teachings from sadhu
a monk once asked master joshu, does a dog have buddha nature
he gave the answer “mu”
i once asked a cow the same question
and got the same answer “moo”
*************
SAYINGS AND APHORISMS
By Buddhist monk
lama shri sadhu dharmavira
***
1
Wake up to reality
you can’t be preoccupied with worldly activities
and truly practice the Dharma
***
2
My friend
If you wish to make any progress in the Dharma
you will need to cease to exist
***
3
At the end of the day we are all our own bosses
we must take full reasonability for ourselves and our actions
what other way is there
***
4
Those in possession of nothing
are in possession of everything
***
5
Even thinking about eating meat is an act of violence
practicing ahimsa of the mind is essential
***
6
Eating sentient beings
is not liberating them
***
7
Spiritual teachings should not be adapted so as to be acceptable to people in everyday life
serious students should stop living an everyday life
***
8
Be constantly diligent in your awareness of all actions of body speech and mind
all actions should have non dualism as their root.
***
9
It’s unpredictability that gives you life
once everything is predictable
you’re dead
***
10
On the banks of the Ganges at Kashi, a disciple asked his teacher
swamiji, does a dog also have the nature of Brahman
the master replied “neti neti” not this, not that
***
11
To pursue fantasies and comfort zone teachings
is like digging further and further down into the earth
in the hope of finding the sky
***
12
If you could just let go and be still in samsara
you will find yourself in nirvana
it was there all the time
you were just to busy improving yourself to see it
***
13
I read a magazine article today on how to bring your practice into daily life
my advice is don’t try
You should try to bring your daily life into your practice
If any aspect of your daily life does not fit with your practice
then dump it
***
14
Wake up! Impermanence is staring you in the face
Brahma has ceased his creativity
Vishnu has retired from his role of preserver
and Lord Shiva has now come into play as the great dissolver
don’t waste a minute, wake up now and practice, practice, practice!
***
15
Whatever you put your life and energy into
that is not an aspect of your spiritual practice
will ultimately be a total waste of time
***
16
The path of the spiritual practitioner is a difficult one
you need to remain focused every minute of the day and night
the minute you drop your guard
the world of form will grab you by the senses
and drag you back in.
***
17
There is no such thing as a full moon day
the moon is full every day
you just can’t always see it from where you are standing
To intensify your spiritual practice on a full moon day is just a copout
you should intensify your practice every single day.
***
18
If you think you know the truth
the fact that you think you do, tells you that you don’t
If you think you have experienced the ultimate truth
then you are just stagnating in yet another delusion based “I know” concept.
***
19
Seek teachers that do not have anything to teach
seek those who un-teach
only seek a teacher if you want to unlearn
***
20
Early this morning I heard the sound of a crow
is the crow-ness internal to me or external to me
when I die, will the crow-ness continue or will it die with me
whatever realm I am reborn into
will the crow-ness be there
***
21
Male fluid + female fluid = ego.
male and female fluids come together
and yet another “self” arrives on planet earth
***
22
The gentle sound of the temple bell
the roar of the traffic on a busy road
do not consider one to be better or worse than the other
pure and impure only exist in the deluded mind
***
23
Do not try to forgive
it is a condescending attitude, and comes from the deep seated delusion
that there is a “self”, or an “I” that can forgive
you should always do what your heart/mind feels is right
as long as those decisions of the heart/mind come from that place
that is prior to the place where thoughts of forgiveness come from
***
24
You cannot pursue a career and make progress in the Dharma
The Dharma must be your career
***
25
If the mind is experiencing happiness
then the mind is also experiencing suffering
they are one and the same
happiness is thinned out suffering, suffering is compacted happiness
***
26
No matter how tough you life is, your daily life is your opportunity to practice.
To keep moving forward, you need to cease from trying to move through life, and just allow life to move through you. Just be still in the midst of all activity.
***
27
Don’t allow your spiritual practice to become nothing more than a religion.
The religious path is a cul-de-sac, filled with nothing more than comfort zone beliefs and opinions. You will never find out who or what you are by following a religion.
The spiritual path on the other hand, being the science of the mind, will allow you to transcend to greater and greater levels of understanding.
