Change Begins With Choice

by Jim Rohn

Any day we wish; we can discipline ourselves to change it all. Any day we wish; we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge. Any day we wish; we can start a new activity. Any day we wish; we can start the process of life change. We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year.

We can also do nothing. We can pretend rather than perform. And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are. We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause. As Shakespeare uniquely observed, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves." We created our circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today. Those who are in search of the good life do not need more answers or more time to think things over to reach better conclusions. They need the truth. They need the whole truth. And they need nothing but the truth.

We cannot allow our errors in judgment, repeated every day, to lead us down the wrong path. We must keep coming back to those basics that make the biggest difference in how our life works out. And then we must make the very choices that will bring life, happiness and joy into our daily lives.

And if I may be so bold to offer my last piece of advice for someone seeking and needing to make changes in their life - If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree. You have the ability to totally transform every area in your life - and it all begins with your very own power of choice.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn


This article was submitted by Jim Rohn, America's Foremost Business Philosopher.
To subscribe to the Free Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine go to www.jimrohn.com
or send a blank email to subscribe @ jimrohn.com
Copyright © 2000 Jim Rohn International. All rights reserved worldwide

See also:

• Jim Rohn Quotes
• Failure & Success by Jim Rohn (audio)

Learning From Your Mistakes

Written by Brian Tracy

By: Brian Tracy

On the other hand, people with a benevolent or positive worldview see the world around them as filled with opportunities and possibilities. They believe that everything happens as part of a great process designed to make them successful and happy. They approach their lives, their work, and their relationships with optimism, cheerfulness, and a general attitude of positive expectations. They expect a lot and they are seldom disappointed. As a result, people with a benevolent worldview are able to deal constructively and effectively with mistakes and temporary setbacks. When you develop the skill of learning from your mistakes, you are the kind of person who welcomes obstacles and setbacks as opportunities to flex your mental muscles and move ahead. You look at problems as rungs on the ladder of success that you grab onto as you pull your way higher.

Two of the most common ways to handle mistakes are invariably fatal to high achievement. The first common but misguided way to handle a mistake is the failure to accept it when it occurs. According to statistics, 70 percent of all decisions we make will be wrong. That's an average. This means that some people will fail more than 70 percent of the time, and some people will fail less. It is hard to believe that most of the decisions we make could turn out to be wrong in some way. In fact, if this is the case, how can our society continue to function at all?

The fact is that our society, our families, our companies, and our relationships continue to survive and thrive because intelligent people tend to cut their losses and minimize their mistakes. It is only when people refuse to accept that they have made a bad choice or decision and prolong the consequences by sticking to that bad choice or decision that mistakes become extremely expensive and hurtful. In life, the quality of intellectual honesty is one of the most respected qualities possessed by individuals, especially leaders. When you are intellectually honest, you look at your world and deal with your circumstances as facts and realities, rather than hoping, wishing, and praying that they could be different. And the minute you begin to deal straightforwardly with life, you become a far more positive, creative, and constructive person. You become far more effective in overcoming your obstacles and achieving your goals. You became far more admired and respected by other people, and far more capable of achieving the critical results that are expected of you. On the other hand, the unwillingness to face the fact that you are not perfect, that you have made and will continue to make mistakes, is a major source of stress. One of the great teachings of history is the principle of non-resistance. Non-resistance means that when the wind blows, you bend like a willow tree rather than snap like a pine tree. You remain flexible, fluid, and open to new ideas, new information, and new inputs. You accept that, in a period of rapid change, nothing is written in stone.

The second common approach that people take with regard to their mistakes, one that hurts innumerable lives and careers, is the failure to use your mistakes to better yourself and to improve the quality of your mind and your thinking.

Learning from your mistakes is an essential skill that enables you to develop the resilience to be a master of change rather than a victim of change. The person who recognizes that they have made a mistake and changes direction the fastest is the one who will win in an age of increasing information, technology and competition. By remaining fast on your feet, you will be able to out-play and out-position your competition. You will become a creator of circumstances rather than a creature of circumstances.

Approach every mistake you make as a special learning experience, sent to teach you something valuable and necessary for your success in the future. Become an inverse paranoid, a person who is convinced that there is a vast conspiracy in the world to make you successful. Play with the idea that there are a series of guardian angels out there who are acting on your behalf. These angels are regularly planning learning experiences to enable you to grow as a person so that you can reach and achieve the great heights that are meant for you.

Whenever something happens of an adverse nature, immediately counteract your natural tendency toward disappointment and frustration by saying, That's good! Then, get busy looking into the situation to find out what is genuinely good about it. You must believe that difficulties come not to obstruct, but to instruct. If you look within any problem situation that you face, or any mistake that you have made, you will find that it contains the lessons and ideas that can be invaluable to you in the months and years ahead. In many cases, learning from mistakes with small costs and consequences will actually prepare you to avoid larger mistakes with huge costs and consequences.

Every day, all day long, you have problems in your work. In fact, if the problems did not exist, your job would not exist either. A powerful way to change your thinking is to realize that solving problems is what you are paid to do. Your job is to be a problem-solver, no matter what your title might be. All day long, you deal with problems and mistakes caused by you and others. The more of them you can spot and redirect before the consequences are felt, the more valuable you will become and the more you will be paid.

Whenever one of my children make a mistake of any kind, I stop them, get their attention, and ask, What have you learned? I have asked them this question since they were two or three years old. Now, whenever they make a mistake of any kind, they know I am going to ask the question so they are ready with the answer. I always tell my children that as long as they learn from a mistake, and establish a rule or guideline for future action, they are growing and becoming smarter as they move through life.

In both your personal and professional life, there are seven steps you can take to deal with almost any mistake you make. The first step is to approach the mistake with a positive, constructive frame of mind, using the techniques outlined above.

The second step is to define the mistake clearly. Exactly what happened? Write it down. Think on paper. The more clearly you can write about it, the more clearly you will understand the mistake and its possible corrections.

The third step is to examine all the known causes of the mistake. How did it happen? Why did it happen? What were the critical variables that triggered the mistake? Any attempt to pass over a mistake without identifying how it occurred in the first place will leave the roots of that mistake in the ground, to grow up again in the future. The fourth step is to identify all the possible ways of mitigating the mistake. What are all the different things that you could do to minimize the cost of the mistake, or to solve the problem that has arisen? The more ideas you have, the more likely it is that you will come up with the approach that will prove most effective.

The fifth step is for you to make a clear, unequivocal decision about how to handle the mistake. Decisiveness is a characteristic of high performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. Even the most effective leaders make mistakes, but then they quickly make decisions to offset those.

The sixth step is to assign specific responsibility for taking the steps necessary to mitigate the mistake within a certain time frame. Who exactly is going to do what, and when, and how, and to whom will they report? The failure to assign or accept responsibility to achieve results before a specific deadline will leave the situation open-ended, and it will often get worse as a result.

Finally, the seventh step in dealing with mistakes is to take action. Intense action orientation is a characteristic of the top two percent of the population.

The only guarantee in life is that most of the decisions you make and conclusions you come to will eventually prove wrong. How you deal with these situations is the chief determinant of your success or failure.

Mistakes and problems are good. Without them there would be no opportunities for greatness. When you take every challenge that life throws at you, accepting it as an inevitable part of the growing experience, you can turn it to your advantage in every way possible. Almost every mistake you make contains a hidden treasure that you can apply to your life to forge a future that is extraordinary and worthwhile.


About Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is a leading authority on personal and business success. As Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, he is the best-selling author of 17 books and over 300 audio and video learning programs. Copyright 2001 Brian Tracy International. All Rights Reserved. http://www.briantracy.com/

See also:

• Success Quotes
• Experience Quotes
• Goal Quotes
• Life-Choices Quotes
• Positive thinking Quotes
• Motivational Quotes
  

Heart

Written by Chuck Gallozzi


Only from the heart can you touch the sky (Rumi)

All objects, however large or small, have an essence (nature) and act (do things). If objects did not act, there would be nothing to distinguish them from nonexistent objects. The essence of the sun, for instance, is that of a nuclear furnace and among its actions, it sends a stream of photons to the earth that nourishes plant life, which in turn produces oxygen and makes other forms of life possible. Magically, the photons not only help create life, but make it possible for life to see itself. That is, we can see thanks to the photons that strike our retinas.

