To be able to be unhurried when hurried;
To be able not to slack off
When relaxed; to be able not to be
Frightened and at a loss for what to
Do when frightened and at a loss;
This is the learning that returns us
To our natural state and
Transforms our lives.

~ Liu Wenmin (~16th cent)

Those who wear the patched robe of a Zen wayfarer should be completely serious about taking death and birth as their business.

Work to melt away the obstructions caused by conditioned knowledge and views and interpretive understanding.

Penetrate through to a realizations of the great causal condition communicated and bequeathed by the buddhas and ancestral teachers.

Don’t covet name and fame. Step back and turn to reality, until your practical understanding and virtue are fully actualized.

~ Yuanwu (1063-1135)

Some people, not knowing the essential emptiness of good and evil,
think practical cultivation of mind means to sit rigidly immobile,
subduing mind and body, like a rock placed on top of grass.

This is ludicrous.
That is why it is said that followers cut off confusion in every state of mind,
yet the mind that does the cutting off is a brigand.

~ Chinul (1158-1210)

I let mind and body go
And gained a life of freedom
My old age is taking place
Among ten thousand peaks
I don’t let white clouds
Leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far
As my closed gate.

~ Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)

By chance I knocked at his Zen hut,
sat among the slopes
and knew the monastery
dusty dreams as all unreal.
Water flowing mindfully;
what trace does it leave?
Idle clouds pursuing their whim;
they lean on nothing.
The novice hoes the garden,
greens at their best now.
Monkeys wail in the ravine where chestnuts
Have grown plump.
Reluctantly I start down the path among the pines,
And the white moon in its beauty comes to see me home.

~ Ichikawa Kanasai (1749-1820)

Brambles should be cut away,
Removing even the sprouts.
Within essence there naturally blooms
A beautiful lotus blossom.
One day there will suddenly appear
An image of light;
When you know that,
You yourself are it.

~ Sun Bu-er

People who study Buddhism in the present day should for now seek truly accurate vision and understanding. Then life and death will not influence you, and you will be free to leave or to stay. You do not need to seek the extraordinary, for the extraordinary will come of itself.

Lin Chi (d 867)

The perfect Way’s like boundless space
Nothing lacking, nothing extra
It is because of choice
That its absolute truth is lost.
Don’t pursue externals;
Don’t dally in the interior void.
When the spirit remains serene
In the unity of things
Dualism vanishes by itself;
When that unity is not clear
There is loss in both directions.

~ Seng-ts’an (d. 606)

In a certain convent there lived a Sufi whose conduct gave just offense to the brethren. They brought him before their Shaikh and thus accused him, "This Sufi has three very bad qualities; he babbles exceedingly like a bell, at his meals he eats more than twenty men, and when he sleeps he is as one of the Seven Sleepers.” The Shaikh then admonished him, insisting on the obligation of keeping to the golden mean, and reminding him that even the prophet Moses was once rebuked by Khizr for speaking to excess. But the delinquent excused himself on the grounds that the mean is relative, what is excess in one man being moderation in another, that he who is led by the spirit is no longer subject to the outward law, and that the “inner voice,” which rules such an one’s conduct, is its own evidence.

Rumi

@divegeester said
Are you the right type of friend, rookie?

@PettyTalk

It is interesting to see you that you have suddenly decided to start infecting this thread after you saw rookie make a disparaging remark about your posting.

Of one thing it is said
“that is bad”
and of another it is said
“that is good.”
But there is nothing
inherent in things
that make them good
or bad, for each thing’s
self is empty of
independent existence.

~ Samantabhadra-Bodhisattva-sutra

You’re bound to become a Buddha
If you practice.
If water drips long enough,
Even rocks wear through.
It’s not true thick skulls
Can’t be pierced;
People just imagine their minds are hard.

~ Shih-wu (1272-1352)

Attain the center of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet;
As myriad things act in concert
I thereby observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root
Is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to Life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.

~ Tao-te Ching

Let's embark on a "journey to the center of the mind", a place where truths are revealed, and the veil between the seen and the unseen is lifted. The journey starts with the questioning of one's own existence. "Who am I?" echoes through the corridors of the mind, a question that leads to the discovery of the self. It is here that the seeker begins to understand that the self is not separate from the universe but is, in fact, a part of it. This realization is not a conclusion but a beginning, a step towards the unknown self.

Dare to know thyself!

Within us lies a place of pure awareness, a place where all thoughts, emotions, and desires are seen for what they are--moments in the dance of existence. Here, the seeker finds peace, not in the absence of thoughts and emotions but in the acceptance of them. The journey to the center of the mind is not a journey to an end but a journey to the beginning of true self-discovery.

"So if you can, please understand you might not come back." Music for the Soul!

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