It is not merely enthusiasm that erodes when practice declines. Your body and mind go out of tune.You are no longer a vessel of insight. The cardinal can sing; the wind can move the ironwood trees delicately; a child can ask a wise question --and where is your center? How can you respond?
It is time to put yourself back in tune, to be ready for experiences that make life fulfilling. Take up the advice for beginners. Put your zazen pad somewhere between your bathroom and your kitchen. Sit down there in the morning after you use the bathroom and before you cook breakfast. You are sitting with everyone in the world. If you can sit only briefly, you will at least have settled your day.
No advice is easier to give than this, or harder to follow -- for me too. The day stretches forth before me invitingly. Surely I can cut my zazen without harm, and get at the important stuff. One tiny decision leads to more tiny decisions, and the path is neglected.
-- Robert Aitken Roshi
from "Encouraging Words"
(submitted by Thad Settle)
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LIFE
is a verb.
-- Buckminster Fuller
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MEN NEVER DO EVIL so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
-- Pascal
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LIKE ALL OTHER PROBLEMS, the ailments of society arise from causes, and these can be traced in a sequence leading from the manifestations to the underlying roots. The conclusion drawn from this inquiry is highly significant: the causes of social disharmony lie in the human mind and all stem ultimately from craving. Thus craving turns out to be the origin of suffering in more ways than one. It brings about not only continued rebirth in samsara with its personal pain and sorrow, but also the cupidity, selfishness, violence and immorality that wreck all attempts to establish peace, cooperation, and social stabilty.
-- Bikkhu Bodhi
from "The Great Discourse on Causation:
The Mahnidanna Sutta and its Commentaries" p. 10
(Buddhist Publication Society, 1984-85)