It is by observing and experiencing nature that we come to understand the essence and actions of things. What is the essence of man? It is happiness. And happiness is existence aware of itself. What is the natural action of man? It is love. As infants, we are overflowing with happiness, taking delight in ourselves and the world. We express that happiness by embracing our inner and outer worlds with love. We radiate endless streams of love. Benjamin Disraeli agrees, for he wrote, "We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end."

Since love is all we knew, it is all we expected. But something odd happened. Born to love; we learned to fear. We fear that our love will not be returned unless certain conditions are met. It is no longer okay to be ourselves, but we must become what others what us to be. For example, if I'm uncomfortable and cry at 4 am, I may upset mommy and daddy. If my room is untidy or I "pester" my parents with pleas to play, I may be met with cold reproaches instead of warm hugs or stern rebukes instead of gentle pats on the head. The music of laughter may fade into the noise of anger and silence. The world around me changes from one of beauty to one of fear. Each step I take places me in danger of upsetting someone.

Is it surprising that I grow stressful, fearful, and resentful and my love shuts down? I need to find my way back to my original purity. I need to recall the words of Lao Tzu, "The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself."

Once we mature, understand our true nature and what led to our problems, we can decide to change and open our hearts to love. It's simple. Go ahead and do what you want to do. That is, love the world. The only thing that stops you now is the fear of being hurt. But you cannot be hurt if you expect nothing in return. Life is unconditionally wonderful, so love it unconditionally.

Love your family, your job, your country, and everyone you meet without any strings attached. As Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevski wrote, "Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God." The only Russian author greater than Dostoevski, Leo Tolstoy, wrote, "Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source." Buddha's simple message was, "Love the whole world as a mother loves her only child."

For centuries, mystics have sought to experience God by depriving their bodies of food, sleep, and comfort and by spending countless hours in contemplation or deep meditation. They were successful in their quests, but it isn't necessary to go to such extremes. For all one need do to experience God is to experience God's work, which is unconditional love. When we open our heart to love, we open our heart to God. When we experience unconditional love, we experience God.

What better way to begin the millennium than by accepting all those we met without conditions. We can allow them to be themselves. Every encounter, no matter how brief, is an opportunity to nurture, be nurtured, or both. When we love others unconditionally, we shower them with understanding, encouragement, and forgiveness whenever necessary. Some of those you love will return love. They will love you, not for what you are, but for what they are when they are in your presence. You will both experience love for the future good you bring out in each other.

Not everyone will return love, but doesn't the sun shine on the "bad" as well as the good? Aren't the least deserving in the greatest need? So go ahead and love anyway. Forgive, forget, and be blind to their errors, for as Rabbi J. Gordon said, "Love is not blind -- it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less." In other words, love will find a way while indifference will find an excuse. Also, as Emmet Fox wrote, "It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all."

Marianne Williamson aptly summarizes what I've been trying to say, "Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us." Finally, I was struck by Victor Hugo's description of a young man in love, "I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes -- and the stars through his soul." Perhaps, if you and I join hands and greet the world with love, those behind us may see stars passing through our souls.

© Chuck Gallozzi
For more articles and contact information,
Visit http://www.personal-development.com/chuck

Making a Commitment

A good start isn’t good enough

We all have flashes of insight and bright ideas. But of the countless number of inspirational moments we’ve had and already acted upon, how many of them have we pursued to the end? How many of them have we realized? Ideas are seeds. Locked within them is great potential. Yet, what good are seeds unless we plough, harrow, and fertilize the soil, and follow that by planting, watering, and looking after the seeds until they bloom? Great ideas often lead to good starts and bright beginnings. But good starts are not good enough, for brilliant ideas are no better than poor ones, unless we follow through.

A good idea and follow-through is an explosive combination. It is the material that is used to transform lives and change the world. The detonator of this highly charged package is COMMITMENT. It is also called DETERMINATION. Commitment means NO MATTER WHAT! And determination is a refusal to allow obstacles to stop us. Here is how this idea was expressed by the man named “Coach of the Century” by ESPN, Vince Lombardi (1913 ~ 1970), “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” Similarly, Victor Hugo (1802 ~ 1885) wrote, “People do not lack strength; they lack will.” In both cases, the word ‘will’ refers to commitment or determination.

Commitment is like an icebreaker going through an ice floe; it is unstoppable. The whole world steps aside when a committed person passes. Such is the power of deciding to follow through. Determination brings freedom and control. No longer buffeted by the winds of fate, committed people are guided by the power of their will. They understand that it is not faith or belief that moves mountains, but determination. “Determine that the thing can and shall be done,” said Abraham Lincoln (1809 ~ 1865), “and then we shall find the way.” The difference between the impossible and the possible, then, lies in commitment. Anything is possible for the determined because they reject the very notion of ‘trying’ and insist on doing.

Despite the jeers and skepticism of their friends, young people move to Hollywood with the dream of becoming a star. Even for those who are committed, however, not everyone will make it. You see, it is not ALWAYS true that “Where there is a will there is a way,” but one thing is certain: where there is no will, there is no way. So, I admire those who set out on grand adventures and wish them well. What is the harm in trying? When shooting for the stars, they may have overreached, and ‘merely’ land on the moon. But isn’t that a lot further than most of us venture? The problem we have is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too low and we reach it. Yes, not ALL the dreams of committed individuals will come true, but rest assured neither will any of their nightmares come true.

When we commit ourselves to a cause, project, or relationship, we embark on an adventure, so how can we lose? A successful outcome is not predicated on the task as much as it is on our character. By remaining determined, we live by design, not by force of habit.

Let’s look at a few things that may prevent us from making a commitment and experiencing the joy we were meant to have.

1. Disappointment. A certain amount of negative feelings are inevitable, even necessary. But don’t repress them or get bogged down in them. Instead, experience them, work through them, and learn from them. For example, don’t allow disappointment to halt your progress. Disappointment is just a message or feedback telling you that things are not going according to plan. So, instead of quitting, find out what went wrong and what changes need to be made.

2. Lack of confidence or low self-esteem. Your experiences in early childhood may have caused you to lose confidence in yourself. If so, that is a FACT, not an EXCUSE. It’s time to let go of the past, acknowledge you are an adult, and accept responsibility for your own actions. Stop chasing after self-esteem because it is not a goal, but a result. It is something you win each time you reach a goal. So, stop refusing to act just because you may fail. Who cares if you fail? You don’t have to win every battle, you just have to win the war. And you do so by remaining determined and plodding ahead, no matter what.

3. Rebellion. Stop rebelling. Stop getting in your own way. Stop fighting yourself. Many of us are stuck in the ‘resistance syndrome.’ That is, when we were forced as children to yield to the will of an adult, we expressed our autonomy by rebelling. Each time you tell yourself you SHOULD be doing something, you remember the commands you received as a child and automatically resist. You need to change your self-talk. Rather than saying, “I SHOULD go to night school to complete my degree,” say “I WANT to go to night school to complete my degree BECAUSE I will be learning new things, making new friends, feeling great about my accomplishments, and improve my chances for future advancement.” Recapping, SHOULD’s create resistance while WANT’s dissolve resistance. Don’t forget to give power to your WANT’s by adding BECAUSE plus the reasons for your choice.

4. Here is another point for us to think about: follow the path of wisdom. Your life is too short to experience and learn everything by yourself. So, learn from the wisdom passed down to us. For example, consider the words of Marcus Tullius Cicero (c. 106 ~ 43 BC), “What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.” Are you using what you have, your talents, and using them with all your might? To bring this point home, let’s add the comments of Orison Swett Marden (1850 ~ 1924), “The greatest trouble with most of us is that our demands upon ourselves are so feeble, the call upon the great within us so weak and intermittent that it makes no impression upon the creative energies; it lacks the force that transmutes desires into realities.” If we make only half-hearted efforts, why are we surprised by half-hearted results? If we're not ready to do our best, someone else is, so we’d better be prepared to be left behind.

