All shall

be well,

and all shall

be well,

and all manner

of thing

shall be well.

julian of norwich - 14th century - mystic

Dilige et quod vis fac

St. Augustine of Hippo

(Love, and do what you will)

When Kishizawa Ian, Suzuki Roshi's second teacher, was a young monk, he was sitting in meditation on a rainy day and heard the sound of a distant waterfall. Then the wooden han was struck. He went to his teacher (maybe Oka Sotan) and asked, "What is the place where the sound of the rain, the waterfall, and the han meet?"His teacher replied, "True eternity still flows."And then he asked, "What is this true eternity that still flows?""It is like a bright mirror, permanently smooth," said his teacher."Is there anything beyond this?" asked the young monk."Yes," responded his teacher."What is beyond this?" inquired the young monk.And his teacher replied, "Break the mirror. Come, and I'll meet you."

"It's like you got yesterday, today, and tomorrow in the same room. There's no telling what can happen."

- I'm Not There (2007)

If you fall because of the ground, you rise always because of the sky, and it is altogether impossible to rise apart from the sky; if you fall because of the sky, you rise always because of the ground, and it is altogether impossible to arise apart from the ground.- Dogen

Si comprehendis, non est Deus



(If you can grasp it, it’s not God.)

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life…. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

–Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

NPR had a ripe story about the album by Van Morrision, Astral Weeks. One of the persons interviewed had an interesting observation. He used to think that good music was a matter of practice but Astral Weeks made him realize that courage was as important as practice to make art (or in my application prayer or meditation). How lovely.

"...I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it. Reciprocity is his affair. It is precisely insofar as the relation between the Other and me is not reciporcal that I am subjection to the Other; and I am "subject" essentially in this sense. It is I who support all...The I always has one responsibility more than all the others."
Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995)

A conversation between writers Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller during a party at a billionaire’s estate. The story goes that Vonnegut pointed to the billionaire and asked Heller, "Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?"

"Yes," Heller responded, "but I have something he will never have: Enough."

“In the heart of winter, the chill freezes lakes and rivers; water becomes so solid that it can bear men, beasts and carts. As the spring approaches, earth and water warm up and thaw. What then remains of the hardness of the ice? Water is soft and fluid, ice hard and sharp, so we cannot say that they are identical; but neither can we say that they are different, because ice is only solidified water, and water is only melted ice. The same applies to our perception of the world around us. To be attached to the reality of phenomena, to be tormented by attraction and repulsion, by pleasure and pain, gain and loss, fame and obscurity, praise and blame, creates a solidity in the mind. What we have to do, therefore, is to melt the ice of concepts into the living water of freedom within.” —Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Ode to New Year's Resolutions

Katagiri Roshi:

To change your life is not your business.

If you try to change your life through your intellectual sense you won't be satisfied no matter how much you change.

If you want to change your life, practice forming a habit of doing small things with the body and mind. If you do this continually your life will be changed beyond your expectation.