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Post by Daily Dharma.
Beauty
Beauty is reflected in the objects and in the observers who receive the beauty through the objects. If there were no beauty in the observer, then he would not find beauty outside. The mere fact that beauty is seen proves that there is beauty already present in the being of the observer. Nowhere in creation does beauty stand by itself. The physical or sensory beauty has its foundations in the mental or subtle realm. The physical forms look beautiful because the mind is beautiful.
Shantanand Saraswati
Post by Daily Dharma. 26 June 2006
Pain Visits All
I am the cause of my own suffering Now it is true that the death of a loved one, Poverty, unrequited love, hunger, cause pain Pain is woven into the very fabric of the human condition Even the Buddha could not escape pain
I dislike this pain, I want it to cease, I feel it is so unfair I forever dwell one problem removed from divine bliss! But still it is I and I alone who caused my suffering For it is I and I alone who reacts to the inevitable Pain and malaise and discontent of human life
Pain visits all But suffering comes not To those who welcome its arrival.
Ian McCrorie, "The Moon Appears When The Water Is Still" (Reflections on the Dhamma)
Submitted To The Daily Dharma by Iris Holloway
Post by Daily Dharma. 23 June 2006
The First Principle
"You talked about the first principle again, but I still don't know what it is," I said to Suzuki.
The patrons sit at a communal log table and each finds before his plate a modest bottle of wine. Before his meal begins, a man will pour his wine not into his own glass but into his neighbor's. And his neighbor will return the gesture, filling the first man's empty glass. In an economic sense, nothing has happened. No one has any more wine than he did to begin with. But a loving community has appeared where there was none before.
Jack Kornfield, The Art of Forgiveness,Lovingkindness and Peace. (Bantam Books 2002)
Post by Daily Dharma. 21 June 2006
Grasping the Rainbow
" Take the example of the Rainbow. Does it exist or not ? Of course it does, but how ? As something arising from the interplay of droplets of water in the sky, sunlight and our own point of observation. A rainbow, then, is an interdependent penomenon and if we investigate we can discover its various causes and conditions. But when we gaze at this rainbow we may be so moved by its beauty that we try to reach out and touch it. Yet as we advance, the rainbow appears to retreat. No matter how fast or how far we run, we can never catch up with anything solid to grasp onto. A rainbow is by nature intangible and we have to be content with the realization that this beautiful penomenon is an appearance that we can neither hold nor posess".
Lama Yeshe, Introduction to Tantra, A Vision of Totality (Wisdom Publications 1987)
Post by Jim Gardner. 20 June 2006
Part of the Whole
A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
Post by Daily Dharma. 19 June 2006
The Quality of Mercy
The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings...
Consider this, That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.
Shakespeare
Submitted to The Daily Dharma by Ken Fraser
Post by Daily Dharma. 16 June 2006
The Long Road
The Buddha is sometimes called " One who has sovereignty over himself or herself". Events Carry us away, and we lose ourselves. Walking meditation helps us regain our sovereignty, our liberty as a human being. We walk with grace and dignity, like an emperor, like a lion. Each step is life.
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Long Road Turns to Joy. Post by Daily Dharma. 15 June 2006
Let Go, Let Go, Let Go
In the jungle hunters place A banana in a bamboo cage There is a hole just large enough For a monkey's hand The monkey reaches in and grabs the banana Now he can't extract his hand He has trapped himself To go free he must simply let go of the banana But out of greed and ignorance, he holds tightly to The very cause of his imprisonment
Let go, let go, let go
Ian McCrorie, "The Moon Appears When The Water Is Still" (Reflections on the Dhamma)
Submitted To The Daily Dharma by Iris Holloway
Post by Daily Dharma. 13 June 2006
Why Meditate?
"Don't meditate so that one day you will become enlightened, meditate to make your life richer right now. Meditate when you sit and walk, when you embrace your mother or care for your child. Meditate to bring joy into your existence".
The greatest art in spiritual life is finding balance. The entire teachings of the Buddha are summed up in his encouragement to find and travel the middle path. To seek neither the extremes of mortification and aversion for life, nor the extreme of indulgence, losing ourselves in pleasure-seeking. The balance between these two is the path of awakening and freedom. The path of balance is to be with what is true in life and to love that, to be committed to the truth on every level of our being.
Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart
Post by Daily Dharma. 09 June 2006
Prayer for Peace
Submitted to the Daily Dharma by Rosie at DoodleHut.com Post by Daily Dharma. 08 June 2006
The Goal is Not to Destroy Ego
Many people make the mistake of thinking that since ego is the root of suffering, the goal of spirituality must be to conquer and destroy ego. They struggle to eliminate ego's heavy hand, but....that struggle is merely another expression of ego. We go around and around, trying to improve ourselves through struggle, until we realise that the ambition to improve ourselves is itself the problem. Insight comes only when there are gaps in our struggle, only when we stop trying to rid ourselves of thought, when we cease siding with the pious, good thoughts against bad, impure thoughts, only when we allow ourselves simply to see the nature of thought.
Sitting does not create truth Meditation does not produce insight Just as smelling a flower Does not make it fragrant
The perfume of the rose is there We slow down to attend the unfolding And flowering of its nature Slowing down and attending To just this breath allows The reality of Now to reveal its nature
Sitting still gives us the opportunity To witness the revealing of the truth
The moon appears only when the water is still.
Ian McCrorie, "The Moon Appears When The Water is still".
Submitted to The Daily Dharma by Iris Holloway.
Post by Daily Dharma. 06 June 2006
Hatred and Love
"Hatred and love cannot exist in the mind simultaneously. If hatred is there, love cannot be there. If love is introduced, hatred has to depart".
Sangharakshita, Vision and Transformation, Windhorse Publications (1990)
Post by Daily Dharma. 05 June 2006
The Loneliness Of The Meditative Journey
"The practice of meditation takes us on a journey that is very personal and very lonely.Only the individual meditator knows what he or she is doing, and it is a very lonely journey. However, if one were doing it alone without any reference to the lineage, without any reference to the teacher and the teachings, it would not be lonely, because you would have a sense of being involved in the process of developing the self made man.So you would feel less lonely.
You would feel like you were on the way to becoming a hero. It is particularly because of the commitment that one makes to the teachings and the lineage and the teacher that the meditative journey becomes such a lonely one".
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Post by Daily Dharma. 02 June 2006
Being Human
In Algebra class it didn't matter so much what Mr Johnson was like as a person. In fact he was rude and mean, he humiliated Milly Polsen for not having a clean cover on her text book and a sharpened pencil, but we could still learn from him the area of Q divided by the square root of A. Mr Johnson disseminated information, his job was not to transmit his being.
The teachers up at Lama transmitted who they were, how they saw the world, how they struggled with their own human lives, and how they understood what it meant to be human in relation to plants, animals, inanimate objects, the earth, and the heavens. They ate with us, they took walks with us they prayed and sang with us.
Natalie Goldberg. "Long Quiet Highway" Post by Daily Dharma.
