//////////////////////CICERO saith, that to Philosophise is no other
thing than for a man to prepare himselfe to death: which is the reason
that studie and contemplation doth in some sort withdraw our soule from
us,
////////////////////A double eagle is a gold coin of the United States with a denomination of $20.[1] (Its gold content of 0.9675 troy oz (30.0926 grams) was worth $20 at the 1849 official price of $20.67/oz.) The coins are made from a 90% gold (0.900 fine = 21.6 kt) and 10% copper alloy and have a total weight of 1.0750 troy ounces (33.4362 grams).
//////////////////ZEN 10
///////////////////ZEN ALTISM
///////////////////////ZEN IT
////////////////////////ZEN BLEEP
//////////////////////
To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death."
|
| -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne |
/////////////////////THENCE CDS
///////////////////////////PROFESSNL FBT-PEDS, GCKING DMCD
////////////////////////////
Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
A. Sachs
I want to pay tribute to the word emptiness. It’s one of the most profound
words in Buddhist literature, and it lies at the very heart of the Buddha’s
teachings. The sutras often refer to emptiness as the Mother Prajnaparamita
—the Mother of Transcendent Wisdom. The “mother” refers to the natural
womblike quality of emptiness that is pregnant with possibility
“The mind that is not baffled is not employed.”
PANGONIC- You don’t see a lot of yellow,
orange, and red in the arid climate of the Rockies—except in the autumn. In
the autumn, the sunlight hits the leaves and they shimmer. I felt so
overwhelmed by this beauty, I was almost agitated by it. I kept saying,
“How beautiful it is, how beautiful, how beautiful . . .” Rinpoche turned to
me and asked: “Is it too beautiful for you?” This got me thinking . . . even
beauty can cause us pain when we objectify it.
My friend Robin lost her son as he was just moving into young
adulthood. She said that after his death she joined a support group with
other parents who had also experienced the loss of a child. Witnessing their
grief she was able to move from “I am suffering” to “there is suffering.”
She wears a mustard seed in a locket around her neck to remind her of
Gotami and her search.
Tao- Zen
Laying here doing nothing
Spring comes and
coconut trees grow by themselves.
Without one knowing
where they come from
or why.
Let go and realize
that everything gets done.
The Buddha called this reflection on suffering the First Noble Truth. We
must know that the Buddha only called suffering a “truth” in order to
acknowledge that living beings experience it. Suffering itself
possesses no
inherent reality. Essentially, like all “things,” suffering arises and falls away
due to its dependence upon causes
/////////////////////////In a word, there is suffering, named by the Buddha as the First Noble
Truth of human existence. This is not the whole of life. There are also love
and joy,
laughing with friends, and the comfort of a warm sweater on a cold
day. Yet each of us must face the truth of suffering some of the time, and
many of us face it all of the time.
and conditions. Therefore, it has no
identifiable boundaries. It is just another experience that cannot be
objectified, captured, or pinned down. What is suffering before we objectify
it? That’s a good question.
1. The first teaching the Buddha gave immediately after his enlightenment. The four truths are
the truth of suffering, the truth of the causes of suffering, the truth of
the cessation of suffering,
and the truth of the path
Sanskrit, स्मृत्युपस्थान (smṛty-upasthāna). Pali, सतिपट्ठान (satipaṭṭhāna). OR MINDFULNESS
