Attention

Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?
Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word "Attention."

Rumi

He has afflicted you from every direction, in order
to pull you back to the Directionless.

Truth is
unbroken
unchanging
silent
awareness.

Osho

Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed--
borrowed from those who have no idea of who they are themselves.

Eckhart Tolle

You are not the ego, so when you become aware of the ego in you, it does not mean you know who you are--- it means you know who you are not. But it is through knowing who you are not that the greatest obstacle to truly knowing yourself is removed.

Nobody can tell you who you are. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle. It does not even require your realization, since you already are who you are. But without realization, who you are does not shine forth into this world. It remains in the unmanifested which is, of course, your true home. You are then like an apparently poor person who does not know he has a bank account wih $100 million in it and so his wealth remains an unexpressed potential.

Maitreya Ishwara

To be free of their premature and unverified belief, 'I am That' believers need only shift to the more experiential and instantly verifiable, 'I am this moment of life'.
Each moment consciously encountered opens the secret door to the subtle mysteries of higher awareness.

Chogyam Trungpa

Student: I don't understand what emptiness means.

Chogyam: When we talk of emptiness, it means the absence of solidity, the absence of fixed notions which cannot be changed, which have no relationship to us at all but which remain as they are, separate. Form, in this case, is more the solidity of experience. In other words, it is a certain kind of determination not to give away, not to open. We would like to keep everything intact purely for the purpose of security, of knowing where we are. You are afraid to change. That sort of solidness is form. So "form is empty" is the absence of that security; you see everything as penetrating and open. But that doesn't mean that everything has to be completely formless, or nothing. When we talk of nothingness, emptiness, or voidness, we are not talking in terms of negatives but in terms of nothingness being everything. It's another way of saying "everything" -- but it is much safer to say "nothing" at that particular level than "everything."

Saraha

Appearances have never ceased to be their original radiance,
And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be grasped;
It is a continuum of unique meditation,
In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is no-mind.

-----

The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring integration;
Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom.
Cognition of radiance is strong meditation;
Abide in a calm, quiescent mind.

Alan Watts

The relevance of zazen to Zen is obvious when it is remembered that Zen is seeing reality directly, in its “suchness.” To see the world as it is concretely, undivided by categories and abstractions, one must certainly look at it with a mind which is not thinking-which is to say, forming symbols-about it. Za-zen is not, therefore, sitting with a blank mind which excludes all the impressions of the inner and outer senses. It is not “concentration” in the usual sense of restricting the attention to a single sense object, such as a point of light or the tip of one’s nose. It is simply a quiet awareness, without comment, of whatever happens to be here and now.

Ramana Maharshi

Q: I pray for your grace, as human effort is futile without it.

Ramana: Both are necessary. The sun is shining, but you must turn and look at it in order to catch a glimpse. Similarly, individual effort is necessary as well as grace.

Daichi Sokei

If someone asks what true Zen is, it is not necessary to open your mouth to explain. Show him all the aspects of your zazen posture. Then the spring wind will blow and open the wonderful plum blossom.

Dogen

If you understand that zazen is the great gate of the law, you will be like the dragon piercing the water or the tiger re-entering the deep forest.

Maitreya Ishwara

Sitting silently in awareness is the cutting edge of rapid growth for most mature seekers.
Resting consciously in the energy of Now dissolves ego structures faster and more effectively than any other approach. Remaining aware of the moment-to-moment unfolding of life in you is the rapid way to grow.

Kodo Sawaki

Our exhalation is the whole universe's exhalation. Our inhalation is the whole universe's inhalation. In this way, in every moment, we accomplish the great unlimited work. Having this attitude means making every misfortune disappear and creates absolute happiness.

Eckhart Tolle

In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the power and infinite creative potential that lie concealed in the Now are completely obscured by psychological time. Your life then loses its vibrancy, its freshness, its sense of wonder. The old patterns of thought, emotion, behavior, reaction, and desire are acted out in endless repeat performances, a script in your mind that gives you an identity of sorts but distorts or covers up the reality of the Now.

Anadi Kristof

This world is not at all static. It is a dynamic dance of silence, energy and intelligence. Practicing meditation, one needs to be extremely focused and sensitive. Meditation is an art form that takes us beyond ignorance. It is the essence of life. Whoever enters this path, truly for the first time enters life.

Dogen

There are thousands upon thousands of students
who have practised meditation and obtained its fruits.
Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method
If you can not find the truth right where you are,
where else do you expect to find it?

David Deida

My need for love that remained unmet was now obvious to me as a need that could not be met by any woman. The only 'woman' who could meet my need for love was the one whom is always appearing. This 'she' is the very experience of this moment. The form of this 'lady' is the shape of this moment. 'She' is always dancing as whatever sights, sounds, textures, thoughts, and emotions flicker in the field of consciousness. And love is the music that dances her.

Rumi

O love, O pure deep love, be here, be now!
Be all; worlds dissolve into your stainless endless radiance

Osho

Awareness knows only the present. To be free from past and future is to taste freedom for the first time. And in that experience one becomes whole, healthy; all wounds are healed. That well-being is the beginning of transformation.

Foyan

It is as though you have an eye
That sees all forms
But does not see itself.
This is how your mind is.
Its light penetrates everywhere
And engulfs everything,
So why does it not know itself?

Bassui

Who is hearing?
Your physical being doesn’t hear,
Nor does the void.
Then what does?

What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more intensely,
What is it that hears?

Ryokan

Where beauty is, then there is ugliness;
where right is, also there is wrong.
Knowledge and ignorance are interdependent;
delusion and enlightenment condition each other.
Since olden times it has been so.
How could it be otherwise now?
Wanting to get rid of one and grab the other
is merely realizing a scene of stupidity.
Even if you speak of the wonder of it all,
how do you deal with each thing changing?

Maitreya Ishwara

Real meditation is meeting, merging and dissolving with each moment of life in the divine sacrament of Now - not a goal-oriented concentration exercise.

David Deida

Fear signals your holding. Where are you holding tense now? In your tongue, belly, between your legs? What would happen if you trusted openness and surrendered to be lived by the mystery that is life? For a moment, do your best to open completely. Relax your muscles so that life’s energy can flow unimpeded through your body. Allow life to breathe you; don’t add any effort to your breath. If life wants to stop breathing you, then so be it.

Reading Laozi

Those who speak do not know, those who know are silent,
I heard this saying from the old gentleman.
If the old gentleman was one who knew the way,
Why did he feel able to write five thousand words?

- Bai Juyi

Anadi Kristof

The experience of Being is an energetic expansion into the vertical reality of the Now.

---

To be grounded in Being, to rest in Being, to be naturally absorb in Being is the foundation of sanity, the foundation of being well. “basic goodness” is the quality of Being.

---

Being is the true foundation of meditation and it is also the impersonal ground of the Now. It is only through Being that the depth of Reality can be divulged to our consciousness. Awareness alone cannot enter the heart of meditation unless it becomes absorbed in the stillness of Being.

Eckhart Tolle

To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment.

---

Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being "here" but wanting to be "there" or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. There’s a split that tears you apart inside.

What is Life For You?

Where are you looking for your life? What makes you feel most alive? What is life to you? Ponder these questions and enjoy them.
Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is life for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now. - Brenda Shoshanna

People often say, “Life is passing me by.” How is this possible with life always unfolding in this precise instant?. ~ Josh Baran