Heavy rains cause flooding, evacuations in Missouri (from Daily Herald)
Today’s senryu: Stormy Weather Ahead
polar vortex swoops
cold meets warmth and skies explode
expect many tears
Homes flood as Missouri River overtops, breaches levees – buisinessinsider.com
Sister Annabel Laity – author at the Plum Village Shop plumvillage.shop
In her book, Mindfulness – Walking with Jesus and Buddha (c) 2021, Sister Annabel Laity identifies the two types of ancestors:
“Our blood ancestors are not the only source of our lives. We also have spiritual ancestors who transmit to us the spiritual direction that our life takes … Our blood ancestors are one of our roots, and our spiritual ancestors are no less important a root … Mindful of our blood and our spiritual ancestors, we shall see their qualities that we want to continue, and we shall also see their shortcomings. We cannot reject our ancestors, because of their mistaken ways. Who are we, who are by no means perfect, to do that? … We accept all our ancestors as they are, and we feel well because, by accepting them, we are accepting ourselves.” pp. 116-117
Today’s senryu: Two Types of Ancestors
Dearest sister and
crazy old uncle Friedrich,
did God really die?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra
“Nietzsche dismissed Schopenhauer and Christianity and Buddhism as pessimistic and nihilistic, but, according to Benjamin A. Elman, “[w]hen understood on its own terms, Buddhism cannot be dismissed as pessimistic or nihilistic“. Moreover, answers which Nietzsche assembled to the questions he was asking, not only generally but also in Zarathustra, put him “very close to some basic doctrines found in Buddhism”. An example is when Zarathustra says that “the soul is only a word for something about the body“. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra
Love the final paragraph especially. We can’t free anyone else but we are responsible for liberating ourselves. May we be free.
Over the years, Thanissaro Bhikkhu has cleared up a lot of misunderstanding about what metta – and its companion mindstates – is and is not.
The brahmavihāras, or sublime attitudes, are attitudes of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity that you spread to all beings, without limit: in other words, with no limit to the amount of goodwill, etc., that you spread, and no limit on the number of beings to whom you spread it. Each of these attitudes is an antidote for mental states that can get in the way of training the mind.
• Goodwill, a wish that beings will be happy, is an antidote for ill will, the desire to see beings suffer.
• Compassion, a wish that those who are suffering will be freed from their suffering, is an antidote to cruelty, the desire to actually harm others when they’re in a position to be harmed.
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Ilia Delio, Chair in Theology at Villanova University, shares how Thomas Merton informed herstory in Discovering the true self in God with Merton’s guidance. (See https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/discovering-true-self-god-mertons-guidance). Delio begins by quoting Merton and then elaborates:
“‘Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny.‘
The search for true identity requires an honest self-love. Love of self is not selfishness but a humble recognition of our lives as true, good and beautiful. Without real love of self, all other loves are distorted. “
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marybeth-weiss/
Marybeth Weiss, VP for People & Culture, has a related message in her article, There Is No “I” in Team, but There Is a “Me”: Building a Better Team Starting with You. (See https://trainingindustry.com/articles/strategy-alignment-and-planning/there-is-no-i-in-team-but-there-is-a-me-building-a-better-team-starting-with-you/). Weiss offers:
“If we rely on stories to drive behavior, we can’t accomplish anything, and relationships deteriorate … Teams can only grow and flourish from the hunger and drive of each individual … Team success isn’t always about what the group does but how each member contributes.“
Today’s senryu: our true self
one plus one plus one
equals infinity – yes,
we’re more, together
Are you ever impatient with impermanence? Does time marching on ever bring solace? Is life itself exasperating? Just three questions on a Friday morning resulting in three senryus linked below.
Today’s linked senryus: Why Wait?
At your service or
at your mercy – I’m tired;
tired of waiting …
Godot or Bardot
daydreams no longer work – I’m
tired of waiting …
Time is not my friend
I know I am breathing – so?
tired of waiting …
Today’s senryu: The Knowing – Doing Gap
I know what to do
but have not done it just yet.
Do I really know?
I’m listening to Bhikkhu Bodhi‘s audio book The Noble Eightfold Path – The Way to the End of Suffering (c) 1984. Here are a couple of early passages:
“It would be pointless to pose the question which of the two aspects of the Dhamma has greater value, the doctrine or the path. But if we did risk the pointless by asking that question, the answer would have to be the path. The path claims primacy because it is precisely this that brings the teaching to life. The path translates the Dhamma from a collection of abstract formulas into a continually unfolding disclosure of truth. It gives an outlet from the problem of suffering with which the teaching starts. And it makes the teaching’s goal, liberation from suffering, accessible to us in our own experience, where alone it takes on authentic meaning.
To follow the Noble Eightfold Path is a matter of practice rather than intellectual knowledge, but to apply the path correctly it has to be properly understood. In fact, right understanding of the path is itself a part of the practice. It is a facet of right view, the first path factor, the forerunner and guide for the rest of the path. Thus, though initial enthusiasm might suggest that the task of intellectual comprehension may be shelved as a bothersome distraction, mature consideration reveals it to be quite essential to ultimate success in the practice.
The search for a spiritual path is born out of suffering. It does not start with lights and ecstasy, but with the hard tacks of pain, disappointment, and confusion. However, for
suffering to give birth to a genuine spiritual search, it must amount to more than something passively received.”
From another perspective, I’m fond of the book The Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton (c) 2000 where the authors explain “knowing comes from doing and teaching others how … in a world of conceptual frameworks, fancy graphics presentations, and, in general, lots of words, there is much too little appreciation for the power, and indeed the necessity, of not just talking and thinking but of doing – and this includes explaining and teaching – as a way of knowing.”
The book goes on to quote a senior executive who says, “Where we go from an awareness state to a real knowledge is where we have problems. We are aware of it but we don’t have the knowledge because we’ve never had to teach it or implement it. And I see that’s a huge gap.” p. 248-249
Can we ever truly know without actually doing something with that knowledge?
Another great post from Lynn J Kelly.
Whatever a mother, father
Or other relative may do,
Far better is the benefit
From one’s own rightly directed mind.– Dhammapada 43The English word “mindfulness” is the usual translation for the Pali word sati. Most generally, sati means to hold something in awareness. When the Chinese translated Indian Buddhist terms into Chinese characters, sati became a character with two halves: the top half is the character for “the present moment” and the bottom half is the character for “heart.” The combination suggests that mindfulness is connected to the heart, to being “heartfelt in the present moment.” It points to the possibility of holding our experience in our hearts, to having an accepting, soft, and spacious awareness toward whatever is occurring. …
Many of…
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The Tibetan singing bell invites us to relax … the facilitator invites us to be calm and quiet our mind … and then the trip begins.
when was the first time I meditated? Oh yeah, 8th grade, Sister Del Rey, at that parochial school in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, what was its name? …. Oh well, can’t remember everything …
it was a homework assignment: find a quiet place and let your mind float …
I remember a green jade Buddha statue floating … I wasn’t attending a Buddhist school … ha!
was it 30 minutes, I’m sure I’m exaggerating, probably only 15 at most … must write down what thoughts come and go during this experiment … I only remember that floating Buddha today, but I also remember feeling refreshed afterward even after all these years …
thoughts come and go like clouds on a windy day … oh, Thay’ you made this Zen Buddhist thing so easy for us
it was maybe fifteen years later that my significant other (now my second wife of many years) invited me to try TM … transcendental meditation … that was a nice experience … I even purchased a mantra … did that for a while but
something about Zen Buddhism … Thomas Merton … D. T. Suzuki … Thich Nhat Hanh … sangha … bellmaster …
Wow! twenty-five minutes really flies when …
_/\_
Once again, I am so grateful for Lynn J Kelly’s sharing. This one includes the statement: “the best way to repay a teacher is to take the Dhamma to heart and to practice it in a way that fulfills his or her compassionate purpose in teaching it.” Thank you, Lynn!
Thanissaro Bhikkhu says this about how we can repay our teachers for the wisdom that we have learned from them. A student asks:
“How can I ever repay you for your teaching?”
Good meditation teachers often hear this question from their students, and the best answer I know for it is one that my teacher, Ajaan Fuang, gave every time:
“By being intent on practicing.”
Each time he gave this answer, I was struck by how noble and gracious it was. And it wasn’t just a formality. He never tried to find opportunities to pressure his students for donations. Even when our monastery was poor, he never acted poor, never tried to take advantage of their gratitude and trust. This was a refreshing change from some of my previous experiences with run-of-the-mill village and city monks who were quick to drop hints about their need for donations from even stray…
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 lynnjkelly Feb 26We learn less from what people tell us than we do from what we observe other people doing. If we’re interested in nurturing our generous tendencies, we would do well to observe others in the act of giving. It happens all the time, though we may not notice it unless we look for it. One person phones her mother overseas every day, not because she enjoys it, but because it keeps her mother mentally balanced. Another person regularly sends money for support to a family member who, in spite of doing their best, cannot make ends meet. Some will send postcards or make phone calls just to let others know they are not alone, that someone is thinking of them. Some people are such outstanding examples that they inspire others even after their deaths. One example was a relative of mine who welcomed victims of domestic violence into her home through a church-based service. The guests brought their children and pets and were often too traumatized to be gracious. And yet their host’s healing love was unstinting. She knew she was salving deep wounds and this was her calling. We can inspire ourselves by recalling people we’ve known who embodied generosity. The key feature is that they were uplifted by their own giving. Another way to look at generosity is to examine our assumptions. Do we believe that people are basically good, basically bad, or basically mixed? Quote from I May Be Wrong by Björn Natthiko Lindeblad (p. 228):…he told us about a BBC interview with the Thai king. The British journalist had asked the king what he thought of the western, Christian idea of original sin. And the king’s answer was lovely: “As Buddhists, we do not believe in original sin. We believe in original purity.” What do we believe? We know that everyone makes mistakes, but do we attribute them to bad intentions or do we see them as best efforts that fail sometimes? This question of original sin or original purity can change our perspective on everything. If we believed that everyone, without exception, has the potential to fully awaken, wouldn’t we treat others with a fundamental respect? Cultivating generosity is the start of looking at everyone with the eyes of love, of forgiveness, of acceptance, kindness, and care. Traditionally, gifts of the Dharma are the most valuable gifts of all. Every time we consciously choose to behave virtuously, to support the growth of the Buddha’s teachings, to cultivate our inner calm, we are giving gifts of the highest value. |
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