haiku

Vesak…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

artist unknown
in life, all things changekeep your heart open with love

now, you are awake!
~j
commemorating the birth, enlightenment, and death of Siddhartha Gautama, (Shakyamuni) The Buddha.
#Vesak #Buddha #Buddhism

this, your very heart…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

  
this, your very heart.

broken open, heals the world.

dam breaks, water flows.

~j

11.11.15
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” ~ Zelda Fitzgerald
“O, that my monk’s robe were wide enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world.” ~ Zen poet-monk Ryōkan
“The practice is never for ourselves alone.” ~ Joseph Goldstein
#heart #HeartBrokenOpen #healing #suffering #love #CapacityToLove #interdependence #community #sangha #practice #meditation #compassion #metta #LovingKindness #Zen #haiku #quotes #JMW #TheMettaGarden 

Oh this life, this life!

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

  
“Buddha told a parable in a sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another Tiger was waiting to eat him. 

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the fine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!”
~ a Zen parable as retold in the book, “Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings” compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki

dirt beneath these nails…

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dirty nails

Awake in the world
What is this meditation?
Dirt beneath these nails

~j

“A long time ago in China, a Zen student asked if any of the sages had ever fallen into hell.  His teacher answered that they are the first to go there!  The shocked student asked, ‘But if they are enlightened, why would they fall into hell?’  The teacher looked at the student and with a smile said, ‘If I didn’t fall into hell, how could I help you?’  Do you see what he is doing here?  He completely reverses the student’s problem, saying this is not about the student’s idea of purity, but about helping and caring.  That is what’s important.  He’s saying that you have to get your hands dirty; you have to dig right in.  Just as you are, without some special robe or degree or twenty years of meditation practice.  Just as you are, you can help.”

~ Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara
from the chapter “Living In The Suffering World”
from her book, “MOST INTIMATE: A Zen Approach To Life’s Challenges”