it can be often overlooked, but there are actually two parts to our meditation practice and path – how we practice on our cushion in formal meditation and how we practice in our life.

if our path is one of love and our practice is one of waking up to and relieving the suffering in ourselves and the world, then both meditation and action are needed and both support each other.

our meditation practice supports and equips us for having the spaciousness to choose beneficial action and not just react. we can have an active role in non harming, in a world that has seen too much aggression and destruction.

~j

#meditation #action #SitDownRiseUp #nonharming #EngagedBuddhism #path #practice #JinpaLhaga

all full, all empty.

each moment, eternity.

just this, yes, just this.

~j

#fullness #emptiness #ThisMoment #JustThis #meditation #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #haiku #enso #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

“Hate is as virulent as poison and so I will not indulge it.”

~ Maya Angelou

hate does not spontaneously manifest. it grows from seeds of thoughts and feelings of fear and anger that have not been tended to, that have not been cared for, or transformed. we are not our thoughts and feelings of fear, or anger, or hate. underneath these are a tenderness, an openness, a resilience that is love, that is us. meditation can give us a way to practice changing our relationship to thought, to feelings, to our fear and anger. we can practice a path of alchemy, of healing, of love, and not of hate.

~j


#hate #poison #anger #fear #OpenHeart #healing #alchemy #meditation #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

As a bee gathering nectar does not harm or disturb the color and fragrance of the flower; so do the wise move through the world.

~

Buddha

#NoHarm #nonaggression #nonviolence #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #PhotoArt #photography

Zen Student:
Is there anything I can do to make myself enlightened?

Zen Master:
As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.

Zen Student:
Then of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?

Zen Master:
To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.

*note: unable to find where i originally read this quote, prior to a post i made in 2014 with same quote. if anyone knows and can share, i’d love to give credit 🙏🏻

#WakeUp #BeReady #meditation #path #practice #Zen #EngagedBuddhism #JMWart #JinpaLhaga

rooted deep in earth

lifted, reaching into light

i move with the wind.

~j

oh, to be a tree!!

practice, like a tree 🌳🙏🏻

#path #practice #life #meditation #tree #EngagedBuddhist #haiku #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #photography #BWphotography

this is our starting point and the fruition of our practice. ultimately, we are waking up to what is already true, who we already are underneath all the layers of false sense of self, and all of the patterns and habits we use to protect and preserve that false sense of self. our practice is one of shedding all that is unnecessary, all that is untrue, revealing what we really are – open, tender, warm, and luminous.

~j

#path #practice #meditation #emptiness #spacious #luminous #JinpaLhaga

time loses its hold

in nature beyond these gates

dharmas flow as one.

~j

nature is a healing balm. if weather permits where you are today, get out into it 🌳🙏🏻

#healing #balance #harmony #nature #life #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #Haiku #JMWart #photography #JinpaLhaga

i love the perspective of mystics, like St. Catherine of Siena. they see in a way that is far more vast, and far deeper than most of us. for them, there is no separation between the sacred and the mundane. from a Buddhist perspective, the underlying nature of all things is luminous, awake and spacious.

but how can we have a perspective that things are this way, when we see so much harm, so much cruelty, so much ugliness at times?

i would suggest that it is the very act of not recognizing things as sacred and luminous, which can be called ignorance, that propels the harm and cruelty we see. if we were to really see others as sacred, the environment as sacred, then maybe we would harm less, we’d care about the person going hungry, living without healthcare, or a home. we’d care about the environment and all the life that depends on it being healthy.

we can practice this perspective, through insight, by uprooting our ignorance and the destructive patterns of attachment and aversion that arise from it. meditation can give us the time and space to practice this.

~j

#sacred #luminous #meditation #insight #path #practice #ChristianMysticism #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga

Breath rises and falls.

Just this sitting, nothing more.

Sun shines, birds’ songs sing.

~j

#meditation #path #practice #life #nature #haiku #JMWart #JinpaLhaga