Tricycle Daily Dharma October 12, 2013

Recognizing Love As adults, we need to become newly aware of the love that has infused our lives all along, to turn our attention to it afresh with the eyes of a child. To do so is to become conscious of the tremendous capacity for love that even now permeates our being—to open to it, to be healed by its life-giving energy, and to participate in its power to renew our world. We can awaken to the deepest goodness in ourselves and others. We can learn to recognize and commune with the blessings that have always been pouring forth. - John Makransky, “Love Is All Around”

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 11, 2013

We Can Change The principle of conditionality is not tantamount to an irreversible determinism. The exercise of human will is critical to its operation, and this should give us hope. With the right view, right intention, and right action, we can change our trajectory. - Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, "Preserving the Fecundity of the Earth"

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 10, 2013

Devotional Practice In Asia, laypeople generally relate to Buddhism devotionally. But in America, when laypeople engage in these traditions they most often want to relate to them solely as a yogic path, beyond devotion. The problem is that they have all of the problems that lay Buddhists have always had. Trying to force yourself into the yogic path while living with all of the distractions, complications, and follies of the lay life may not always work so well. - Mark Unno, “The Buddha of Infinite Light and Life”

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 9, 2013

Faith in Mind Reject existence and you fall into it, Pursue emptiness and you move away from it. With many words and thoughts You miss what is right before you. Cutting off words and thought Nothing remains unpenetrated. - Jianzhi Sengcan, "Faith in Mind"

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 8, 2013

A Serious Engagement When we engage seriously with the Buddhist tradition we learn other ways of construing the world, other stories we can tell about the way things are, and these can be cogent, coherent, and compelling in their own way. This is not to argue for a naive acceptance of Buddhist epistemology and cosmology. But we won't see what Buddhism has to offer if, at the outset, we twist it out of shape to make it conform to contemporary norms. - Robert Sharf, "Losing Our Religion"

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 7, 2013

Spacious Mind Noticing the space around people and things provides a different way of looking at them, and developing this spacious view is a way of opening oneself. When one has a spacious mind, there is room for everything. When one has a narrow mind, there is room for only a few things. - Ajahn Sumedho, “Noticing Space”

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 6, 2013

Forgive Forgiveness is really not about someone’s harmful behavior; it’s about our own relationship with our past. When we begin the work of forgiveness, it is primarily a practice for ourselves. - Gina Sharpe, “The Power of Forgiveness”

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 5, 2013

Life is Sacred Life is possible. Situations are possible. And anybody can start to gain some kind of insight and appreciation of their lives. That’s what we call 'sacred.' It doesn’t mean something dramatic, but something very simple. There’s a sacredness to everyone’s life. - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, “A New Place, A New Time”

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 3, 2013

Letting Go Letting go of fixation is effectively a process of learning to be free, because every time we let go of something, we become free of it. Whatever we fixate upon limits us because fixation makes us dependent upon something other than ourselves. Each time we let go of something, we experience another level of freedom. - Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, “Letting Go of Spiritual Experience”

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 2, 2013

The Art of Living Vipassana teaches the art of dying: how to die peacefully, harmoniously. And one learns the art of dying by learning the art of living: how to become master of the present moment. - S. N. Goenka, "S. N. Goenka, Pioneer of Secular Meditation Movement, Dies at 90"

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 1, 2013

Immediate Gratification When you analyze it, the motivation to 'just feel good right now' is really just indulging our desires. The motivation to immediately gratify desire is what has driven most of our actions throughout our beginningless sojourn in samsara—all it has accomplished is to perpetuate our confusion, pain, and habitual inability to pull ourselves out of this mess. This is precisely the problem that Buddhism was invented to solve. - David Patt,“Who’s Zoomin’ Who? The Commodification of Buddhism in the American Marketplace”

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 30, 2013

Every Moment Foundational Everything we encounter is fully and completely itself. Nothing is merely a means to an end, nothing is merely a step on the path to somewhere else. Every moment, everything, is absolutely foundational in its own right. Zazen, defined in the narrow sense as seated meditation, is but one of an infinite number of possible paradigms for this state, yet at the same time it is the unique expression of the coming together of human nature and buddhanature. - Barry Magid, “Uselessness”

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 29, 2013

When is the Performance? Practice, practice, practice, Buddhists are always talking about practice. What I want to know is: When is the performance? - Robert Thurman, "Straight Outta Kapilavastu"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 28, 2013

We Don't Start with a Clean Slate When we first sit down to meditate—and later when we return to the cushion—we can immediately recognize that we are not starting with a clean slate. Whatever the previous day, week, month, year, decade have brought—it is immediately clear that our minds are already in motion, already have movement and momentum in a particular direction before we sit down. Our experience when we sit down to meditate—whether we’ve been sitting for 30 minutes or 30 years—will often reflect our previous physical and mental 'training.' - Gaylon Ferguson, "Fruitless Labor"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 27, 2013

