The facts of our lives, when we are able to know them, will free us from the torment we are in. When we can bear reality thoroughly, suffering is over. Pain may exist, but it is only pain. Suffering is what we add to pain.
When we do not reject our suffering, or add anything to it, pain is simply pain. It is what we add to our pain that turns it into suffering.
Zen practice asks you not to worry about who you 'should' become. Find out who you are right now.
Fear of the future and longing for the past are major factors which impede appropriate action.
Whatever we can't love or accept in another, is a mirror of something we can't love or accept in ourselves.
All experiences are welcomed and fully digested, not judged good or bad.
We are what we think about. When we stay fixed on one person, thought or situation, we get caught in the grip of self-centered thoughts. The more we give attention to that which is upsetting, the more strength it has to rule our lives.
If one's sense of self is obtained through the eyes of another it is always subject to being lost.
When we are willing to accept our experience, just as it is, a strange thing happens: it changes into something else. When we avoid pain, struggle not to feel it, pain turns into suffering.
God's guiding hand, the guiding Voice, resting lightly upon us is best felt and heard when we are silent and still.
Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is life for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now.
Relying on another is an expression of attachment, not love, a manifestation of insecurity and suffering, not understanding the true nature of our lives.
we learn the process of emptying out, cleaning house, both within and without.
When we are in a truly loving relationship, we receive the gift of being known and accepted. We become more, not less, of who we are. We receive the space in which to bloom. This is how we know we are in a loving relationship. We are blooming, and the one we love is blooming as well.
In the Zen Way we focus upon each breath, each day, each moment and experience it totally. One complete breath brings the next.
Change is the very basis of our life, not to be fought, to be welcomed and tasted, to be seen for the gift it truly is.
We turn pain into suffering by adding on all kinds of beliefs, interpretations and judgments to it.
This is how we know we are in a loving relationship. We are blooming, and the one we love is blooming as well.
When we sit, we open our own treasure house. Rather than do this, however, most of us first seek to find the treasures another person can provide. We calculate their value to us. When we approach relationships in this manner, we are coming as beggars, seeing the other as a source of supply. When we can enter a relationship with our treasure house already open, there is no end to the wonders we can find, both within and between ourselves and another.
Another simple and powerful way to dissolve problems is not to dwell upon the outcome of your actions. Instead, learn to value each action (no matter how small or large), to do it with complete attention. Your joy and satisfaction comes from doing each action with a whole heart and mind. Results and consequences then take care of themselves. When you are not absorbed by concern for outcomes, how much anxiety can you ever have?