If the path you are treading brings a feeling of comfort and safety,
then it is the path of religious stagnation.
If you find that the path you are treading is uncomfortable and difficult and a constant battle, then it is the path of spiritual growth, and you know that you are on the right track.
***
28
When taking up the Dharma, there is only one taste, the taste of renunciation.
If you have taken up the Dharma, expecting to be handed a menu, where you can pick and choose the tastes that suit you, then the Dharma is not for you, and you need to look elsewhere.
***
29
People often talk of there being one world, or one universe,
But they are wrong, the world doesn’t even exist.
Everyone lives in their own self “I” created dimension. The colour red that one person sees is not the colour red that another person sees, the tree that one person sees is not the tree that another person sees.
By allowing body and mind to fall away, those ego created dimensions will just dissolve away. No world, No universe, just Shunyata.
***
30
When you travel north, you travel south,
When you travel east, you travel west,
When you travel up, you travel down.
***
31
Dharma practice can be a very lonely place,
this is due to the fact that, wherever you are in your practice,
You are the only one there!
***
32
You say you don’t like this, and you don’t like that,
But this and that do not know who you are,
To them you don’t even exist.
***
33
There is a fourth time, that is beyond the past, the future and the now.
It is only by dwelling in this fourth time that you will truly find peace.
Go beyond the past, go beyond the future, go beyond even that place called now.
***
34
Suffering and discomfort are our teachers and should be welcomed.
But there is no need to go looking for them, they will find you!
***
35
The more I practice, the less I know,
thank goodness!
To know everything, you need to know nothing.
***
36
To reach enlightenment, is not to transcend delusion,
Enlightenment is the realisation that you are deluded.
***
37
A dharma practitioner should live like a snail,
A snail is always at home, wherever he goes!
***
38
Don’t worship the bodhi tree, only the body of Siddhartha Gautama
was sat under the tree.
If the Buddha mind had been under the tree at the time of his enlightenment,
it wouldn’t have been enlightenment !
***
39
Do not endure adversity,
Endure is just another word for reject,
True spiritual warriors embrace adversity,
For it is the doorway to the development of
wisdom and altruism
***
40
That which you gladly give away through generosity, will stay with you indefinitely,
That which you cling to through miserliness, will be lost to you forever.
***
41
A true monk should live like a ghost,
Moving around unseen,
Disturbing nothing.
***
42
Not all of those who teach Buddhism are Buddhists,
Be very wary of those who talk and talk, but do nothing.
***
43
There are many teachers (some of them famous) who talk about the benefits of practicing compassion,
But refuse to stop eating meat.
Avoid such so called teachers, they put their stomachs before living beings.
***
44
If thoughts arise,
Keep them to yourself, then get rid of them,
This way you will remain still.
***
45
If you perceive something as wrong now, sit with it long enough, and the wrong will give birth to right,
The same applies to what you consider to be right, sit with this long enough and it will give birth to wrong.
***
46
A cluttered room is a noisy room.
***
47
You should treat the dharma like food. You digest food, allow the life giving nutrients to be absorbed into the physical body, then you excrete what remains, hanging on to nothing.
This is the approach you should also take when hearing or reading about the dharma. Allow the essence of the teachings be absorbed into your being, then allow what is left over to be excreted. Do not hang on to the words or images.
If you hang on to all the food you eat, without excreting what has become waste, you will die.
The dharma will also die if you hang on to the words and forms as being the essence of the dharma. Let them go.
***
48
People say they want freedom of choice,
how short sighted,
freedom comes from not having a choice.
***
49
It would be so much easier to reach the goal
If you had been blessed by being born
Deaf, dumb and blind,
If you want enlightenment
Then become deaf, dumb and blind.
***
50
The Buddha was not a Buddhist,
He did not teach Buddhism,
He taught the dharma (reality).
***
51
What a great shame it is to see so many teachers dishing out the Dharma in the form of pleasant tasting sugar coated sweets.
If they were dishing out the true Dharma, it would be in the form of bitter tasting medicine.
It may be bitter to take, but it cures the disease.
Keep taking sugar coated sweets, and all that happens is you get fat and your teeth drop out!