“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men,” said Charles De Gaulle (1890 ~ 1970), “and men are great only if they are determined to be so.” How about us? Are we determined to be great men and women? Are we DETERMINED? Are we COMMITTED?


© Chuck Gallozzi
For more articles and contact information,
Visit http://www.personal-development.com/chuck

Thinking Freely and Clearly: Cicero

By Denise Breton and Christopher Largent, 1999

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)—known as Cicero or Tully—was a Roman lawyer, philosopher, and statesman, educated in Rome. He became the best orator Rome had and one of the best translators and writers in Latin. Scholars still consider his works "high Latin." More than just an "ivory tower" intellectual, though, Cicero was also a courageous political activist. Risking his life, he exposed the conspiracy of Catiline to overthrow the republic.

An ardent republican, he refused to join the political alliance of Julius Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, realizing that its success would mean the end of the republic. Even today, "Star Wars" episodes remind us of the difference between a republic (a state run on laws and principles) and an empire (run on the whims of rulers)—a difference first noted for us by Cicero.

Cicero wrote philosophy to help himself recover from the death of his beloved daughter and to endure the tyranny of Julius Caesar and Rome’s shift from a republican to an imperial nation (though he played no role in the assassination of Caesar). He eventually paid a terrible price for refusing to join one of the imperial factions: the ruling triumvirate of Octavian (later Augustus Caesar), Antony, and Lepidus had him executed.

The Good Life

Many people today use the phrase "the sword of Damocles" without knowing where it comes from. We didn’t until we found it in Cicero—and it relates to the inner life of tyrants. For those of us who are supposed to admire the wealthy and powerful, Cicero reminds us of the price they’re paying to play the power game. This account is from Cicero: On the Good Life, translated by Michael Grant, book V of "Discussions at Tusculum":

Dionysius himself [the king of Syracuse in the time of Plato] pronounced judgment on whether he was happy or not. He was talking to one of his flatterers, a man called Damocles, who praised the monarch’s wealth and power, the splendors of his regime, the immensity of his resources, and the magnificence of his palace. Never, Damocles declared, had there been a happier man than Dionysius the king.

"Very well, Damocles," replied the ruler, "since my life strikes you as so attractive, would you care to have a taste of it yourself and see what my way of living is really like?" Damocles agreed with pleasure.

So Dionysius had him installed on a golden couch covered with a superb woven coverlet embroidered with beautiful designs, and beside the couch was placed an array of sideboards loaded with gold and silver plate. . . There were perfumes and garlands and incense, and the tables were heaped up with a most elaborate feast. Damocles thought himself a truly fortunate person.

But in the middle of all this splendor, directly above the neck of the happy man, Dionysius arranged that a gleaming sword should be suspended from the ceiling, to which it was attached by a horsehair. And so Damocles had no eye for his lovely waiters or for the artistic plate. Indeed, he did not even feel like reaching out his hand towards the food. Presently the garlands, of their own accord, just slipped from his head. In the end he begged the tyrant to let him go, declaring that his desire to be happy had evaporated. (pp. 84-85)

On Clear and Free Thinking

As a philosopher, Cicero was one of the earliest to argue against dogmatism. He defined himself as a skeptic in the Platonic tradition. That is, contrary to the labeling he receives from scholars these days ("a Stoic"), Cicero conceives of himself as a follower of Plato. (The reason that scholars can’t handle this self-identification on Cicero’s part is that they keep trying to turn Plato into an absolutist.)

What this means is that Cicero feels free to search for higher meaning in life (Plato’s "ideas") while refusing to absolutize his values. Cicero wants guiding principles to live by while remaining open to learning. He doesn’t need certainty to feel secure in his intellectual adventures, and he wants the freedom from dogmatism to allow him to continue those adventures.

What’s refreshing about Cicero’s skepticism is that this openness used to be associated with mature thinking. These days, of course, the "mature" person is supposed to never change opinions. Those people who change their minds are looked down on as frivolous thinkers, having no intellectual ground to stand on. Meanwhile, the religious or scientific "experts" we meet in the media—or if we’re unlucky, in person—are absolutely convinced that they’re right and that everyone else should convert to their religious or scientific "truths." Cicero would have found these "experts" to be close-minded and immature.

The freedom Cicero found in his skepticism was the freedom not to be bound by circumstances, to find ways to rise above situations that would otherwise defeat human beings. He also wanted this freedom to help himself and others rise above the temptations that led the wealthy and the powerful to create the inhuman conditions that he saw developing in the empire.

These excerpts are from On Duties, which translator Michael Grant says, "has perhaps exercised more influence on the thought and standards of the western world than any other secular work ever written", which Cicero, a Platonist, wrote for his son, an Aristotelian:

Whereas the philosophical school I support [the Academy] maintains that nothing can be known for certain, here I am not only presenting views on all manner of subjects but actually trying to lay down rules indicating what our obligations are.

But I must ask our critics to understand our position. For in spite of our negative attitude towards the certainty of knowledge, we are far from being intellectual drifters who flounder about without any idea what we are looking for. To be without any sort of principles to base our discussions and our lives upon would totally rule out any intellectual life or indeed any life at all. . .

In fact, nothing prevents me from accepting what seems to be probable and rejecting what does not. Such an approach avoids the presumption of dogmatism and keeps clear of irrationality, which is the negation of all accurate thinking.

On the other hand, our people always argue against all categorical assertions. Their reason for so doing is that you can only get a clear view of what is probable by setting out, comparing, and weighing the arguments on both sides of every question. (p. 123)

Life and death, wealth and want, exercise an overwhelming effect on the entire human race. It is only when human beings become capable of displaying high-minded detachment and disregarding such outward circumstances, whether good or bad—when they get totally immersed in some noble, honorable purpose—that we cannot help admiring their splendid qualities.

The ability to rise above outward circumstances, then, wins special admiration, and that is why justice—which is the peculiar mark of a good person—is universally regarded as marvelous. And quite rightly. For if someone possesses this virtue, it means that he has freed himself from the fear of death, pain, exile, and poverty. In other words, he does not regard it as more important to achieve the reverses of these conditions than to behave like a decent person.

Above all, people admire someone who refuses to be influenced by money. To prove oneself in that particular direction is the equivalent of emerging triumphantly from a fiery ordeal. (p. 139)

A View on Buddhism Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'

SOME CLASSICS

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Dogen

Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma
see no Dharma in everyday actions.
They have not yet discovered that
there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.
Dogen
It is as though you have an eye
That sees all forms
But does not see itself.
This is how your mind is.
Its light penetrates everywhere
And engulfs everything,
So why does it not know itself?
Foyan
Who is hearing?
Your physical being doesn't hear,
Nor does the void.
Then what does?
Strive to find out.
Put aside your rational Intellect,
Give up all techniques.
Just get rid of the notion of self.
Bassui






What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more intensely,
What is it that hears?
Bassui
Few people believe their
Inherent mind is Buddha.
Most will not take this seriously,
And therefore are cramped.
They are wrapped up in illusions, cravings,
Resentments, and other afflictions,
All because they love the cave of ignorance.
Fenyang

Hell is not punishment,
it's training.
Shunryu Suzuki





The most important thing is to find out
what is the most important thing.
Shunryu Suzuki

Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way
Without abandoning my
Ordinary person's affairs.

The conditioned and
Name-and-form,
All are flowers in the sky.

Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.
Layman P'ang (740-808)


If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.
- Linji




Where beauty is, then there is ugliness;
where right is, also there is wrong.
Knowledge and ignorance are interdependent;
delusion and enlightenment condition each other.
Since olden times it has been so.
How could it be otherwise now?
Wanting to get rid of one and grab the other
is merely realizing a scene of stupidity.
Even if you speak of the wonder of it all,
how do you deal with each thing changing?
-Ryokan-

Though I think not
To think about it,
I do think about it
And shed tears
Thinking about it.
Ryokan


Nobly, the great priest
deposits his daily stool
in bleak winter fields
Buson





The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.
Hakuin
Food and clothes sustain
Body and life;
I advise you to learn
Being as is.
When it's time,
I move my hermitage and go,
And there's nothing
To be left behind.
Layman P'ang





A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle
Issa
Look for Buddha outside your own mind,
and Buddha becomes the devil.
Dogen


Old pond,
frog jumps in
- splash
Basho







How reluctantly
the bee emerges from deep
within the peony
Basho

Lightning:
Heron's cry
Stabs the darkness
Basho
Even though I'm in Kyoto,
when the kookoo cries,
I long for Kyoto.
Issa

The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.

