lotusinthemud

exactly and objectively what you are

Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It looks at things objectively. It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness. One physician may gravely exaggerate an illness and give up hope altogether. Another may ignorantly declare that there is no illness and that no treatment is necessary, thus deceiving the patient with false consolation. You may call the first one pessimistic and the second optimistic. Both are equally dangerous. But a third physician diagnoses the symptoms correctly, understands the cause and the nature of the illness, sees clearly that it can be cured and courageously administers a course of treatment, thus saving his patient. The Buddha is like the last physician. He is the wise and scientific doctor for the ills of the world.

~ Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught

notice and reflect

There are always challenges. You plan for one thing, and something else often happens. The long view – is this a desirable thing or an undesirable thing? – is rarely immediately apparent. Immediate emotional responses are just that. Noticing them, and reflecting, is always a good idea. The cause of suffering is always struggling with challenge rather than responding with sound judgment and kindness.

~ Sylvia Boorstein

whatever is received.....

Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.

~ Saint Thomas Aquinas

meditation and the effects of ageing

The Shamatha project is an attempt to see what a long, intensive course of meditation might do for healthy people.

Brain-imaging studies suggest that it triggers active processes within the brain, and can cause physical changes to the structure of regions involved in learning, memory, emotion regulation and cognitive processing.......Meditation seems to be effective in changing the way that we respond to external events. ::read more

you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.

~ Pema Chodron

today's wildlife - amida france

When we arrived here in France we noticed that, as in some previous years, a bird was nesting in one of the niches of the shrine room. The old barn has a lot of such niches in the wall, which were once the repositories for the ends of beams. They make perfect nest sites, usually for the black redstarts which are common around our buildings. This is probably the bird we have this year, but so far all we have seen is the feathered crown of a head and a beady eye.

via amidatrust.typepad.com

thoughts and hinderances are like the spring snows

Pronouncing Namuamidabutsu I feel my thoughts and hindrances are like the spring snows: They thaw as soon as they fall on the ground

~ Saichi

start where you are

Start Where You Are

by Pema Chodron on Thursday, 21 April 2011 at 21:41

 

"In Tibetan there is an interesting word:  ye tang che.  The ye part means 'totally, completely,' and the rest of it means 'exhausted.'  It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope.  This is an important point.  This is the beginning of the beginning.  Without giving up hope that there is somewhere better to be, that there is someone better to be, we will never relax with where or who we are."

~ Pema Chodron

::link

choosing to love in the face of hate

Reading some comments in a Facebook conversation between one friend who is a Christian priest and a friend of theirs who, I think, is another Christian priest, I was moved by this:

It is about love to those who do not know that they are being loved, nor what love is. That love offered is a choice, not an emotion. It's not because he 'likes' or 'feels close to', but because he chooses to love in the face of hate. He serves those who don't trust him as well as those who adore him.

'Choosing love in the face of hate', or in the face of dislike or misunderstanding....in the context above, it's what Jesus did. What an example to us all!

developing faith through nembutsu practice

Dharmavidya writes:

To help clarify the way that faith develops through nembutsu practice I would like to distinguish four positions of the devotee by making a permutation of less and more experienced on the one dimension and active and passive on the other. We can also liken the four positions to stages of the diurnal cycle. The person starts in a seeming daytime - the light of the common sense attitude - passes through a night of spiritual experience and emerges into a new dawn. Now I am aware that there is always a danger in describing the spiritual life as a path with stages, because it is not really something in which one can achieve milestones. Nonetheless, I hope that this approximate description may be of some help...

Less Experienced Passive (Daytime): The person who has only recently heard about nembutsu and just begun to practice may have the sense of "I don't know what I am doing" and "but I'll give it a try". This I'll-give-it-a-try is the germ of faith. Even though the words "Namo Amida Bu" are unfamiliar and strange, the person has a sense that "Maybe there is something in it". The "something" remains mysterious. This is slightly uncomfortable, but it also gives the practice a feeling of freshness. There will be some inner resistance and also some honeymoon period enthusiasm.