***
52
Pure sitting, shikantaza
And the enlightened mind,
Are one and the same
***
53
Shikantaza is a state of being that has always been present, always been there,
All you have to do, is step into it.
***
54
Dedicate your body speech and mind 100% to the Dharma,
Practice the dharma, speak about the dharma, think about the dharma
and dream about the dharma.
This will make you a true dharma practitioner, not a fake!
***
55
To attain the Buddha mind, you should just “sit”,
When you meditate, just sit,
When you walk, just sit,
When you eat, just sit,
When you talk, just sit,
Every single thing you do should be shikantaza.
***
56
You should slowly distance yourself more and more from worldly activities.
But do not rush things. If you jump unthinking into a fast flowing river, you may well drown!
***
57
Take all your statues, pictures, offering bowls, incense burners etc
and other merchandise, Put them into a box
Then take them down to the local land fill and throw them away.
This should contribute to bringing about the feeling of nakedness
that you need to make progress in the Dharma
***
58
A true dharma practitioner should live a life of poverty,
Even then, you have too much.
***
59
When sitting in shikantaza,
Initially you experience heaven,
But pretty soon you are in hell.
Just keep sitting, until you eventually rise above both.
***
60
There is nothing good outside your mind,
There is nothing bad outside your mind,
All gods and devils are a projection of your own mind.
***
61
Spending money on candles and incense, then burning them, while some people are poor and starving,
Where is the wisdom and altruism in that?
***
62
There is a saying, when the time is right, the teacher will appear.
This is of course rubbish. Sayings like this are latched onto by lazy people who do not want to make any effort, and die while waiting for the imagined teacher to appear.
If you want a teacher, you will have to go looking for one, but be prepared for a long, long frustrating search.
***
63
You must develop the ability to dwell in the “now”
But this is not the now of past, now and future,
But the “now” that is beyond the now.
***
64
To be able to truly perceive emptiness, you must cease from calling it emptiness,
The minute you call it emptiness, you give it form,
The form of emptiness!
***
65
There is nothing that is negative,
Nothing that is positive,
No harmful actions,
No beneficial actions,
Just movement.
***
66
You have to devote yourself 100% to the ideal of the dharma,
Then you will eventually evolve to be something completely different.
***
67
There is no right or wrong,
Just the results of actions,
But you need to keep in mind, that whatever you do
via body, speech or mind,
Never affects only you
It effects the whole universe, and everything in it.
***
68
The reason we bring discipline to our lives
is so that we can have control over the relative world that we live in.
If we do not take control of the relative, it will take control of us.
We will not be running our lives,
our lives will be running us.
***
69
Some people say, that all spiritual paths lead to the same place,
This is not true, no paths lead anywhere. There is nowhere to go.
However far you think you have travelled, however long it takes you to get there,
You are still “here”.
***
70
Religion is for life’s insecure neurotics,
dharma practice is for life’s warriors.
***
71
If you practice the dharma correctly, you don’t gain anything,
You lose everything.
***
72
When I look up to the sky at night, I don’t see any stars,
But I do see the stars that others claim to see.
***
73
When you sit with the right mind, you will attain absolutely nothing,
But everything will be at your disposal.
***
74
When you are sitting, you should be sitting
When you are walking, you should be sitting
When you are sleeping, you should be sitting,
If you are only sitting when you are sitting
Then you are not truly sitting.
***
75
The Buddha did not reach enlightenment at Bodhgaya,
The moment the Buddha reached enlightenment, Bodhgaya ceased to exist.
***
76
A new koan I have created for myself:
“Two flowers in a meadow
One is red, one is white
Which one is telling the truth”
***
77
If you feel at peace in a Buddhist temple
You should also feel at peace in a busy supermarket
If you don’t
Then you must ask yourself where you went wrong.
***
78
People give various reasons for why they have taken up spiritual practice,
The truth is, they are all seeking the same thing
They just want to go home.
***
79
Just sit sit and sit, until your backside bleeds,
and when that happens,
Just keep sitting until both backside and self fall away.
***
80
What is zen?
Take a biscuit in your hand
Now snap it in two,
There, did you see it?
That was zen.
