joseph Goldstein, in Speaking of Silence

[Ngokpa]

Some people rebel against the First Noble Truth. "Everything's not suffering! That's a negative view of the world." And, of course, it's true that the world is filled with delights. But the Buddha saw that even in our moments of triumph and joy there remains a grasping toward more. My favorite example of this is the traditional commercial at the end of the Super Bowl, where the newly chosen MVP is asked, "What are you going to do now?" And this man, who has just reached the pinnacle of his profession, turns to the camera and says, "I'm going to Disneyland." For me, this sums up dukka: you've got it all but you want more, and since you've got everything possible in the real world, the only place left to go is to a fantasy world, a place where dreams are made.

--From One Breath At A Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps, by Kevin Griffin

[Ngokpa]

There is no battle between good and evil, positive and negative; there is only the care given by the big brother to the little brother. In Buddhist meditation, we observe, we act in a nondualistic fashion, and thus the waste materials of the conscious mind can always be transformed into flowers of compassion, love, and peace. Our consciousness is a living thing, something organic in nature. There are always waste materials and flowers in us. The gardener who is familiar with organic gardening is constantly on the alert to save the waste materials because he knows how to transform them into compost and then transform that compost into flowers and vegetables. So be grateful for your pains, be grateful for suffering--you will need them.

--from True Love, by Thich Nhat Hanh

[Ngokpa]

We cannot be in the present moment and run our story lines at the same time. Experiment with this for yourself, and watch how it changes you. Impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage. And so does fear. In fact, anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present, without a reference point, experiences groundlessness. That's when our understanding goes deeper, when we find that the present moment is a pretty vulnerable place and that this can be completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.

What we're talking about is getting to know fear, becoming familiar with fear, looking it right in the eye--not as a way to solve problems, but as a complete undoing of old ways of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and thinking. The truth is taht when we really begin to do this, we're going to be continually humled. Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.

--From Comfortable With Uncertainty, by Pema Chodren

[Ngokpa]

To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough! And then no money, or a little money, or less money, or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don't have money it is the money that counts, and money makes money, but what makes money make money?

--From Tropic of Capricorn, by Henry Miller

[Ngokpa]

I remember something His Holiness Dilgo Khyentzse once told me. I used to be very wild, and sometimes people would report my actions to him in hope that he would scold me and discipline me. But instead, he would tell me who it was who told on me and would make a game of it. He used to say, "Don't worry. You must remember that whenever there is one person out there who doesn't like you or who thinks you are crazy, there will be a hundred people who are going to like you. And similarly, whenever there is one person who likes you, you shouldn't get too excited about it, because there will be a hundred people who can't stand you." So liking and disliking are completely irrelevant.

--Dzongsar Khytense Rinpoche in In The Presence of Masters, by Reginald A. Ray

[Ngokpa]

Fishes are born in water
Man is born in Tao.
If fishes, born in water,
Seek the deep shadow
Of pond and pool,
All their needs
Are satisfied.
If man, born in Tao,
Sinks into the deep shadow
Of non-action
To forget aggression and concern,
He lacks nothing
His life is secure.

Moral: "All the fish needs
Is to get lost in water.
All man needs is to get lost
In Tao."

--From The Way of Chuang Tzu, by Thomas Merton

[Ngokpa]

Confined in the dark, narrow cage of our own making which we take for the whole universe, very few of us can even begin to imagine another dimension of reality. Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit.

"Where do you come from?" asked the frog in the well.

"From the great ocean," he replied.

"How big is your ocean?"

"It's gigantic."

"You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?"

"Bigger."

"Bigger? You mean half as big?"

"No, even bigger."

"Is it . . . as big as this well?"

"There's no comparison."

"That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself."

They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces.

--From The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche

[Ngokpa]

Some people find the teachings I offer helpful because I encourage them to be kind to themselves--but this does not mean pampering our neurosis. The kindness that I learned from my teachers, and that I wish to convey to other people, is kindness toward all qualities of our being. The qualities that are the toughest to be kind to are the painful parts, where we feel ashamed, as if we don't belong, as if we've just blown it, when things are falling apart for us. Maitri means sticking with ourselves when we don't have anything, when we feel like a loser. And it becomes the basis for extending the same unconditional friendliness to others.

--From Practicing Peace in Times of War, by Pema Chodron

[Ngokpa]

One of the great rules of the heart, one of the great laws of spiritual life, is that no matter what else happens never put anyone out of your heart. Take whatever action is necessary to protect yourself and others from someone acting dangerously, put people in jail if you must, but don't put them out of your heart. There are times when we have all acted out of tremendous confusion, pain, and fear and have thereby created further confusion and pain. Is it our role to judge others in the world? Perhaps a wiser role is to bring the spirit of love, peace, and understanding into the very midst of confusion and pain.

As you read, reflect on the feelings of judgement and self-righteousness that arise in you, as in all of us. How do they feel, how do we actually experience them? Are they pleasant? Do they have a quality of wisdom or truth to them? Or is fear associated with them? Do they leave us more separate, more isolated or frightened? Reflect on their opposite. Remember the moments of forgiveness or understanding, the empathy with another's confusion and struggle that is so much like our own. How do you wish to be treated when you have made a mistake?

--From Soul Food, by Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman