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    Thread: Daily Zen

    1. #1
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      Default Daily Zen



      A thread to post your favourite Zen quotes, stories, koans and insights. I'm really drawn to the simplicity of Zen.

      What is Zen? When one monk was asked this, he simply lifted his finger and was silent. This is it. Now. There is no place and no thing it is not.

      I already posted this in a blog, a little extract from Adyashanti's book Emptiness Dancing. He's relating an incident with his zen teacher. This really hit home for me.

      “Everything is consciousness. Everything is God. Everything is One. Seeing that everything is One shoots a hole in trying to pin the pendulum swing of experience in any particular place. If it’s all One; it’s no more One when the pendulum is in the high state than when the pendulum is over in some other state.

      Zen teachers don’t explain anything in an abstract way, which is both the beauty and the terror of it. My teacher’s way of explaining this would be to hold up his staff and say, “This is Buddha.” Then he would bang it on the ground and everyone would think, “Wow! That’s really wild Zen stuff. I wish I knew what he was talking about.” Then he would go -- bang, bang, bang, bang -- and he would say, “This is Zen. This is it!” And everyone would react, “Oh, wow!” People would wonder, “What? Where?” but nobody would say that. “It couldn’t be THAT because he’s just beating a stick on the ground.”

      Since it’s not all One to the mind, the mind keeps looking for it, “Where is it? What state is it?” Because the me references everything to its own emotional state, that’s what it uses to decide what is true. It thinks that what is true is always a spiritually high emotional state, but this stick pounding is not a very spiritually high emotional state. Then, to make it worse, to make it more horrifying, he would say, “This is a concrete description of the truth. This is Buddha. This is not abstract.” Then we would really be defeated.

      It’s a real blessing to have a teaching that insists upon being concrete, because he could just have said, as I sometimes do, “Everything is consciousness. It’s all One.” Then the mind thinks, “I got it. I’ll buy that. I know what that means.” But when a stick bangs on the ground and the teacher says, “That’s it!” you can’t wrap your mind around it. The banging of the stick is as much God as you’re ever going to get. Everything else after that is an abstraction, a movement away from the fact.

      [...] There is no experience that is more the truth than any other experience, because in the centre of it all, there is no seeker. Right here, there is nothing. All is One.

      You will discover there is no little “me” in the centre occupying the space. Without this me in the centre, there is nobody to judge whether a given experience is the right experience or whether it is spiritual. Do you get it? This is it! When my teacher banged his stick on the ground, he showed that everything was arising out of the centre where nothing is. All is an expression of that centre and is not separate from that centre. If you don’t see it HERE, you’re not going to see it anywhere. This is the Great Release -- the release from having to change anything to get to the Promised Land or to search for the enlightened experience. The enlightenment experience is that nothing needs to change. In fact, you can see from here that enlightenment itself is not an experience. And it’s not a spiritual high.”



    2. #2
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      What is suffering? The desire for things to be other than they are. What is contentment? Accepting everything as it is - Daniel Levin


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      Barn's burnt down....now I can see the moon. Masahide

      (My interpretation...our calamities always have an upside in some way!)

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      Truly appreciate this thread Rory. Tyvm.
      ...
      All that has ever been
      All that is
      All that will ever be
      Is All Now
      ...


      Growth Through Adversity

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      Love that Michael.

      My own mantra which helps whenever I find resistance kicking in:

      It is as it is (until it isn't)

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      "Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking." Goethe


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      Once you Truly Understand,
      you Truly Know nothing.


      Growth Through Adversity

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      All opinions are equally invalid.

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      Die while you're alive and be absolutely dead.

      Then do whatever you want: it's all good.

      - Bunan

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      Hahahahhaa. Love this. Right On!
      Quote Originally Posted by BlueStar View Post
      Die while you're alive and be absolutely dead.

      Then do whatever you want: it's all good.

      - Bunan


      Growth Through Adversity

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      (You'll probably like this one two LOL)

      "Where there are humans,
      you'll find flies
      and Buddhas."
      - Issa

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      Haha. Right you are mydear friend.
      Quote Originally Posted by BlueStar View Post
      (You'll probably like this one two LOL)

      "Where there are humans,
      you'll find flies
      and Buddhas."
      - Issa


      Growth Through Adversity

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      "I wouldn't buy just anyones cockatoo." -Bono
      True depth can even be found in the shallows.


      Growth Through Adversity

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      Row, row, row your boat
      Gently down the stream
      Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
      Life is but a dream


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      "My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with them."
      Nisargadatta Maharaj

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      To allow the experience to be. Without allowing the experience to be you.


      Growth Through Adversity

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      In the darkness I see the light.


      Growth Through Adversity

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      Quote Originally Posted by Lion Spirit Walker View Post
      To allow the experience to be. Without allowing the experience to be you.
      I LOVE that!! I will quote you on that! So very true

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      From Daniel Levin's Zen Book:

      "I remember being at Disneyland many years ago with someone who was visiting there for the first time. In those days, they used to have a boat ride that ran along an obstacle course. As the boat moved, things would jump up and attack it, spray it with water, or appear to be on a collision course with it. I remember that my friend sailed the boat by taking every precaution to get us safely across the water. When his wife asked him a question, he replied "Not now! Can't you see how much I have to concentrate to get us through this obstacle course?"

      Little did he realise that the boat was on a track and nothing he did would make a difference in our passage from start to end. I always thought this to be analogous to life: We toil so hard, thinking that what we do is so important, when quite possibly we're on a track and everything is our life is already being cared for by something greater than ourselves. Wouldn't that be interesting?"

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      "The whole of life lies in the verb seeing." Pierre Tielhard

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