buddhism

There was something important being overlooked, they argued, in the mainstreaming of meditation - a central plank in the Buddhist platform: compassion.

For many of us, especially being so fortunate to live in a first-world country, the vast majority of pain we experience is due to the seriousness with which we identify with our thoughts.

Nearly all samurai practice Zen - it is the Way of Enlightenment." "Possibly the light of Zen is so strong that it has blinded me to its virtue." Yoshitoki smiled. "It is very good discipline for the mind, as the martial arts are for the body." Kenmotsu looked very smug as he said this. "I do Zazen twice a week." "I think it will do no-one any harm, though personally I find it more pleasant to think than to empty my mind of thought.

Lelia gave a dharma talk about letting go of self-definition: I can't do this because of what happened to me in my childhood; I can't do that because I am very shy; I could never go there because I'm afraid of clowns or mushrooms or polar bears. The group gave a gentle, collective laugh of self-recognition. Teresa found the talk helpful, as she had been having an extended interior dialogue during meditation about how septuagenarians from Torrance were fundamentally unsuited for Buddhism.

There will be times, for example, when you feel you are faking it. However hard you try genuinely to practice, it just doesn't feel right. And on the rare occasions it does feel authentic, the sensation is over almost before it began. So, try to be content with your practice, whatever it feels like, even when you are doing little more than paying it lip service, because at least you are making an effort.

Heaven is the natural spaciousness of our mind before we make it small with self-protection.

Meditation can be a refuge, but it is not a practice in which real life is ever excluded. The strength of mindfulness is that it enables us to hold difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way__ith awareness, balance, and love

The mind is a useful tool but not a very good friend.

Zazen is the dragons roar. This dragons roar is the wind passing and whistling through a hollow tree. This can be a metaphor for your Zazen practice and or even your life. If you can let go, greatly let go, this dragons roar can manifest through you. It is much bigger than the individual.

Our senses are often the gateway to our stories.

Effort is the unconstrained willingness to persevere through difficulty.

You cannot control the results, only your actions.

With attachment all that seems to exist is just me & that object I desire.

Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

Let the breath lead the way.

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasures and its pains, we feel neither betrayed by pain or overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be.

With the practice of meditation we can develop this ability to more fully love ourselves and to more consistently love others.

Buddha _st taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises.