A Buddhist "life jacket": "be present" and "willing to love"

Whatever your difficulties—a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness—you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do—despite your circumstances—are to be present and to be willing to love.

--Jack Kornfield

via Tricycle.com

Bringing "freshness" to everything

I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing.

--John Cage

"...What you'll be is what you do now."

What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now.

--Buddha

Joy and curiosity

Joy in the Universe, and keen curiosity about it all--
that has been my religion.

--John Burroughs

Bard wisdom

Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest.

--William Shakespeare

A quick video summary of Pema Chodron's wise book, "The Places that Scare You"

One of Pema big ideas from that book can be summarized as follows:

1. Just notice and observe your destructive habits
2. Interrupt them through physical activity, labeling them or calling them out mentally
3. Do this over and over again.

"Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think"

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

--The Buddha

A profound Buddhist teacher, listen to Jack Kornfield

Dalai Lama: "we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives." Amen

We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or hundred years at the very most.
During that time we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives.
Try to be at peace with yourself and help others share that peace. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.

--The Dalai Lama

Stillness

Sometimes, on a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house...I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been.

--Henry David Thoreau

A zen lesson as our country teeters

When it is time to dress, let us put on our clothes.
When it is time to walk, let us walk.
Do not have a single thought in mind about searching for the Buddhahood.

--Lin-chi

"Seriousness is an accident of time..." -- H. Hesse

Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists in putting too high value on time.
In eternity there is no time. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

--Hermann Hesse

The mantra, "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose", from Friday Night Lights, is a great summary of Zen

The Buddha's central lesson about generosity

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness
never decreases by being shared.

--The Buddha

"We are all in this together"

If we do not care for one another, who else will care for us? Who among us has the right to say of another, “He is of no use to us?” For better or worse, whether we like it or not, we are all in this together. Learning how to care for one another is a central part of the path and of the practice.

--Andrew Olendzki

via Tricycle.com

What is Buddha?

"Are you a god?" they asked. "No." "An angel?" "No." "A saint?" "No." "Then what are you?"

Buddha answered, "I am awake."

His answer became his title, for this is what Buddha means. The Sanskrit root budh denotes both to wake up and to know. Buddha, then, means the "Enlightened One" or the "Awakened One." While the rest of the world was wrapped in the womb of sleep, dreaming a dream known as the waking state of human life, one of their number roused himself. Buddhism begins with a man who shook off the daze, the doze, the dream-like vagaries of ordinary awareness. It begins with the man who woke up.

--Huston Smith

Via Tricycle.com

The importance of staying open...in mind & body

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.

--T.S. Elliott

The quiet grandeur of the ordinary

Little minds are interested in the extraordinary;
great minds in the commonplace.

--Elbert Hubbard

Via Zen Calendar

"Clinging to the body"

A tiny prick from a thorn makes us miserable. When there is warm sunshine outside, we feel comfortable and the body is pleased. We are constantly preoccupied with the comfort and attractiveness of our body and treat it like the most precious thing. Clinging to the body is the reason we experience such reactions to the pleasant and the unpleasant.

- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, "An Investigation of the Mind"

Via Tricycle.com

Enduring lessons about impermanence

The Dharma, like an oyster
Washed atop a high cliff:
Even waves crashing against
the reefy coast, like words,
may reach but cannot wash it away.

--Dogen

Via Zen Calendar