Not the whole biscuit
Not the snapped biscuit
But that time in between the whole biscuit and the broken biscuit.
***
81
Space is the most valuable commodity that life on earth has to offer
Grab some whenever you can.
***
82
Seeking after happiness in life
Is just another form of material grasping.
***
83
Concerning spiritual precepts,
Never bend them, never bend the rules,
That is creepy and dishonest, the behaviour of politicians and ambitious people.
Either keep the precepts, or if you must break one,
Do it completely and spectacularly.
Be a warrior, break it with total honesty.
***
84
There is only one way to move forward on the spiritual path.
And that is to stay exactly where you are.
***
85
You will never find stillness while you are seeking it
The very act of seeking stillness creates waves
You need to go to that place that is prior to even the concept of stillness
Where even stillness does not exist
Then you will experience stillness.
***
86
You must experience fluidity at all times
Even when sitting perfectly still in shikantaza there should be fluidity.
Perfect stillness, with mind and body fallen away is movement,
The movement of fluid stillness.
***
87
While mankind waits for life to give them
What they think it owes them,
Their anger increases.
***
88
When you truly understand zen,
You will be able to cut an apple into three halves.
***
89
Buddhism is not a religion,
Not a philosophy,
Not a way of life,
Not a path to happiness
Not a way to enlightenment.
Whatever you put into words,
Whatever you say it is,
That is not it.
***
90
Avoid Buddhism by numbers
Don’t think zen
Don’t think tantra
Think for yourself
The no self
Break the rules
***
91
No attachment
No aversion
Going nowhere
Attaining nothing
You don’t exist.
***
92
The purpose of zazen
Is to become comfortable with discomfort
***
93
All of mankind’s problems in the world
are as a result of the inability and fear of just being still.
***
94
Live your life as if it is a martial art
Every action should be done with focus and energy
Even the most gentle of actions should contain power
***
95
True teachers die unknown
They have completely dissolved any need for recognition
They do not start organisations
They do not open centres
They come, they teach, they go.
***
96
There is only one precept you need to keep,
Live a life of ahimsa (non violence)
Cause no harm or suffering
Either directly or indirectly
To any living thing,
To any living thing!!!
***
97
Build no altars
Have no statues, no pictures,
No flowers, no offerings.
There is nothing outside yourself,
Who are you making these offerings to.
Be your own altar.
***
98
The path that leads to knowing the true nature of the mind (enlightenment)
Is the path that requires no journey.
No coming, as there is no past
No going, as there is no future
No standing still, as there is no now.
***
99
Someone once said to me,
That when they enter a Buddhist temple
They feel a wonderful calmness, a sense of bliss.
I say, why don’t you feel that calmness and bliss
When you enter a dentist’s surgery?
Because the feelings are not genuine,
They are superficial self indulgence.
True calmness, true bliss exists in all things at all times.
***
100
Every single being that is born into samsara
Has the potential for enlightenment.
That dosn’t mean that they will attain it.
Relative time has no beginning and no end
It is infinite.
Therefore, without making the effort to realise the true mind
They could go on being reborn in one suffering form or another for ever.
For ever!!!
***
101
Understanding the truth of the dharma
Is like understanding surreal humour,
You either see it or you don’t
It can’t be explained.
***
102
Every time you go to sleep
You are having a near death experience.
Take advantage of this time to prepare yourself.
***
103
Make a list of all those material things that mean the most to you,
All those things you wouldn’t want to be without.
Then get rid of them!
***
104
Real power is the ability to bring about change
Without doing anything.
***
105
There are no sinners, there are no saints,
You must go beyond such labels
If you want to know the true nature of mankind, the no self.
***
106
It is no good saying to yourself
I will be compassionate
I will practice compassion,
It just will not happen.
If you have strong practice
And lead a dedicated spiritual life,
The genuine seed of buddhahood will arise by itself.
***
107
Take all your intellectual understanding of the Dharma, the theories, the concepts
The names, the dates, all your academic opinions.
Let them sink down from your head into your stomach,
Then vomit them all out.
***
108
When you first take up practice
There is a danger of becoming opinionated and boastful.
