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”

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 14, 2013

On the Body The body that we have is a living body. Mostly we were taught that the body is what we leave here when we die. I think that is a terrible mistake. The body that we have is not a dead body. We don’t know exactly how dead bodies come to be, but it is absolutely clear that this body is the living body. So we need to draw the basic concepts about “the body” from the living process. - Eugene T. Gendlin, “Focusing”

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 12, 2013

Our Own Salvation We don’t just seek our own salvation—we are only fully happy when we can be born together with all others. No one is left behind by Amida, no one is left out. This does not sound like the sort of society that we live in today, but it does give us something to aspire to. - Jeff Wilson, "Come Together"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 11, 2013

Power to Shape the Present Do what you can to help the living, and dedicate the merit of your practice to the dead. We may be powerless to change the past, but we do have the power to shape the present and the future by what we do, moment to moment, right now. And in maintaining our intention to be as skillful as possible in thought, word, and deed, we’ll find the only true refuge there is. - Thanissaro Bhikkhu "What We've Been Practicing For"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 9, 2013

Fearless Fearlessness is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to walk into it. When I walk into my fear, practice there, sit upright in the middle of it, completely open to the experience, with no expectation of the outcome, anything is possible. When our circumstances look impossible or terrifying, there is a way. - Judith Randall, "The Hidden Lamp"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 4, 2013

On Silence Silence arrests flight, so that in its refuge, the need to flee the chaos of noise diminishes. We let the world creep closer, we drop to our knees, as if to let the heart, like a small animal, get its legs on the ground. - Barbara Hurd, "On Silence"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 3, 2013

Our Fellow Muddlers At our best, we muddle ahead together, hoping to get things right occasionally and trying not to do too much damage along the way. It is in the muddling that we find our humanity, and in doing so, if we are lucky, we find each other. - Andrew Cooper, "Sex in the Sangha . . . Again"

Tricycle Daily Dharma September 2, 2013

Support for your Meditation If you are not leading a morally upright life, you cannot expect to sit down on a little pillow and find yourself secluded from sense desires, secluded from unwholesome states of mind. If there is not sufficient morality, there is too much to desire, too much hate or fear, too much to worry about. - Leigh Brasington, "A Mind Pure, Concentrated, and Bright"