Becoming less fixed & more open

Spiritual practice is a sequence of aclimatizations to a progressively less fixated and more attenuated sense of self.

--Chinzen Yun

Alan Watts on "only the now"

I have realized that the past and the future are real illusions,
that they exist only in the present, which is what there is and
all that there is.

--Alan Watts

via Zen Calendar

The good life...

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

--Henry David Thoreau

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

Be a lover...

Be a passionate lover in life and you will be a lover in death, a lover in the tomb, a lover on the day of resurrection a lover forever.

--Deepak Chopra

Via Doug

Saw "Midnight in Paris", one of the best Woody Allen movies in years & a movie with a Buddhist-like message

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

There is "no ground" to this world. It is temporary...and can be beautiful

At present, the outer universe—earth, stones, mountains, rocks, and cliffs—seems to the perception of our senses to be permanent and stable, like the house built of reinforced concrete that we think will last for generations. In fact, there is nothing solid to it at all; it is nothing but a city of dreams.

--Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Via Tricycle.com

Looking at things as a whole...

Any space is as much apart of the instrument
as the instrument itself.

--Pauline Oliveros

A zen teaching that has become my mantra

"When you do something, you should burn yourself completely."

--Suzuki Roshi

The spiritual path is virtually never what we expect

We all enter the spiritual path as ego-based beings, and as such we have ego-based hopes and fears. Practice is virtually never what we expect. We feel like we’ve got it all wrong, thinking, “The more I meditate, the worse I become.” My teacher, Gendun Rinpoche, always responded to this by saying, “When you see your own shortcomings, it’s the dawn of qualities. If you only see your qualities, there’s a problem.”

--Lama Tsony

Via Tricycle

"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

Good-bye to Friday Night Lights, a TV show that will continue to live in my heart

Tonight's finale did not disappoint. There were wonderful surprises, endings and beginnings. Again, Tammy and Eric showed why they are best example of a loving couple on TV. This show deserves to sweep this year's Emmy awards...it was that consistently good. The music, the writing, and the acting really moved me.

With tears in my eyes, good-bye FNL!

The message on my tea bag this morning....

Grace brings trust, appreciation, love and prosperity.

"Laughing at the whole enterprise, even myself..."

The bright moon is now shining down.
Mountains and rivers calm.
Laughing at this whole enterprise, even at myself,
startles heaven and earth!
Ha ha ha ha ha!!

--So Sahn

The wonder of it all: life

The power of 'not knowing'

Go--not knowing where.
Bring--not knowing what.
The path is long, the way unknown.

--Russian Fairy Tale

The world: 'moonlight reflected in dewdrops'?

To what shall I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected in dewdrops,
shaken from a crane's bill.

--Dogen

The power of 'potential'

"Whatever the Universe must contain,
including us, must exist in potential first."

--Deepak Chopra