From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.

Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.

With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.

When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.
Layman P'ang (740-808)

Just stop your wandering,
Look penetratingly into your inherent nature,
And, concentrating your spiritual energy,
Sit in zazen
And break through.
Bassui

Cast off what has been realized.
Turn back to the subject
That realizes
To the root bottom
And resolutely
Go on.
Bassui

Look directly!
What is this?
Look in this manner
And you won't be fooled!
Bassui

1. Experience Chan! It's not mysterious.
As I see it, it boils down to cause and effect.
Outside the mind there is no Dharma
So how can anybody speak of a heaven beyond?

2. Experience Chan! It's not a field of learning.
Learning adds things that can be researched and discussed.
The feel of impressions can't be communicated.
Enlightenment is the only medium of transmission.

3. Experience Chan! It's not a lot of questions.
Too many questions is the Chan disease.
The best way is just to observe the noise of the world.
The answer to your questions?
Ask your own heart.

4. Experience Chan! It's not the teachings of disciples.
Such speakers are guests from outside the gate.
The Chan which you are hankering to speak about
Only talks about turtles turning into fish.

5. Experience Chan! It can't be described.
When you describe it you miss the point.
When you discover that your proofs are without substance
You'll realize that words are nothing but dust.

6. Experience Chan! It's experiencing your own nature!
Going with the flow everywhere and always.
When you don't fake it and waste time trying to rub and polish it,
Your Original Self will always shine through brighter than bright.

7. Experience Chan! It's like harvesting treasures.
But donate them to others.
You won't need them.
Suddenly everything will appear before you,
Altogether complete and altogether done.

8. Experience Chan! Become a follower who when accepted
Learns how to give up his life and his death.
Grasping this carefully he comes to see clearly.
And then he laughs till he topples the Cold Mountain ascetics.

9. Experience Chan! It'll require great skepticism;
But great skepticism blocks those detours on the road.
Jump off the lofty peaks of mystery.
Turn your heaven and earth inside out.

10. Experience Chan! Ignore that superstitious nonsense
That makes some claim that they've attained Chan.
Foolish beliefs are those of the not-yet-awakened.
And they're the ones who most need the experience of Chan!

11. Experience Chan! There's neither distance nor intimacy.
Observation is like a family treasure.
Whether with eyes, ears, body, nose, or tongue -
It's hard to say which is the most amazing to use.

12. Experience Chan! There's no class distinction.
The one who bows and the one who is bowed to are a Buddha unit.
The yoke and its lash are tied to each other.
Isn't this our first principle... the one we should most observe?

Master Xu Yun




Good and evil have no self nature;
Holy and unholy are empty names;
In front of the door is the land of stillness and quiet;
Spring comes, grass grows by itself.
Master Seung Sahn
However deep your
Knowledge of the scriptures,
It is no more than a strand of hair
In the vastness of space;
However important appears
Your worldly experience,
It is but a drop of water in a deep ravine.

Tokusan





If you have never taken
The principles of the teachings to heart,
You have no basis
For awakening to the hidden path.
Kuei-shan Ling-yu

Whether you are going or staying or sitting or lying down,
the whole world is your own self.
You must find out
whether the mountains, rivers, grass, and forests
exist in your own mind or exist outside it.
Analyze the ten thousand things,
dissect them minutely,
and when you take this to the limit
you will come to the limitless,
when you search into it you come to the end of search,
where thinking goes no further and distinctions vanish.
When you smash the citadel of doubt,
then the Buddha is simply yourself.
Daikaku







When mortals are alive, they worry about death.
When they're full, they worry about hunger.
Theirs is the Great Uncertainty.

But sages don't consider the past.
And they don't worry about the future.
Nor do they cling to the present.
And from moment to moment they follow the Way.
Bodhidharma





There are thousands upon thousands of students
who have practised meditation and obtained its fruits.
Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method.
If you can not find the truth right where you are,
where else do you expect to find it?

Dogen



All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.
As with water and ice, there is no ice without water;
apart from sentient beings, there are no Buddhas.
Not knowing how close the truth is,
we seek it far away
--what a pity!
Hakuin Ekaku Zenji

NOT-SO CLASSICAL
Not believing in anything I just sit,
listening to my breathing
After thirty years
It still goes in and out.
Albert Coelho

One step
A hundred crickets
Jump
Jerry A Levy
Adding father's name
to the family tombstone
with room for my own.
Nicholas Virgilio
When you hear your inner voice,
forget it.
Hyoen Sahn
in one gust
the last leaf decides:
gone
Robert Henry Poulin




first on a track
night spider webs
catch my face
Yao Feng (Tasmania)
Brown mimosa seed
where blossoms once invited
hummingbirds to feed.
Ethel Freeman


troubled night
no resting place
for my thoughts
Phil Adams

Look!
The beggar's shouting fingers
find no listener's eye.
Owen Burkhart

loud window thud
in my cupped hand
the little bird dies
Yao Feng (Tasmania)

Empty morning streets
Cold path to the castle
Castle colder still
pierre42@aol.com




bang!
robin feathers stuck to the frosty window
-- just the cat's tail moves
rhahn@u.washington.edu



SOME OF MY OWN ZENNISH ATTEMPTS

A cross-legged monk
Silent awareness
A battle for peace.






The cry of a child
The cry of an ambulance
The cry of a newborn.

I am so tiny
The Universe so endless
All my creation



Yellow young spring
Sky full of hope
Future won't come.

Frenzy of insects
Heat of our star
The past has dissolved.

Red humid forest
Light rays in fog
Shattering silence.

Black naked trees
White topping of snow
A perfect year gone.



A dinner with friends
Love, laughter and trust
Dukkha disguised.



Grasping attachment,
Insisting on trouble:
My life as a fool.

Grasping a Path,
Insisting on my view:
My life as a fool.

Grasping, Insisting:
Fool.


Schoolyard with children
Shameless screaming and fun
When did I loose that?





Thundering silence
Colorful darkness
Wanting to be free
Buddha is dead
Not even born;
Light without darkness.

Dust from the mirror
Cleansed with much care
Gone is the mirror.



With metta to act
With wisdom to be
The struggle to end.


All is so many
All is but One
None.




Nowhere is here
Never is now
End of the tunnel
No tunnel
No me.


Who am I?
Am I?
Am?
.






A tree in the wind
The wind in a tree
All in me.





Links on Zen Haiku and more:
'In the moonlight a worm... silently drills through a chestnut' - including a course how to make your own Haikus
An Introduction to Haiku

The Daily Zen site - good newsletter


Ref: A View on Buddhism Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'

Quotations on: Emptiness, Selflessness, or the Mystery of Our Ego

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5


To end the bizarre tyranny of ego is why we take the spiritual path, but the resourcefulness of ego is almost infinite, and it can at every stage sabotage and pervert our desire to be free of it. The truth is simple, and the teachings are extremely clear; but I have seen again and again, with great sadness, that as soon as they begin to touch and move us, ego tries to complicate them, because it knows it is fundamentally threatened.

However hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego’s promises: false hopes and false fears. Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature.

Lifetimes of ignorance have brought us to identify the whole of our being with ego. Its greatest triumph is to inveigle us into believing its best interests are our best interests, and even into identifying our very survival with its own. This is a savage irony, considering that ego and its grasping are at the root of all our suffering.
Yet, ego is so terribly convincing, and we have been its dupe for so long, that the thought that we might ever become egoless terrifies us. To be egoless, ego whispers to us, is to lose all the rich romance of being human, to be reduced to a colorless robot or a brain-dead vegetable.