Please keep in mind that entering the gateway
Is not the same as entering the house!
***
109
The dharma is a path to happiness,
But not worldly happiness.
A true happiness that is beyond the material world of “I want”.
***
110
Whatever other people do many times
I do only once,
Whatever other people do only once,
I do many times,
This way I discover what flows.
***
111
I only take on students who know absolutely nothing,
After studying with me, if they are lucky
They will go away knowing even less.
***
112
One monk from the west travelled to the east
To visit a sacred Buddhist site,
When he arrived he bowed deeply.
Another monk from the west
When walking down the high street
Spotted a public toilet
He stopped and bowed deeply.
The monk bowed at the Buddhist site because he was deluded
The monk bowed at the toilet because he was enlightened.
There is nothing that is sacred
There is nothing that isn’t sacred.
***
113
Snowflakes gently enter this world of form
They arrive here from emptiness
Stay awhile, then dissolve back into emptiness
Such wisdom!
***
114
Lord Krishna’s informing Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita,
I am in no one thing, all thing are within me,
Is Joshu’s mu
***
115
Those burdened with body and mind
Will easily be able to ascend a 30 step staircase.
Those who have let mind and body fall away
Will be able to ascend 31 steps on a 30 step staircase.
***
116
If you really want to help the suffering of the world,
Stop offering prayers, incense, candles etc,
Just sit in shikantaza.
Sit with all your might
Sit till the sweat drips from your brow
Sit until your knees burn
Sit till your backside bleeds
This is the true way to help those who suffer.
***
117
If you wish to be a true dharma teacher
You must become something else
You must rise above the mud of samsara
You must become a spiritual superhero.
The upside to this is that those who are serious about the dharma
will be drawn to you for guidance.
The downside is that many will be afraid of you and run away.
***
118
I have noticed, that after completing the 90 day retreat at zen monasteries,
The first thing many people do is look for a cake shop!
***
119
Offering flowers, incense, candles, food, water etc
To the buddhas and patriarchs does not get their attention.
Living a life based on ahimsa, refraining from directly
or indirectly causing pain or suffering to any living thing
delights the buddhas and patriarchs.
***
120
Opinions are like wealth
The more you have
The bigger the failure you are
***
121
How beautiful the sight of the shining stars in the sky,
How wonderful the sound of the cool running stream,
How excellent the smell of the fresh pine trees,
How succulent the taste of the sweet peach,
How delightful the feel of the gentle summer breeze on the skin,
Oh samsara, what a cunning trap you have set for us.
***
122
Do not bother to spend periods of time in retreat,
one week here, one week there.
Make your whole life one ongoing retreat.
***
123
You must abide in that place that is prior to everything,
Prior to thought, prior to memory, prior to mind,
Prior to even consciousness,
That place where even abiding ceases to take place.
***
124
You will never hear the sweet sound of bird song
As long as you are listening,
STOP LISTENING
There, can you here it now?
***
125
A cow is quite happy to moo
A cat is quite happy to meow
A crow is quite happy to caw
A sparrow is quite happy to chirp.
But humans, first they moo, then they meow
Then they caw, then they chirp,
Chatter chatter, on and on
Never having any insight into their own natural sound
Which is why they will never be happy.
***
126
The student serves tea to the Lama
The Lama serves teachings to the student
They both enter nirvana together
***
127
If something can be lost, it has no value
That which cannot be lost, is of great value.
The only thing that cannot be lost is the Buddha mind,
It cannot be lost, because it never came into existence
It always was, because it is unborn.
***
128
If you abuse yourself, you abuse others
If you abuse others, you abuse yourself.
***
129
Eliminating self pity is the key to realising that which is beyond the illusion of a “me”.
***
130
The Dharma is a life long pursuit,
Maybe even two lives,
Maybe even three!
***
131
To some, Buddhism is no more than a place to run and hide from life.
Indulging the mind in all the stories, theories and concepts,
Indulging the body in the myriad of sense experiences.
Not understanding the need for a strong, non dualistic practice
that is not dependant on forms or words,
These people have entered the Buddhist path,
Only to become truly lost.
***
132
Once you step beyond the boundaries of your own world,
You will find yourself under attack from many quarters.
