When rain falls, the urban alleyways fill with people under umbrellas, with each person walking rather glumly under his or her own. Occasionally there may be two people under an umbrella but the umbrellas of the secular world are so narrow they hardly cover a single person’s shoulders. That reflects how stingy space and urban life have become…
Sometimes, while practising, it is as easy as pushing a boat over ice. At other times it is as difficult as trying to drag a cow to a well.
At the beginning each practitioner is given a hua-tou, a kind of koan. For example: What is this? I-Mo-Ko? What is this? The idea is to concentrate your entire attention and mind on this one particular koan or hua-tou: What is this? What is this? What is this? It is different from vipassana meditation where the intention is to be aware and solely aware of what is going on. When you eat, you just acknowledge how that feels—approaching the spoon, touching the spoon, feeling the coolness of the handle, and so on. In koan meditation, however, your attention is single-pointedly directed to this question—What is this?—right now. Initially, it is very difficult to concentrate because all kinds of thinking comes up . . . comes up . . . comes up . . . like clouds, or smoke from a chimney…
Everything throughout the universes always speaks the Dharma.
In one sense, human history feels like a history of ownership. It seems like people have endless fought to have more for themselves. Greed has no limits and no holidays. It surges with the desire to possess even one more thing…
Don’t get distracted. Don’t look for the Buddha anywhere apart from your own mind. When you are a really free person, you hesitate nowhere when you are only “you and self.” Even when living in the common world, if you don’t become attached to or imbued with worldly things, you can become your true self…
Everyone originally possesses the Dharma-Seal of the Unborn; so why do you still search for it? Have you realized it yet?
Your paying homage to the Buddha proceeds from certain conditions latent within your true original nature. These are deep impressions that you have received from the Buddha. And they were not received in vain. They are like sounds near a mountain that will be followed by their echo…
Buddhism now 