Everything that we see around us is seen as it is because we have repeatedly solidified our experience of inner and outer reality in the same way, lifetime after lifetime, and this has led to the mistaken assumption that what we see is objectively real. In fact, as we go further along the spiritual path, we learn how to work directly with our fixed perceptions. All our old concepts of the world or of matter or of even ourselves are purified and dissolved, and an entirely new, what you could call “heavenly” field of vision and perception opens up. As William Blake said:
If the doors of perception were cleansed
Everything would appear . . . as it is, infinite.

Ego is the absence of true knowledge of who we really are, together with its result: a doomed clutching on, at all costs, to a cobbled together and makeshift image of ourselves, an inevitably chameleon charlatan self that keeps changing, and has to, to keep alive the fiction of its existence.
In Tibetan, ego is called dakdzin , which means “grasping to a self.” Ego is then defined as incessant movements of grasping at a delusory notion of “I” and “mine,” self and other, and all the concepts, ideas, desires, and activities that will sustain that false construction.
Such grasping is futile from the start and condemned to frustration, for there is no basis or truth in it, and what we are grasping at is by its very nature ungraspable. The fact that we need to grasp at all and to go on grasping shows that in the depths of our being we know that the self doesn’t inherently exist. From this secret, unnerving knowledge spring all our fundamental insecurities and fears.

A wave in the sea, seen in one way, seems to have a distinct identity, an end and a beginning, a birth anda death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn’t really exist but is just the behavior of water, “empty” of any separate identity but “full” of water. So when you really think about the wave, you come to realize that it is something that has been made temporarily possible by wind and water, and is dependent on a set of constantly changing circumstances. You also realize that every wave is related to every other wave.

What is the View? It is nothing less than seeing the actual state of things as they are; it is knowing that the true nature of mind is the true nature of everything; and it is realizing that the true nature of mind is the absolute truth.
Dudjom Rinpoche says: “The View is the comprehension of the naked awareness, within which everything is contained: sensory perception and phenomenal existence, samsara and nirvana. This awareness has two aspects: ‘emptiness’ as the absolute, and ‘appearances’ or ‘perception’ as the relative.”

Just as the ocean has waves, and the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them. The waves are the very nature of the ocean. Waves will rise, but where do they go? Back into the ocean. And where do the waves come from? The ocean.
In the same manner, thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind. They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind. Whatever rises, do not see it as a particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature.
When you have this understanding, then rising thoughts only enhance your practice. But when you do not understand what they intrinsically are—the radiance of the nature of your mind—then your thoughts become the seed of confusion. So have a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude toward your thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts are your family, the family of your mind. Before them, as Dudjom Rinpoche used to say: “Be like an old wise man, watching a child play.”

Confined in the dark, narrow cage of our own making that we take for the whole universe, very few of us can even begin to imagine another dimension of mind. Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit.
“Where do you come from?” asked the frog in the well.
“From the great ocean,” he replied.
“How big is your ocean?”
“It’s gigantic.”
“You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?”
“Bigger.”
“Bigger? You mean half as big?”
“No, even bigger.”
“Is it . . . as big as this well?”
“There’s no comparison.”
“That’s impossible! I’ve got to see this for myself.”
They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces.

The way to discover the freedom of the wisdom of egolessness, the masters advise us, is through the process of listening and hearing, contemplation and reflection, and meditation. They advise us to begin by listening repeatedly to the spiritual teachings. As we listen, they will keep on and on reminding us of our hidden wisdom nature.
Gradually, as we listen to the teachings, certain passages and insights in them will strike a strange chord in us, memories of our true nature will start to trickle back to us, and a deep feeling of something homely and uncannily familiar will slowly awaken.

It is essential to realize now, in life, when we still have a body, that its convincing appearance of solidity is a mere illusion. The most powerful way to realize this is to learn how, after meditation, to “become a child of illusion”: to refrain from solidifying, as we are always tempted to do, the perceptions of ourselves and our world; and to go on, like the “child of illusion,” seeing directly, as we do in meditation, that all phenomena are illusory and dreamlike. The realization that this deepens the body’s illusory nature is one of the most profound and inspiring we can have to help us to let go.

The Dzogchen masters are acutely aware of the dangers of confusing the absolute with the relative. People who fail to understand this relationship can overlook and even disdain the relative aspects of spiritual practice and the karmic law of cause and effect. However, those who truly seize the meaning of Dzogchen will have only a deeper respect for karma, as well as a keener and more urgent appreciation of the need for purification and for spiritual practice. This is because they will understand the vastness of what it is in them that has been obscured, and so endeavor all the more fervently, and with an always fresh, natural discipline, to remove whatever stands between them and their true nature.

If there is someone who always harms us, and we discover that this person lives in our own house, we think, "This is too much!" Once we figure out that he is causing all our hardships, we kick him out; we do not see it as a laughing matter at all. Here, it is worse: we have been wandering in the six realms of cyclic existence since beginningless time, undergoing great pain and confusion. What is the main cause of all this? Self-centeredness and its basis, self-grasping ignorance. These two are right inside us, in our own mindstream. How can we continue to tolerate that? It is just too much! We definitely must evict these sources of harm. When we know the antidotes to them, we will use them, just as we would go to any length to evict a troublemaker from our home. With strong determination, we will find out what harms self-centeredness and self-grasping and then go ahead and destroy them.
Geshe Jampa Tegchok, Transforming Adversity into Joy and Courage: An Explanation of the Thirty-seven Practices of Bodhisattvas

The cause of all fear is self-grasping ignorance,
and all the delusions, such as selfishness, attachment and anger,
arise from that ignorance,
as well as all the unskillful actions motivated by those delusions.
From Tharpa.com

We cannot get rid of suffering by saying, "I will not suffer." We cannot eliminate attachment by saying, "I will not be attached to anything," nor eliminate aggression by saying, "I will never become angry." Yet, we do want to get rid of suffering and the disturbing emotions that are the immediate cause of suffering. The Buddha taught that to eliminate these states, which are really the results of the primary confusion of our belief in a personal self, we must get rid of the fundamental cause. But we cannot simply say, "I will not believe in the personal self." The only way to eliminate suffering is to actually recognize the experience of a self as a misconception, which we do by proving directly to ourselves that there is no such personal self. We must actually realise this. Once we do, then automatically the misconception of a self and our fixation on that "self" will disappear. Only by directly experiencing selflessness can we end the process of confused projecti! on. This is why the Buddha emphasized meditation on selflessness or egolessness. However, to meditate on egolessness, we must undertake a process that begins with a conceptual understanding of egolessness; then, based on that understanding, there can be meditation, and finally realization.
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, from Pointing Out the Dharmakaya

Quotations on: Emptiness, Selflessness, or the Mystery of Our Ego

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5


Practicing compassion will bring about the recognition of emptiness as the true nature of the mind. When you practice virtuous actions of love and compassion on the relative level, you spontaneously realize the profound nature of emptiness, which is the absolute level. In turn, if you focus your meditation practice on emptiness, then your loving-kindness and compassion will spontaneously grow.
These two natures, the absolute and the relative, are not opposites; they always arise together. They have the same nature; they are inseparable like a fire and its heat or the sun and its light. Compassion and emptiness are not like two sides of a coin. Emptiness and compassion are not two separate elements joined together; they are always coexistent.
In Buddhism, emptiness does not mean the absence of apparent existence. Emptiness is not like a black hole or darkness, or like an empty house or an empty bottle. Emptiness is fullness and openness and flexibility. Because of emptiness it is possible for phenomena to function, for beings to see and hear, and for things to move and change. It is called emptiness because when we examine things we cannot find anything that substantially and solidly exists. There is nothing that has a truly existent nature. Everything we perceive appears through ever-changing causes and conditions, without an independent, solid basis. Although from a relative perspective things appear, they arise from emptiness and they dissolve into emptiness. All appearances are like water bubbles or the reflection of the moon in water.
Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche from Opening to our Primordial Nature
Sogyal Rinpoche, from Glimpse of the Day

Imagine a person who suddenly wakes up in the hospital after an automobile accident to find that she is suffering from total amnesia. Outwardly, everything is intact: She has the same face and form, her senses and her mind are there, but she doesn’t have any idea or any trace of a memory of who she really is.
In exactly the same way, we cannot remember our true identity, our original nature. Frantically, and in real dread, we cast around and improvise another identity, one we clutch with all the desperation of someone falling continuously into an abyss. This false and ignorantly assumed identity is “ego.”