On Not Elevating Oneself One of the worst kinds of elevation of the self is playing the victim. There are times when we actually are victims, when actual blame is appropriate, but to take on the identity of a victim and be stuck blaming is something else. Surprisingly, it is actually a subtle form of elevation—I’m not responsible, you are. This is giving up all freedom. I think the reason that remarkable stories of forgiveness take our breath away is that we instantly feel the liberation in the lifting of boundaries, the end of separation, of 'inside' and 'outside.' - Nancy Baker, "The Seventh Zen Precept"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 25, 2013

Rain, the Snow, and Moon Every day, priests minutely examine the Law And endlessly chant complicated sutras. Before doing that, though, they should learn How to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain,     the snow and moon.  - Ikkyu, "Rain, the Snow, and Moon"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 24, 2013

Knowing Death As with many deep truths, people tend to look at the death awareness meditations and say, Yes, I know all of that. I know I'm going to die someday. I know I can't take it with me. I know my body will be dust. And as with other things—as with the law of impermanence itself—I would say we know it and we don't know it. We know it in our heads but haven't taken it into our hearts. We haven't let it penetrate the marrow of our bones. If we had, I can't help thinking we would live differently. Our whole lives would be different. The planet would be different as well. - Larry Rosenberg, "Only the Practice of Dharma Can Help Us at the Time of Death"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 23, 2013

Spend Some Time with Yourself I try to encourage my students to encounter the world within themselves, to try to follow the thread as to why they’re writing as deeply as they can into their subconscious. I tell them before they do any research, they should spend time with themselves, however long it takes: it could be a couple of days, or a couple of years. After that, you actually encounter someone else as someone else. You allow the world to enter and to become part of you, to break whatever cage you’ve been rattling around in. That part is interesting, too: we have to see our own cages. - Nick Flynn, "Real Enough"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 22, 2013

Dogen’s Cookbook When you prepare food, do not see with ordinary eyes and do not think with ordinary mind. Take up a blade of grass and construct a treasure king's land; enter into a particle of dust and turn the great dharma wheel. Do not arouse disdainful mind when you prepare a broth of wild grasses; do not arouse joyful mind when you prepare a fine cream soup. Where there is no discrimination, how can there be distaste? Thus, do not be careless even when you work with poor materials, and sustain your efforts even when you have excellent materials. Never change your attitude according to the materials. If you do, it is like varying your truth when speaking with different people; then you are not a practitioner of the way. - Zen Master Dogen, “Instructions for the Tenzo”

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 20, 2013

Catching Ourselves Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior. We catch ourselves one zillion times as once again, whether we like it or not, we harden into resentment, bitterness, righteous indignation—harden in any way, even into a sense of relief, a sense of inspiration. - Pema Chödrön, “Stay with Your Broken Heart”

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 19, 2013

A Ladder Up How our representatives spend our taxes reveals in stark black and white our nation's values and concerns. And how we respond to their decisions reveals, too, our own souls, our own deepest values. These responses show where we stand in relation to our neighbors and to those across the country who share our humanity, who look to us for a ladder up from the pains of poverty, illness, and hunger. - Bhikkhu Bodhi, "The Attack at Home"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 18, 2013

After the First Step Free of stress and comfortable are two very different things. I think a lot of times people come to meditation to get more comfortable, and a lot of teachers are happy to teach them just that. But if you’re looking for deeper levels of happiness, if you’re looking to become totally free from stress, getting the mind comfortable is only the first step. It would be a big mistake, though—and a big waste—to get comfortable and then tell yourself that things don’t really matter, that everything’s just OK. - Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "The Committee"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 17, 2013

The Virtue of Non-Violence To face—with open hands—armed, shielded, gas-masked riot police is the greatest form of courage. Non-violence is how you expose the violence of the system, and not seeing as “other” those charged with carrying out physical violence is how you communicate with them directly. - Paul Hawken, "Upsurge"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 16, 2013

A Precious Death Where there is no death, there are no risks, and life is utterly meaningless. Life is precious, and so death must be precious too. Our job is to figure out why. - Shozan Jack Haubner, “Consider the Seed”

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 15, 2013

It's Nothing Personal Understanding that there is no solid, singular, or permanent 'me' makes it possible to accommodate whatever arises in life without feeling so intimidated by our experience, without rolling over like a defeated dog in a dogfight. We can see that things arise due to our karma playing itself out and that it does not necessarily have to be so personal. - Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “Realizing Guiltlessness”