Wholeness
Life is a vast, unknowable movement of wholeness with no one separate from it and nothing outside of it.
– Toni Packer
Wholeness
Spirituality
Sun, Moon, Truth
Sun, Moon, Truth
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.
~ Buddha
Right Answer
From: Awakening The Buddha Within
by: Lama Surya Das
In life we may keep looking for the right answer, but there is no right answer. Everything is relative rather than absolute. That’s the answer. In meditating we strive to keep going deeper and deeper, peeling off layers of the onion until we find the center of the onion, called sunyata, the Sanskrit term for emptiness.
As we keep peeling and peeling, we begin the process of unmasking our personas. First we unmask the body, then the mind. Then we go deeper and unmask the psyche, continuously letting go and unmasking all the layers. We all have so many masks it’s as though every day in our life has been Halloween. When we remove the masks, we are shedding our fantasies about ourselves, others, and the world. We can see
and be seen. We know and are known. We are.
More from Lama Surya Das
More Buddhist writings on Allspirit
Easy To Miss
Easy To Miss
When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.
~ Boris Pasternak
No Answer
No Answer
There ain’t no answer.
There ain’t gonna be any answer.
There never has been an answer.
That’s the answer.
~ Gertrude Stein
The Song of Zazen
by Hakuin Ekaku Zenji
All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas. As with water
and ice, there is no ice without water; apart from sentient
beings, there are no Buddhas. Not knowing how close the
truth is. we seek it far away – what a pity!
We are like one who in the midst of water cries out desperately
in thirst. We are like the son of a rich man who wandered away
among the poor. The reason we transmigrate through the Six
Realms is because we are lost in the darkness of ignorance.
Going further and further astray in the darkness, how can we
ever be free from birth-and-death? As for the Mahayana practice
of zazen, there are no words to praise it fully. The Six Paramitas,
such as giving, maintaining the precepts, and various other good
deeds like invoking the Buddha’s name, repentance, and spiritual
training, all finally return to the practice of zazen. Even those who
have sat zazen only once will see all karma erased. Nowhere will
they find evil paths, and the Pure Land will not be far away. If we
listen even once with open heart to this truth, then praise it and
gladly embrace it, how much more so then, if on reflecting within
ourselves we directly realize Self-nature, giving proof to the truth
that Self-nature is no-nature. We will have gone far beyond idle
speculation. The gate of the oneness of cause and effect is thereby
opened, and not-two, not-three, straight ahead runs the Way.
Realizing the form of no-form as form, whether going or returning
we cannot be any place else. Realizing the thought of no-thought
as thought, whether singing or dancing, we are the voice of the
Dharma.
How vast and wide the unobstructed sky of samadhi! How bright
and clear the perfect moonlight of the Fourfold Wisdom! At this
moment what more need we seek? As the eternal tranquillity of
Truth reveals itself to us, this very place is the land of Lotuses
and this very body is the body of the Buddha.
More Zen Writings
Highest Truth
Highest Truth
The highest truth cannot be put into words. Therefore the greatest teacher has nothing to say. He simply gives himself in service, and never worries.
Hua Hu Ching