#2425 - Monday,
March 20, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
"Who in the world
am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!"
Alice, in Lewis
Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
posted to Power of Silence
One can know one's Self only with one's own eye of knowledge, and
not with somebody else's.
- Ramana Maharshi -
In oneself lies the whole world, and if you know how to look and
learn, then the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody
on earth can give you either that key or the door to open, except
yourself.
- J. Krishnamurti, You Are The World -
..there is nothing whatever mysterious about this
matter...the apparent difficulty is due to our conditioning...an
inability to perceive the obvious owing to a conditioned reflex
which causes us persistently to look in the wrong direction!
- Wei Wu Wei -
There is no enlightenment outside of daily life. - Thich
Nhat Hanh The most important point is to accept
yourself and stand on your two feet. - Shunryu Suzuki
Be In Your Body
Most of the time we go through the day, through our activities,
our work, our relationships, our conversations, and very rarely
do we ground ourselves in an awareness of our bodies. We are lost
in our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our stories, our
plans. A very simple guide or check on this state of being lost
is to pay attention to those times when you feel like you are
rushing. Rushing does not have to do with speed. You can rush
moving slowly, and you can rush moving quickly. We are rushing
when we feel as if we are toppling forward. Our minds run ahead
of ourselves; they are out there where we want to get to, instead
of being settled back in our bodies. The feeling of rushing is
good feedback. Whenever we are not present, right then, in that
situation, we should stop and take a few deep breaths. Settle
into the body again. Feel yourself sitting. Feel the step of the
walk. Be in your body. The Buddha made a very powerful statement
about this: "Mindfulness of the body leads to nirvana."
Such awareness is not a superficial practice. Mindfulness of the
body keeps us present. - Joseph Goldstein, Transforming the Mind,
Healing the World
From: 'When Things Fall
Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times'
by Pema Chodron
"The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it
face to
face. When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we
could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness.
When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could
meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite. When we want to
complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead. When
we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet
the wind and hear its sound. Cutting our expectations for a cure
is
a gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and cold.
They
will go on forever. After we have died, the ebb and flow will
still
continue. Like the tides of the sea, like day and night - this is
the
nature of things.
From: 'After the Ecstasy,
the Laundry'
Jack Kornfield
Feelings and Temperament
"Awakening to the emotions means to feel them -
nothing less, nothing more. It does not require
changing our feelings -feelings change all the
time on their own. Nor does it mean changing
our temperament. If we are an introvert or an
extrovert, a joyful person or a melancholic one,
that will likely remain the same. One Buddhist
teacher said that he had expected awakening to
bring a "personal transformation," only to be
surprised that it was actually an "impersonal
transformation." The transformation is the
opening of the heart, not a personality change.
We fear our emotions when we haven't seen them
for what they really are. We confuse allowing
ourselves to be aware of them with the necessity
to act them out. But to include our full selves in our
journey, we need to understand how we have been
entangled by and identified with our emotions. We
need to see how the hurt and frustration of childhood,
the forces of anger, greed, pride, sexual longing and
need have been conditioned in us. Experiencing the full
range of our feelings as they come and go in our
consciousness, we can begin to ask of each the question,
"Is this who I am?" If we can hold our feelings in a
spacious and fearless heart, the lonely, broken, spiteful,
confused feelings arise in a new way, transformed by our
acceptance."
Tricycle is
keeping up with new technology! In addition to our popular online Audio
Teachings, we are
pleased to announce Visual Dharma, our new dharma video collection
online. Visit us each week for new content.
Dancing
in Space, free of all conceptual bindings, The sooner one relies on
nothing, Everything will
rely on you, If
not you, then whom? Offering Light Freely, Wisdom Abounds!
