Author: Posts

Fully acknowledge your sadness and the sadness of life, but do not be consumed by it.  Remember your true nature, of balance and completeness, joining vision with practicality.  This quality of being continuously awake will help you remember who you really are.

Even in the midst of great difficulty a tiny opportunity will open, if only by chance.  You must be sharp enough to discern it, quick enough to catch it and determined enough to do something with it.  If you let it pass you will be filled with regrets.

If you feel the universe is agitated, go out at night and look at the stars in the sky. Settle your mind like the universe settles the stars in the sky. Once your mind is calm, it naturally expands and your mind becomes as vast and immeasurable as the night sky.

Human society should hold together through common interests that allow each person to feel part of the whole.  What is required is that we unite with others.  This is accomplished by sincerity in forming relationships with a common goal.

Quote: Do not rely on others for your happiness.

Make friends with your emotions, be more attentive, get to know them better.  To dissolve their power, use your wholehearted intelligent attention, this will help you stay steady and then you will discover their insubstantial nature.

There are three things we need from life: sound health, a way through the bewilderment of life and liberation from all our fears.  Following the ancient teachings, you will find a source of sustenance.  Once you taste it, all doubts will fade and life will be easier.

To cleanse oneself of contaminations, such as anger or self-absorption, practice undiscriminating virtue.  To practice virtue, give without limitations, without prejudice and without expectations.  If your willingness to give is limited, so is your ability to receive.

Watching the cycles of the seasons we know that change is constant as is the change from favorable to unfavorable times and vice versa.  In unfavorable times restrain yourself with the practice of virtue.  In other words, do not become attached to success.

Quote: Into each life some rain must fall.

We need to develop a zest for challenge and for life.  This practice adds up to awesome beauty, inspiration and uplifted feeling.  Life then becomes a process of growing up and you becoming more and more fearless.  This way life becomes a sense of play.

Embrace all things, hold no anger or resistance toward any idea or thing.  To embrace all things means also that you rid yourself of any concept of separation: male or female, self and other.  Foregoing antagonism and separation, you enter the harmonious oneness of all things.

Being natural is desiring without craving and acting without excess.  Not defending or nourishing your false self you will find that greed, hatred and arrogance vanish by themselves. Toughening your resolve will create self-reliance and you will lose the sense of self and other.

We must respond to changes and discover the most suitable way to deal with them.  Responding to isolated changes merely leads to little success.  By responding to changes within the whole process your success will be achieved.

Quote: Take hardship courageously.

We have what it takes to wake up, we just need some encouragement to be aware of what we think, say, and do.  By cultivating a mind that does not grasp at right and wrong, you will find a fresh state of being.  This will ease our suffering. 

No matter what the problem, it is important not to take it on whole or all at once.  Break it down into more easily handled components, this way they can be managed easily.  Even the greatest difficulties can be resolved when they are slowly reduced.

When things arise let them come.  When things depart, let them go.  Don’t possess, don’t expect.  Practice undiscriminating virtue, take care of those who are deserving, also equally take care of those who are not.  Time honored disciplines calm the mind and bring one into harmony with all things.

When your vital energy is stuck within, cooperation with others on a common goal and, with concentration on this goal, all barriers dissolve.  If you are free of all selfish exterior motives and are united in a joint task or goal, this can dissolve the hardness of egotism.

Quote: Everything is relative.

Each moment is just what it is, it may be the only moment of our life.  We could get depressed about it, or we could appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.

In times of adversity, vision and determination decide the outcome.  You can emerge from diversity stronger than before.  If your mind is focused to the utmost, you will triumph.  Thus, the times of adversity can be crucial in the development of one’s inner personality.

The truth is always right there before you, what you need is always right in front of you, all you must do is open your mind and heart.  You can do this by being present in this moment and accept you don’t know, then the clearer and more open you become.

What has been spoiled by man’s fault can be made good through man’s work.  Once we know the causes of decay, we must not recoil from working diligently on them, even if it is dangerous. We must work towards improving conditions; this accords with the possibilities of the times. 

Quote:  The very center of your heart is where life begins – the most beautiful place on earth.