Nothing has any inherent existence of its own when you really look at it, and this absence of independent existence is what we call “emptiness.” Think of a tree. When you think of a tree, you tend to think of a distinctly defined object; and on a certain level it is. But when you look more closely at the tree, you will see that ultimately it has no independent existence.
When you contemplate it, you will find that it dissolves into an extremely subtle net of relationships that stretches across the universe. The rain that falls on its leaves, the wind that sways it, the soil that nourishes and sustains it, all the seasons and the weather, moonlight and starlight and sunlight—all form part of this tree.
As you begin to think more and more about the tree, you will discover that everything in the universe helps to make the tree what it is; that it cannot at any moment be isolated from anything else; and that at every moment its nature is subtly changing. This is what we mean when we say things are empty, that they have no independent existence.

To realize what I call the wisdom of compassion is to see with complete clarity its benefits, as well as the damage that its opposite has done to us. We need to make a very clear distinction between what is in our ego’s self-interest and what is in our ultimate interest; it is from mistaking one for the other that all our suffering comes.
Self-grasping creates self-cherishing, which in turn creates an ingrained aversion to harm and suffering. However, harm and suffering have no objective existence; what gives them their existence and their power is only our aversion to them. When you understand this, you understand then that it is our aversion that attracts to us every negativity and obstacle that can possibly happen to us, and fills our lives with nervous anxiety, expectation, and fear.
Wear down that aversion by wearing down the self-grasping mind and its attachment to a nonexistent self, and you will wear down any hold on you that any obstacle and negativity can have. For how can you attack someone or something that is just not there?

Every single negative thing we have ever thought or done has ultimately arisen from our grasping at a false self, and our cherishing of that false self, making it the dearest and most important element in our lives. All those negative thoughts, emotions, desires, and actions that are the cause of our negative karma are engendered by self-grasping and self-cherishing. They are the dark, powerful magnet that attracts to us, life after life, every obstacle, every misfortune, every anguish, every disaster, and so they are the root cause of all the sufferings of samsara.

We may say, and even half-believe, that compassion is marvelous, but in practice our actions are deeply uncompassionate and bring us and others mostly frustration and distress, and not the happiness we are all seeking.

Isn’t it absurd that we all long for happiness, yet nearly all our actions and feelings lead us directly away from that happiness?

What do we imagine will make us happy? A canny, self-seeking, resourceful selfishness, the selfish protection of ego, which can as we all know, make us at moments extremely brutal. But in fact the complete reverse is true: Self-grasping and self-cherishing are seen, when you really look at them, to be the root of all harm to others, and also of all harm to ourselves.

According to Dzogchen, the entire range of all possible appearances, and all possible phenomena in all the different realities, whether samsara or nirvana, all of these without exception have always been and will always be perfect and complete, within the vast and boundless expanse of the nature of mind. Yet, even though the essence of everything is empty and “pure from the very beginning,” its nature is rich in noble qualities, pregnant with every possibility, a limitless, incessantly and dynamically creative field that is always spontaneously perfect.

When we have really grasped the law of karma in all its stark power and complex reverberations over many, many lifetimes, and seen just how our self-grasping and self-cherishing, life after life, have woven us repeatedly into a net of ignorance that seems only to be ensnaring us more and more tightly; when we have really understood the dangerous and doomed nature of the self-grasping mind’s enterprise; when we have really pursued its operations into their most subtle hiding places; when we have really understood just how our whole ordinary mind and actions are defined, narrowed and darkened by it, how almost impossible it makes it for us to uncover the heart of unconditional love, and how it has blocked in us all sources of real love and real compassion, then there comes a moment when we understand, with extreme and poignant clarity, what Shantideva said:
If all the harms
Fears and sufferings in the world
Arise from self-grasping,
What need have I for such a great evil spirit?
And then a resolution is born in us to destroy that evil spirit, our greatest enemy. With that evil spirit dead, the cause of all our suffering will be removed, and our true nature, in all its spaciousness and dynamic generosity, will shine out.

It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place but the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize this is called “egolessness.”

Quotations on: Emptiness, Selflessness, or the Mystery of Our Ego

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5


The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral,
Those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness,
Like they who lick the honey from a razor’s edge.
How pitiful are they who cling strongly to concrete reality:
Turn your attention within, my heart friends.
Nyoshul Khen Ripoche

Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

When the compassionate bodhicitta radiates beyond conceptions and conceptual states, it is known as prajnaparamita, the practice of transcendental knowledge. Good concentration in itself will not break through our attachment to samsara. We have to go deeper, in order to realize everything as a transparent display of the primordial truth. Transcendental wisdom, the prajnaparamita, realizes all conditions as a display of the primordial nature, and it takes us beyond acceptance and rejection, hope and fear, dualistic thoughts, and ego-clinging. Transcendental knowledge breaks through every one of those notions and reveals the vastness of great equanimity. The nature of this paramita is to understand phenomena clearly, seeing all beings as they are without distortion. To have a perfect insight into the relative, absolute, and unified levels of truth is the basic understanding of the prajnaparamita.
If you cling to the disciplines of generosity, morality, or patience, you are merely going from one extreme of samsara to the other. You simply create a new form of bondage. In order to free ourselves from this trap, we have to release all our ego-clinging and break through the net of dualistic conceptions. The teachings of the prajnaparamita help bring this about. Rather than holding on to a narrow and limited understanding about one aspect of the practice, we are availed of a vast, panoramic view. Remember, paramita means going beyond, or transcending, the dualistic application of these practices. This sixth paramita transforms the other five into their transcendental state. Only the light of transcendental knowledge makes this possible.
Door to Inconceivable Wisdom and Compassion

...if you have not purified ordinary appearances into emptiness, how could you possibly meditate on the mandala circle? The fact that all phenomena are emptiness, that samsara and nirvana are inseparable, is the very reason we are able to actualize this by meditating on the mandala circle. In other words, emptiness is the basis for the development stage. As it is said, "For the one to whom emptiness is possible, anything is possible." If all phenomena were not empty and ordinary appearances were truly present, development stage meditation would be impossible, as the following quotation points out: "Even though one might empower wheat to be rice, rice won't actually appear." However, even if all phenomena are realized to be empty in this way, without the momentum of great compassion you will not be able to manifest the rupakayas to benefit others. This is similar to the listeners and solitary buddhas, who enter into a state of cessation and do not benefit others with rupakaya emanations.
Once one understands this point, it will be like the following saying: ''All these phenomena are like an illusion and birth is like taking a stroll in a park...." Said differently, one will no longer dwell in existence, while through compassion, one will not get caught up in a state of peace either. This is the great, universal path of the offspring of the victorious ones. For all these reasons, making sure the three absorptions are not isolated from one another is a vitally important point.
Jigme Lingpa, Patrul Rinpoche, and Getse Mahapandita, from Deity, Mantra, and Wisdom: Development Stage Meditation in Tibetan Buddhist Tantra

The Buddha was often referred to as the Awakened One. Awakened to all the illusions and freed from them. The analogy that is often used is that the non-enlightened state is like being asleep. This is because your Buddha-nature, your enlightened awareness, is masked by a the sleep of ignorance, greed, and hatred. When you awake to the fact that that all is part of the illusion of egocentricity, you are free from that illusion. So you are awakened from the ego-illusion and all that goes with it.
Rob Nairn

