Journey

May we know that it is the journey that is important. May we find our own truths and the divine within ourselves and in doing so help our fellow travelers to find their own. May we see each other through spirit and not through worldly eyes.
Namaste

Clarity

There is no other task but to know your own original face. This is called independence; the spirit is clear and free. If you say there is some particular doctrine or patriarchy, you’ll be totally cheated. Just look into your heart; there is a transcendental clarity. Just have no greed and no dependency and you will immediately attain certainty.

~ Yen tou

The self

When a lute is played, there is no previous store of playing that it comes from. When the music stops, it does not go anywhere else. It came into existence by way of the structure of the lute and the playing of the performer. When the playing ceases, the music goes out of existence. 

In the same way all the components of being, both material and nonmaterial, come into existence, play their part, and pass away. That which we call a person is the bringing together of components and their actions with each other. It is impossible to find a permanent self there. And yet there is a paradox. For there is a path to follow and there is walking to be done, and yet there is no walker. 

There are actions but there is no actor. The air moves but there is no wind. The idea of a specific self is a mistake. Existence is clarity and emptiness.

~ Visuddhi Magga

Spring wind

What does the spring wind have in mind,
Coming day and night to these groves and gardens?
It never asks who owns the peach and damson trees
But blows away their crimson without a word.

~ Ch'i-chi, "Clouds Should Know Me By Now"

Love

Put away all hindrances, let your mind full of love pervade one quarter of the world, and so too the second quarter, and so the third, and so the fourth.

And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around and everywhere, altogether continue to pervade with love-filled thought, abounding, sublime, beyond measure, free from hatred and ill-will.

~ Adapted from the Digha Nikaya

Afflictions

People who do not know how to practice the way
want to get rid of afflictions.
Afflictions are originally void and null;
you are trying to use the way to seek the way beyond.

~ Pao-chih

Attitude

If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding.

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama