Daily Dharma

The object of vipassana practice is to learn to see the truths of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness of phenomena. We think we are doing this already, but that is an illusion. It comes from the fact that we are paying so litte attention to the ongoing surge of our own life experiences that we might just as well be asleep. We are simply not paying enough attention to notice that we are not paying attention. It is another Catch-22.

Through the process of mindfulness, we slowly become aware of what we really are, down below the ego image. We wake up to what life really is. It is not just a parade of ups and downs, lollipops and smacks on the wrist. That is an illusion. Life has a much deeper texture than that if we bother to look, and if we look in the right way.

Vipassana is a form of mental training that will teacy you to experience the world in an entirely new way. You will learn for the first time what is truly happening to you, around you, and within you. It is a process of self-discovery, a participatory investigation in which you observe your own experiences while participating in them.

[...from Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, pg. 31-32]

Daily Dharma

When you really concentrate, it involves the entire body-mind. The power you generate with strong concentration can keep you warm, even in the coldest winter weather. So when you sit, please be attentive.

Once you have regulated your posture, take a breath and exhale fully. Swing to the left and right. Sitting fixedly, think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

[...from On Zen Practice - Body, Breath and Mind by Taizan Maezumi & Bernie Glassman, page 34 from the section On Form}

Daily Dharma

Just as a person

who has been gone for a long time

is welcomed on his safe return home with joy

by his relatives,

friends,

and well-wishers,

so will you be welcomed,

when you move beyond this life,

by the good deeds you have done

in this lifetime.

 

[...from the Still Point Dhammapada, the final verse in the Chapter on Transient Pleasures)

Daily Dharma

Meditation begins now, right here. It can't begin someplace else or at some other time. To paraphrase the great Zen master Dogen, "If you want to practice awareness, then practice awareness without delay." If you wish to know a mind that is tranquil and clear, sane and peaceful, you must take it up now. If you wish to free yourself from the frantic television mind that runs our lives, begin with the intention to be present now.

[...from Meditation: Now or Never by Steve Hagen, pg. 3]

Daily Dharma

What drives the Wheel of Life? Traditional depictions of the Wheel show three animals at the hub—a cock, a snake and a pig—each biting the tail of the one in front. These three animals represent craving, aversion and delusion, and their chasing one another around and around drives the Wheel. Craving, aversion and delusion make the world go round—they are the root cause of our un-Enlightenment and, according o the Buddha, the source of all suffering.

Craving is the desire to possess things that you like, and to include them in your ego-identity in the hope of getting a sense of security from having them as part of you. Aversion is the fearful, angered wish to get rid of things which you dislike and to exclude them from your ego-identity in the hope of attaining a sense of security from not having them as part of you. And delusion is the refusal to learn anything that you feel might threaten your ego-identity and upset the sense of security you try to get from it.

Enlightenment, according to the Buddha, consists in the complete eradication of these three unwholesome roots. This is a demanding task. Fortunately, the unwholesome roots are not the whole of our experience. We are also motivated by the three wholesome roots: generosity, kindness and wisdom

[...from Mindfulness and Money: The Buddhist Path of Abundance by Kulananda and Dominic Houlder, pg. 39-40]

Daily Dharma

Whenever I listen to any sort of talk,
Whether pleasant or unpleasant,
Or observe attractive or unattractive people,
I should prevent attachment or hatred towards
     them.

[...from the chapter on Guarding Alertness from A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Verse 45 pg. 54]

Daily Dharma

This housecleaning day...
       All gods and buddhas are left
              sitting out on the grass.

—Masaoka Shiki

[...quoted in Sweeping Changes: Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks, by Gary Thorpe]

Daily Dharma

I think/feel/perceive/intuit/experience Vipassana as a less complicated, more practical way of staying in touch with the here and now. Vipassana does away with the intellectual and leaves thought alone. With the focus on breath and sensation one doesn't get caught up in the gimmicks of therapies. The passive awareness of an objective mind is critical to the here and now. By sitting daily morning and night the mind becomes purer by nature and "who I am" appears. Down deep all of us are kind loving people who have a lot to give. Life has so much negativity in it, not in and of itself, but it's the energies we are exposed to.

[...from the letter of Rick Smith, written on July 26, 2006 to Jonathon. Republished in Letters from the Dhamma Brothers: Meditation Behind Bars. Available for pre-order]

Daily Dharma

You have it already. You just can't feel it because your mind is making too much noise.

[...from The Power of Now by Ekhart Tolle]

Daily Dharma

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

[...from the May 6^th entry in Transform Your Life: A Year of Awareness Practice by Cheri Huber]