take a second, III

"When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself."

-Shunryu Suzuki

fishee, fishee

[...fishhome...]




This mind is like a fish out of water that thrashes and throws itself about, its thoughts following each of its cravings.

Such a wandering mind is weak and unsteady, attracted here, there and everywhere. How good it is to control it and know the happiness of freedom.

-- Dhammapada

monkey man

Sitting peacefully on a cushion day and night seeking to attain Buddhahood, rejecting life and death in hopes of realizing enlightenment, is all like a monkey grasping at the moon reflected in the water.

-- Shoitsu

take the plunge

Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the Void. They do not know that their own Mind is the Void. The ignorant eschew phenomena but not thought; the wise eschew thought but not phenomena.

-- Huang Po, "Zen Teaching of Huang Po"

east v. west

these seemed to represent two sides to a recognition of impermanence in life:

"Just as vessels made of clay by a potter all have breaking as their end, so is the life of mortals."

-- Sutta Nipata

"Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?"

-- Leo Tolstoy

knowing without knower

"Subhuti asked: "Is perfect wisdom beyond thinking? Is it unimaginable and totally unique but nevertheless reaching the unreachable and attaining the unattainable?"

The Buddha replied: "Yes, Subhuti, it is exactly so. And why is perfect wisdom beyond thinking? It is because all its points of reference cannot be thought about but can be apprehended. One is the disappearance of the self-conscious person into pure presence. Another is the knowing of the essenceless essence of all things in the world. And another is luminous knowledge that knows without a knower. None of these points can sustain ordinary thought because they are not objects or subjects. They can't be imagined or touched or approached in any way by any ordinary mode of consciousness, therefore they are beyond thinking."

-- Prajnaparamita

living dead

"They awaken, always wide awake:
Gotama's disciples
whose mindfulness, both day and night,
is constantly immersed
in the body."

-Dhammapada 299, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

United States vs. George W. Bush et al

"A former federal prosecutor named Elizabeth de la Vega has drafted an indictment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top officials for tricking the nation into war and for conspiracy to defraud the United States."

-- See transcript posted on Democracy Now, December 8, 2006

-- Excerpt from De La Vega's book, United States v. George W. Bush et al., on alternet.org

give peace a chance

"Real peace will arise spontaneously
When your mind becomes free
Of attachments,
When you know that the objects of the world
Can never give you what you really want."

- Theragatha

cart and horse

"Our mind and our delusions are formless and colorless. However, our ignorance believing in true existence is harder than a rocky mountain. Our delusions are harder than steel."

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "The Door to Satisfaction"

And a related one from Rinpoche:

"Happiness and suffering come from your own mind, not from outside. Your own mind is the cause of happiness; your own mind is the cause of suffering. To obtain happiness and pacify suffering, you have to work within your own mind."

fumes of enlightenment

"Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today."


-- Seng-Tsan, “Verses On The Faith Mind”