Zen sitting is not some sort of operation to be performed. It is going into one’s true original nature before father or mother were born. The self seeks to grasp the self, but it is already the self, so why should it go to grasp the self? Look into it…
It is worth knowing that one can get hypnotized into thinking that there is only one way to do a thing correctly—it’s the Right Way, and there are no other ways. . .
Try to imagine deathlessness, and all you get is some kind of immortal fantasy, a heavenly fantasy where everything is beautiful, you are young forever, and there is no disease. This is a childlike fantasy of paradise. As you trust awareness more, however…
But if we suffer from ourselves, no one else can tread the path for us. That, I think, is central to Buddhism; it’s our own path, our own responsibility…
There can be few sounds more maddening than snoring — someone else’s snoring I mean…
Buddhist Meditation is not normally thought of as a process of attainment or failure. Learning about ourselves is its practice and awareness is its function…
Sometimes, however, there is this contradiction: we ask about practising with fear while being afraid of practising with fear….
In the Theravada teachings on samatha-vipassanà, they divide meditation ― that English word ‘meditation’ ― into tranquillity and insight (samatha and vipassanà).