Being satisfied with what we already have is the key to being alive in a full, unrestricted and inspiring way.  Wake up, become more alert and curious about yourself.  Being who we are rather than trying to change and improve ourselves is all right, just be.

If we feel out of sorts it could be a variety of things, something we ate, our mind is upset or some external event.  Look at the way you are eating, your mind with its habits, outer environment or social change; then arrange your life so that it comes back into balance.

The ancients asked us to transcend every false premise of our culture and be reborn in the form of our own essential humanity which needs no test of performance, wealth or achievements to validate itself.

When you undertake an enterprise in extraordinary times, you need to be very cautious.  Enterprises will not succeed unless the utmost caution is taken at the beginning and laying of the foundation.  Once you have a firm foundation the rest of the enterprise will fall into place.

Quote: If light is in your heart, you will find your way home.

What seems undesirable in our lives doesn’t have to trigger habitual reactions.  We can let it show us where we’re at and let it remind us that the ancient teachings encourage precision and gentleness, with loving kindness towards every moment.

We all have many voices, personalities, ambitions and tendencies within ourselves.  The ability to distinguish between them and the ability to silence all the voices except the one in our heart is imperative if we are to reach a state of well-being.

If you give up all concepts, judgements and desires, your mind will be naturally compassionate and you will find in your experiences the central truths of the art of living (which are paradoxical only on the surface).

When disagreements crop up, general unrest can easily develop and we lay the blame on another.  Stay calm and you will succeed in making things go well in the end.  Slander will be silenced if we do not gratify it with injured retorts. 

Quote: Feelings are more central to our lives than reason in that they dominate most of what we do and even form the basis of our moral judgment.

Use the moments, days, years of your life to become wiser and more at home in the world by paying attention to what is happening right now.  We can aspire to be kind right at this moment, to relax and open out heart to what is right in front of us right at this moment.

Flowers can make you smile, their beauty is delicate and you cannot alter their nature.  Their tenderness arouses feelings of mercy, compassion and understanding. They are fragile, ephemeral and uncompromising.   Take the time to appreciate their beauty in the midst of temporality.  

Surrendering to the flow of life, giving up all concepts, judgements and desires, your mind will become naturally compassionate.  The more we can let go of things, the more present they become and the clearer our insight becomes to the truth of life.

In times when opposition prevails, mistakes can be avoided if you do not try to bring about unity by force; by so doing you only achieve the contrary.  If we are estranged by a misunderstanding, people will return of their own accord if we leave matters up to them.  

Quote: Simple for me may be difficult for others.

Where we are going is unknown; where we have been we can see clearly.  The moment-by-moment experience, what is happening right now, is where we are going.  This is encouraging because the source of wisdom is what is going to happen to us today, in this very moment.

It is only human interaction that creates meaning to things and if it did not, we would fall into a state of dormancy and the world around us would not exist at all.  As long as we remember that the meanings we attribute to objects are all subjective, this way we will avoid mistakes.  

Lifestyle is not to withdraw from civilization, not about escaping into a life of meditation.  It is about engaging fully in life; it is about a commitment to transcending our humanity.  Be models in your community and examples of personal and social transformation.

Affection is the essential principal of relatedness, it is very important in all relationships.  This is the origin of the whole of nature.  Among humans’ spontaneous affection is the all-inclusive principle of union.

Quote:  Life, you must put some work into it, but not force it.  Mencius

The ground of compassion is working with, rather than against.  Work with your own unacceptable stuff rather than struggling against it.  You can relate to it as based on having worked with loving kindness for yourself.

Problem solving is based first on thinking there is a problem and then thinking there is a solution.  The concepts of problem solving can keep us stuck in thinking there is a right way and a wrong way.  Instead keep you heart and mind open to whatever arises, not knowing what will happen.

To live in concordance with the unity of the universe is to be in harmony with all others, with the environment and with one’s self.  It is to live in synchronicity with processes and to be completely authentic, sincere, natural and innocent.

Fellowship among us should be based on a concern that is universal.  Lasting fellowship is not the private interests of individuals, but rather the goals of humanity.  Fellowship in the open succeeds.  If unity like this prevails, even difficult and dangerous tasks can be accomplished.

Quote: You can only succeed with one thing at a time.