***
133
If you want to understand life
Stop poking your nose in!
***
134
The moon does not know that it is reflected in the water,
The water does not know that the moon is reflected in it,
So just leave well alone
And stop writing all those poems.
***
135
If you speak without saying anything
How can you offend anyone?
If you listen without hearing anything
How can you be offended?
***
136
Being born into samsara, the world of form
Is like finding yourself on a battlefield.
Every morning when you wake up
it can feel like another day of going to war.
The way to win this battle is to be still
do absolutely nothing
This requires real strength
This is the way of the true warrior.
***
137
I realized today, after over 50 years of constant and dedicated practice of the dharma
That I know precisely nothing,
How wonderful.
***
138
There is no point in making sweeping statements about the dharma
To people with no practice under their belt,
Because they won’t understand a word,
And if they do understand a word,
It is because they don’t understand.
***
139
All those people who refuse to think about or reflect on death,
Who just hang on to their own ignorant opinions about it,
Do you know what all of those people, however old they are
either shout out or think when they die,
“I want my mummy”
But it is too late
***
140
Living in samsara is only chaos if you get caught up in it,
Dharma practitioners should learn to dwell in the eye of the storm.
***
141
To make progress in the Dharma
You must have total faith
Such strong faith, that if your teacher asks you to leap into a volcano
You will leap without question.
But this faith must be based on practice and knowledge
Not just belief.
***
142
How do you know when you have attained the Buddha mind?
Every day when you rise, look in the mirror,
If one day when you look two things happen,
1: when you look, there is no one looking back.
2: no thoughts arise such as where am I.
Then you know that mind and body have fallen away
You are there,
The there that is nowhere!
***
143
To be at one with the Dharma
You must live a life that is gentle and flowing,
Not rigid and sharp.
You should be art nouveau
In a world of art deco.
***
144
To experience the whiteness of white
You need to cease comparing it with black.
When you make some progress in the dharma
White and black will be perceived as the same.
When you make a little more progress
Both white and black will cease to exist.
When you fully understand the way
White will again be white
Black will again be black.
***
145
Do not live your life by standards
Living your life by standards is just for other peoples benefit,
If you do not live by standards
You can’t get it wrong.
The trouble is, everyone will hate you for it.
***
146
Stop trying to figure everything out
You will only end up knowing nothing.
If you can stop trying to figure everything out
You will know the whole universe.
***
147
As the samurai warrior draws his sword of steel
And cuts down his enemy,
So the Dharma practitioner should draw his sword of wisdom
And cut down his self.
***
148
To truly go beyond
You must be able to perceive the beauty in samsara
and the ugliness in nirvana
***
149
The young green shoots of spring
The deep blue sky of summer
The fallen brown leaves of autumn
The snowy white mountains of winter,
How wonderful it is to flow with them all,
These are my monastery
The monastery of a homeless monk.
***
150
The reason we practice the dharma
Is to solve the great mystery of life and death
That’s it
Nothing more
***
151
Drift like clouds
Flow like water
Attach to nothing
Enjoy everything
***
152
You will never find inner peace
As long as you blame.
***
153
If after spending a whole life looking after and caring about others,
You then step back to see what the karmic results will bring you,
When you die, you will be born in hell.
***
154
Karma is not about good and bad
It is the movement of a dualistic world.
Unless you attain the Buddha mind
Become one with the dharmakaya,
A bad person can be born in heaven
A good person can be born in hell.
***
155
Taking up dharma practice is like going to war,
You can’t stay at home and go to war.
This is why most fail in their practice,
They say they are going to war
But they are actually sitting at home and watching it on the television.
***
156
When you take up dharma practice
The self goes to war,
There should be no surrender
If you are successful, you (the self) will not come back alive.
***
157
When people make offerings at temples
What they are actually doing is saying
Give me, give me, I want, I want.
***
158
There is nothing more perfect than that which is damaged,
Nothing more beautiful than that which is ugly,
Nothing more complete than that which is incomplete,
You need to see the completeness in the incomplete.
***
159
If they want to worship the Buddha
Why do they go and bow in temples?