Nirvana is the actual antidote or “active ingredient” in the medicine of the Dharma. A single, direct, nondualistic realization of emptiness eradicates permanently some portion of the desire, hatred, and ignorance that have bound one in misery for infinite cycles of time up until that moment. Repeated realizations over many lifetimes are still needed before all of the ancient roots of ignorance can be eradicated. During this training, the bodhisattva alternates between periods of meditation on emptiness and periods of compassionate action in the world. Even after the bodhisattva escapes samsara altogether, she must still practice for a long time to overcome the “hangover” of dualistic appearances, the aftereffects of having been ignorant for so long. Finally, these last limitations are cleared away and the bodhisattva becomes a buddha. A buddha continuously knows emptiness directly while also simultaneously acting compassionately in the world of persons and forms.
Guy Newland, Introduction to Emptiness: As Taught in Tsong-kha-pa's Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path

All the violence, fear and suffering
that exists in this world
comes from grasping at "self".
What use is this great monster to you?
if you do not let go of the "self",
there will never be an end to your suffering.
Shantideva

Quotations on: Emptiness, Selflessness, or the Mystery of Our Ego

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5


His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Whatever good or bad things appear to us seem to exist from the side of those objects. How do they exist? If they exist from the side of the object, then, contemplating the basis of imputation...we should see whether it is the object in question or not. Let us take for example a physical object and examine its shape, color and so on to see if that object is to be found anywhere among those attributes. If we do so, we find nothing that is the object in question. If we take a person as an example, and inspect the individual aggregates that are the bases of designation of a person, we find that none of them is the person. In that way we recognize that the imputed object is not to be found upon investigation.
Then if we contemplate how things appear to the mind, we see that they seem to exist from the side of the object, without dependence upon anything else. But when they are sought analytically, they are not found. They do exist, for they can help or harm us. But when pondering the manner in which they exist, we find no basis for the assumption that they exist from the side of the object. Thus, they exist by the power of subjective convention, by the power of designation.
When pondering the nature of existence, we find that entities are not found upon seeking them analytically. So they exist by means of conventional, conceptual designation. They do undeniably exist. But as long as they do not exist independently, from their own side, they must exist by the power of subjective convention. There is no alternative. An entity exists due to its being designated upon something that is not it.
Transcendent Wisdom

Although there are as many categories of emptiness as there are types of phenomena, when you realize the emptiness of one specific phenomenon, you also realize the emptiness of all phenomena. The ultimate nature, or emptiness, of all phenomena is of equal taste and of the same undifferentiable nature. Even though the nature of emptiness of all phenomena is the same, and all the different aspects of phenomena, such as whether they are good or bad, or the way they change, arise from the sphere of emptiness, you should understand that emptiness cannot be found apart from the subject or the object.
Emptiness refers to an object's being free of intrinsic existence. Things depend on causes and conditions. This very dependence on causes and conditions signifies that phenomena lack independent, or intrinsic, existence. It also demonstrates how all the diverse aspects of things that we experience arise because they are by nature empty. When we talk about emptiness, we are not dealing with those different aspects, we are dealing with phenomena's ultimate reality.
Stages of Meditation

If one has a mistaken view of an emptiness, equating it with a vacuity which is a nothingness, this is not the ascertainment of an emptiness. Or, even if one has developed a proper understanding of an emptiness as merely a lack of inherent existence, still, when the vacuity which is a lack of inherent existence appears, one may subsequently lose sight of the original understanding. This vacuity then becomes a mere nothingness with the original understanding of the negation of inherent existence being lost completely. Therefore, this is not the ascertainment of an emptiness either. Also, even if the meaning of an emptiness has been ascertained, but the thought, 'This is an emptiness,' appears, then one is apprehending the existence of an emptiness which is a positive thing. Therefore, that consciousness then becomes a conventional valid cogniser and not the ascertainment of an emptiness. The Condensed Perfection of Wisdom Sutra says, 'Even if a Bodhisattva realises, "These aggregates are empty," he is acting on signs of conventionalities and does not have faith in the state of non-production.'
Further, 'an emptiness' is a negative [an absence] which must be ascertained through the mere elimination of the object of negation, that is, inherent existence. Negatives are of two types: affirming negatives in which some other positive phenomenon is implied in place of the object of negation, and non-affirming negatives in which no other positive phenomenon is implied in place of the object of negation. An emptiness is an instance of the latter; therefore, a consciousness cognising an emptiness necessarily ascertains the mere negative or absence of the object of negation. What appears to the mind is a clear vacuity accompanied by the mere thought, 'These concrete things as they now appear to our minds do not exist at all.' The mere lack of inherent existence or mere truthlessness which is the referent object of this consciousness is an emptiness; therefore, such a mind ascertains an emptiness.
The Buddhism of Tibet

In general, in many of the tantras of the new translation schools, there are no explicit or elaborate references to meditation on emptiness during the main practice, but rather to meditative states of great bliss. Although that is the case, still we do find emphasis on the importance of understanding emptiness prior to engaging in the practices of Highest Yoga Tantra, and the realization of emptiness is taken to be a prerequisite or indispensable factor for the successful realization of the stages of Highest Yoga Tantra. Otherwise there can be no meditation on great bliss without the understanding of emptiness.
As far as meditation on emptiness is concerned, there are two approaches: one is meditation that employs discernment and analysis, and one is meditation on the basis of settling, without analysing. Analytical meditation may support the great bliss of the Highest Yoga Tantra system, but in general, in the Highest Yoga Tantra of the new translation schools, meditation on emptiness consists entirely of settling meditation. It is not explained as analytical meditation, because to engage in analytical meditation inhibits the arising of great bliss and prevents the attainment of subtler states of mind. Since it has this effect, analytical meditation is not practised in this context.
Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection

It is possible to understand the Buddhist teachings as a method of psychological healing, comparable to psychotherapy, that teaches us how we can master destructive forces like anger, envy, and greed. Human beings seem to be a bundle of different qualities and psychological processes. We should attentively examine our qualities and be alertly aware of our experiences in order to recognize what we truly feel and think. At the same time, the personality of human beings is not seen as a unified whole. According to these teachings, the heart of consciousness is composed of various elements, the five types of attachment, or skandhas: body, sensations, perceptions, instinctual forces, and consciousness.
These inner forces impart the false concept of an ego-consciousness. The basic problem of emotional disorders therefore lies in a false concept of identity. This I-blindness should therefore be abolished through self-study.... The goal is not self-realization but selflessness.
Path of Wisdom, Path of Peace

Generally speaking, there are two forms of meditation on emptiness. One is the space-like meditation on emptiness, which is characterised by the total absence or negation of inherent existence. The other is called the illusion-like meditation on emptiness. The space-like meditation must come first, because without the realisation of the total absence of inherent existence, the illusion-like perception or understanding will not occur.
For the illusion-like understanding of all phenomena to occur, there needs to be a composite of both the perception or appearance and the negation, so that when we perceive the world and engage with it we can view all things and events as resembling illusions. We will recognise that although things appear to us, they are devoid of objective, independent, intrinsic existence. This is how the illusion-like understanding arises. The author of the "Eight Verses for Training the Mind" indicates the experiential result when he writes: "May I, recognising all things as illusion, devoid of clinging, be released from bondage."
When we speak of cultivating the illusion-like understanding of the nature of reality, we need to bear in mind the different interpretations of the term 'illusion-like'.... For example, the Buddhist realist schools explain the nature of reality to be illusion-like in the sense that, although we tend to perceive things as having permanence, in reality they are changing moment by moment and it is this that gives them an illusion-like character.
Lighting the Way

Quotations on: Emptiness, Selflessness, or the Mystery of Our Ego

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5


The Buddha

Know all things to be like this:
A mirage, a cloud castle,
A dream, an apparition,
Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

Know all things to be like this:
As the moon in a bright sky
In some clear lake reflected,
Though to that lake the moon has never moved.

Know all things to be like this:
As an echo that derives
From music, sounds, and weeping,
Yet in that echo is no melody.

