Tag: religion

Vivifying The Way with Your Body and Life

“A Ch’an master once wrote that the wise enshrine the miraculous bones of the ancients within themselves; that is, they do not regard teachings of ways to enlightenment as an external body of knowledge or information to be possessed as an acquisition or believed or revered as inflexible dogma, but rather apply it as far as possible to themselves and their situations, vivifying the way of enlightenment with their own bodies and lives, not just in their thoughts. It is therefore a matter of course that new Buddhist literature has been produced; for the Buddhist canon is not closed, as long as people continue the search for enlightenment.”

Thomas Cleary, introduction to his translation of The Blue Cliff Record

Observe Your Heart

“Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength.”

Hasidic Saying

Your Real Life is Always Here

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life[.]”

C.S. Lewis

I was thinking the other day how easy it is to disown my problems just because they’re inconvenient and act as though my ‘real life’ is waiting for me over there once I deal with these problems as quickly as possible. But, seeing as though life is never going to stop giving me problems, when you add it all up, that’s a lot of time waiting for my ‘real life’.