Why don’t they bow to flowing rivers
Or a pebble on the ground,
Better still, why don’t they bow to a leper’s arse?
***
160
I have heard people say
You go to heaven when you die,
Well, what I want to know is
Where does heaven go when it dies?
***
161
If someone is living in poverty
There is nothing they need
They already have everything.
***
162
If we fall to the ground
We use the ground to push ourselves up again,
If you lose your way in the dharma
Use the dharma to get yourself back on track.
***
163
The monasteries and temples
Are full of monks chanting and ringing their bells,
But I sit alone, stroking the cats and feeding the birds
And watching the clouds drift by.
***
164
The sun is shining, yet it is snowing
Sun and snow together
Yet not discriminating
How wonderful.
***
165
Up
Down
Big small
How the moon tries to fool us all.
***
166
I spent the first 15 years of my dharma life, learning
I have spent the last 35 years of my dharma life, unlearning.
***
167
The gateway to rumtek monastery
The gateway to Auschwitz,
They are no different,
Pleasure and pain are the taste of emptiness.
***
168
When you are deluded
You think that happiness and suffering
Both exist individually in their own right.
When you wake up a little
You see that happiness and suffering
Are two sides of the same coin.
When you are fully awake,
You see that the coin only has one side,
That does not mean one side is blank,
It means it has one side
The sound of one hand clapping!
***
169
The sun goes down
The moth wakes up,
Spending the whole night looking for light,
Why he doesn’t wake during the day is a mystery,
The light would be there waiting for him,
Neither I nor the moth will ever know the answer to this riddle.
***
170
Looking out at life
We fail to see what is there
Everything being veiled in an obscuring fog,
Created by our own concepts, opinions, ideas,
views, theories.
It seems that only the blind can really see.
***
171
You won’t find silence
By running away from noise.
***
172
Religious ignorance is the key to spiritual knowledge
The less you know about Buddhism
The more you will understand the dharma.
***
173
Sometimes it takes the death of someone close to you
To unblock the wax from your ears,
Now that you can hear again
How beautiful is the sound of the Dharma.
***
174
The gentle flakes of early winter snow
The rustling leaves of the maple tree
The sound of the stream making its unhindered way
The sound of the blackbird calling its young to come and feed
Ah, what could be better
What need is there for anything else
Peace at last.
***
175
As a Buddhist monk, I no longer give blessings
I have come to the conclusion that you bless yourself through how you live your life,
So, if you want a blessing
Earn it!
***
176
Anyone who is truly enlightened
will never tell you that he is,
those who say they are enlightened
are not.
***
177
Sex and drink will not necessarily block you from achieving the way
But arrogance and pride will close the doors for ever.
***
178
If life was wonderful all the time
It wouldn’t be long before you felt imprisoned.
***
179
Those who have nothing are the wealthiest of all
As they always have plenty to spare.
***
180
Spring
A time of birth
A time of death
The birds chirp happily as they feed and tend to their newborn young
Whilst the predators lick their lips in anticipation,
True Dharma teaching indeed.
***
181
You are awakened
Or you are not awakened,
Anyone who thinks he is nearly there is missing the mark
1 inch away is no different to 10’000 miles away.
***
182
Every tree contains the statue of the Buddha
It just hasn’t yet been revealed by the wood carver,
So don’t waste your money on statues
Or accumulate more religious merchandise
Just go and bow to a tree.
***
183
When you are born
You only inherit one thing from your parents,
The journey towards death.
***
184
Anyone can be at peace when thing are going well,
The Dharma warrior is a peace, even in the midst of chaos.
***
185
If you don’t go round looking at things through rose tinted glasses
And observe the world (samsara) for what it is
You will not be afraid to die.
***
186
The man who looks for
Or tries to attain no-mind
Will never find it.
***
187
Whether the world is at war or at peace
The moon looks on unaffected.
***
188
When you look into a mirror
It is not your face that you see
But your mind.
***
189
They often talk of the finger pointing at the moon,
Saying don’t look at the finger, or you will not see the moon,
But you must look deeper and ask
What is the moon looking at?
***
190
If you think that, to find peace you need to dwell somewhere quiet
Then you are in for a big disappointment.
