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"