Know all things to be like this:
As a magician makes illusions
Of horses, oxen, carts and other things,
Nothing is as it appears.
Samadhi Raja Sutra

Though one should conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, he who conquers his own self, is the greatest of all conquerers.
Self-conquest is, indeed, far greater than the conquest of all other folks.
Dhammapada v. 103, 104

"Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any one part of the lute."
Samyutta Nikaya, from "Buddha Speaks"

Once there was a layman who came to Ajahn Chah and asked him who Ajahn Chah was. Ajahn Chah, seeing that the spiritual development of the individual was not very advanced, pointed to himself and said, This, this is Ajahn Chah.
Once there was a layman who came to Ajahn Chah and asked him who Ajahn Chah was. Ajahn Chah, seeing that the questioners capacity to understand the Dhamma was higher, Ajahn Chah answered by saying Ajahn Chah? There is NO Ajahn Chah!

A visiting Zen student asked Ajahn Chah, "How old are you? Do you live here all year round?"
"I live nowhere, he replied. There is no place you can find me. I have no age. To have age, you must exist, and to think you exist is already a problem. Don't make problems, then the world has none either. Don't make a self. There's nothing more to say."

Psychologists talk about people who are co-dependent because they don't have a sense of self. What psychologists mean when they say a person has no sense of self is very different from what the Buddha meant by no-self or selflessness. People with psychological problems actually have a very strong sense of self in the Buddhist sense, although they may not in the psychological sense of the word. Psychologically, they don't see themselves as efficacious individuals in the world, but they still have a very strong sense of "I": "I am worthless." When somebody criticizes them, they don't like it. They get into co-dependent relationships to protect or to please this "I." When they fall into self-pity, their sense of an inherently existent "I" is very strong. Thus they still have self-grasping even though they lack a psychologically healthy sense of self.
Buddhism recognizes two kinds of sense of self. There's one sense of self that is healthy and necessary to be efficacious on the path. The object of this sense of self is the conventionally existent "I." The other sense of self grasps at an inherently existent self that never has and never will exist. Within Buddhism, when we talk about realizing emptiness, we're negating the false self, this self that appears inherently existent to us.
Thubten Chodron from Cultivating a Compassionate Heart: The Yoga Method of Chenrezig

Tantric practitioners should also have made progress in meditation on emptiness. Meditation on emptiness is the heart of the Buddhist path in both sutra and tantra. Although compassion is said to be the basis of practice, it is basic in the sense of being one's
motivation; meditation on emptiness is the chief practice of Buddhism because it actualizes one's compassionate intent by removing all obstructions to Buddhahood. All the practices of method, both in sutra and tantra, are done specifically in order to enhance the wisdom consciousness that realizes emptiness, as Santideva's 'Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds' says:
"The Subduer said that all these
Branches are for the sake of wisdom."
Daniel Cozort, 'Highest Yoga Tantra'

Surrender means surrendering who you are not, so that who you really are may emerge.
You are not what you think, you are not what you believe, you are not what you like or dislike.
Those are the adopted filters which speak through you.
Yogi Amrit Desai

If one conceives of 'self', then one must also conceive of 'other'. Attachment and aversion arise as a result of these two conceptions-
of self and other. As a result of relationships accompanied by feelings of attachment and aversion, all faults are generated. It should be understood that the root of all those faults is this view- that the transitory aggregation called I and mine has an inherent existence."
Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen, from the Pramanavarttika, quoted in 'Garland of Mahamudra Practices'

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.
Thomas Merton

Awesome Quotes About Life Choices

A collection of quotes about life choices. We all make choices everyday that affect our lives. Reflect on the words of wisdom in these quotes and sayings. Let them help you when you have choices to make. And, remember all of life is about choosing.

"When we find inspiration, we need to take action for ourselves and for our communities. Even if it means making a hard choice, or cutting out something and leaving it in your past."
Aron Ralston

"And in life, it is all about choices we make.
And how the direction of our lives comes down to the choices we choose."
Catherine Pulsifer, from HONESTY. . . A Core Value?

"In every single thing you do, you are choosing a direction.
Your life is a product of choices."
Dr. Kathleen Hall, from Alter Your Life

"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself.
Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice."
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

We all need to decide whether to "play it safe" in life and worry about the downside, or instead take a chance, by being who we really are and living the life our heart desires.
Which choice are you making?
Charlie Badenhop

"You came empty on earth, why overloaded now, where all your choices absolutely correct, is never too late to reconsider them?"
William Ngwako Maphoto

"Life is a choice - as is how you handle the pitfalls along its bumpy road."
Julie Donner Andersen,
from What My Widowed Husband Has Taught Me

"The reason man may become the master of his own destiny is because he has the power to influence his own subconscious mind."
Napoleon Hill

"I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude."
Judith M. Knowlton

"Your attitudes and the choices you make today will be your life tomorrow, build it wisely."
by Author Unknown, from Life is a Do-It-Yourself Project

"It is about choices we make. And how the direction of our lives comes down to the choices we choose."
Catherine Pulsifer


"How you react to situations is your personal choice. It is your decision, and yours alone, to determine the importance you give to any situation."
Catherine Pulsifer, from Inferior Without Consent?

"In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
Theodore Roosevelt

"Every choice you make has an end result."
Zig Ziglar

"There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them."
Denis Waitley

"We are partners by fate. We become friends by choice."
Jacquie McTaggart

"You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself."
W. Clement Stone

"Before my accidents, there were ten thousands things I could do. I could spend the rest of my life dwelling on the things that I had lost, but instead I chose to focus on the nine thousand I still had left."
W. Mitchell

"All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it."
Harry S. Truman

"The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude."
Charles Swindoll

"When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that in itself is a choice."
William James

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."
Henry Ford

"You don't have to buy from anyone. You don't have to work at any particular job. You don't have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose."
Harry Browne

"Your attitude can take you forward or your attitude can take you down. The choice is always yours!"
Catherine Pulsifer

"It is always your next move."
Napoleon Hill

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
William James (1842 - 1910)

"What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life."
Leo Buscaglia

"If you have made mistakes…there is always another chance for you
you may have a fresh start any moment you choose,
for this thing we call 'Failure' is not the falling down but the staying down."
Mary Pickford

"No one ever went broke by saying no too often."
Harvey Mackay

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
William Jennings Bryan

"We all have choices to learn or not to learn. However, with choices come results. You can not expect positive results if we choose to limit ourselves to our existing knowledge."
Catherine Pulsifer, from Are You Learning

"You are the person who has to decide. Whether you'll do it or toss it aside; You are the person who makes up your mind. Whether you'll lead or will linger behind. Whether you'll try for the goal that's afar. Or just be contented to stay where you are."
Edgar A. Guest

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Victor Frankl

"Your choice of people to associate with, both personally and business-wise, is one of the most important choices you make. If you associate with turkeys, you will never fly with the eagles."
Brian Tracy

"And if I may be so bold to offer my last piece of advice for someone seeking and needing to make changes in their life—If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree. You have the ability to totally transform every area in your life—and it all begins with your very own power of choice."
Jim Rohn

"You are everything that is, your thoughts, your life, your dreams come true. You are everything you choose to be. You are as unlimited as the endless universe."
Shad Helmstetter

"We design our lives through the power of choices."
Richard Bach

"Other people's opinion of you does not have to become your reality."
Les Brown


SEE ALSO:

Quotes by Topics: Action- Age - Angels - Anger-Art-Attitude-Belief-Believe- Broken Hearts -Business- Caring -Censorship - Charm-Change-Decisions-Dogs-Dreams-Education-Effort-Embrace - Emotion-Equality-Experience- Risk - Seeing- Fate-Faith-Flirtation-Forgiveness-Friendship-Funny- Gratitude -Goal-Government-Happiness- Heartache-History-Honesty-Horses-Humor-Imagination- Insults and Comebacks-Intelligence-Intimacy- Intuition-Karma- Kisses-Life-Light -Laughter-Logic-Love-Luck-Marriage-Mind-Miracles- Motivational and Inspirational Quotes- Jealously-Quotations- Memory -Mistake-Music-Night-Optimism and Pessimism-Passion-Past- Positive Thinking -Promises-Philosophy-Peace-Pleasure-Prosperity- Perfection-Poetry-Politics-Religion- Self-Respect-Self-Control-Smile -Solitude-Soul-Silence-Success - Sweet -Thinking -Time-Trust-Virtue-Vision-Wise-Words -Wisdom