***
191
A meditation cushion will give you all the protection you need in this life,
Even an earthquake directly below will not shake you.
***
192
No sooner have people started to study the dharma
That they start to spout their opinions about it,
Into the brain and straight out of the mouth,
This is a big mistake.
***
193
People should keep quiet until they fully understand the dharma,
Then when they fully understand
They will have nothing to say.
***
194
Unless you put every effort into developing wisdom and altruism
Manjusri’s sword will become blunt and rusty
And Avalokiteshvara’s six syllable mantra will fall silent.
***
195
You must arrive at your destination
Without making a journey,
You must climb to the top of a hundred foot pole
Without making a single move.
***
196
Ah, the person with no tongue
What sweet words they utter.
***
197
When the Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath
He taught the four noble truths
He did this because he was not able to explain the unexplainable
This came later.
***
198
Do not speak of the dharma as you would religion
You will kill it dead.
***
199
No matter what your profession, no matter what your occupation
Unless you have a spiritual practice
Whatever you are doing, it is just to pay for food to keep going.
In order to keep eating you need to keep defecating.
So, unless you have a meaningful spiritual practice
You purpose of your life can be summed up in three words
Eat – Crap – Die!
***
200
Why spend all your time focusing on the material things of this one short life,
when you have the whole of infinity to look forward to.
***
201
The only book of any real value
Is the one with no words.
***
202
Humans are much like the cicada
Once they are born
They make a lot of noise
Then die
***
203
There is no spring
There is no summer
There is no autumn
There is no winter
Keep this in mind
And there is less chance of life devouring you
***
204
There are no benefits to be gained from practicing the dharma
If you are experiencing any benefits
Then you are not practicing the dharma
***
205
What we as humans label as good and evil
Are just two of the many faces
Of nirvana
***
206
If fish swim, they discover what water is
If birds fly, they discover what the sky is
If we sit, we discover what samsara is
***
207
When the Buddha gave us the four noble truths
as his first teaching
he wasn’t exactly being honest
***
208
Evacuating your bowls
passing water
you don’t get anymore zen than that
***
209
To experience the absolute
you must let the relative go
the relative must become history
only the insane would wish to dwell in the relative world
***
210
The celibate monk reaches enlightenment through his abstinence
the monk and his consort reach enlightenment through their orgasm
no right hand, no left hand
no pure, no impure
***
211
You realise that you have made progress in the dharma
when after many years of practice
you sit back and come to the conclusion
that you haven’t got anywhere
***
212
People claim to see the sun and the moon
they claim to see the stars
they claim to see the whole universe
they claim to see everything
because they are blind
***
213
Those who are educated
are bound by their knowledge
those who are uneducated
are free because of their lack of knowledge
***
214
The body is just a receptacle for piss and shit
why get attached to it
***
215
You will never get anywhere in Buddhism
while you practice Buddhism
***
216
Through the mind of ignorance
we discriminate between right and wrong
once enlightened, right and wrong still exist
but we see them for what they are
emptiness
***
217
You will never experience the state of birthlessness
while you are under the impression that someone has been born
***
218
To destroy the ego of self grasping
you must stop using capitals in your name,
you must dwell in a world of lower case
***
219
To make progress in the dharma
Doing absolutely nothing
is the most productive you can be
***
220
To accept and see the beauty in imperfection
is the height of perfection itself
***
221
There are no obstacles
just opportunities to deepen your insight
***
222
The actions of others are only selfish because we label them is such
in fact it is us that are selfish
because we desire them to think of us
***
223
The world is very simple
everything is just black and white
it is us that create the grey areas
black IS white
white IS black
HIK!
***
224
An unenlightened person
can cut an object into two
An enlightened person
can cut an object into one
***
225
The sun has risen again this mornong
another opportunity to pass through the gate
don’t waste your day with mundane non dharmic activities
it may not rise again for you tomorrow
***
226
You need to be so still
that you feel the natural flow of stillness,
when you are flowing
you need to flow in a way that you feel the natural stillness of flowing
***
227
If you wish to understand zen
step aside from right and wrong
If you wish to understand dzogchen
step aside from left and right
***
228
No Basho
no pond
no frog
no sound of water