Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#1193 - Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Editor: michael
--- In NondualitySalon@y..., "Gloria Lee"
wrote:
A Place to Start
If beginners studying Zen fear they have as yet no place to start
and no direction, even so, there's nothing else to say but that
you
each have an original face, which you have never recognized.
This original face is one with all buddhas: twenty-four hours a
day,
as you are speaking, silent, active, quiet, walking, standing,
sitting, and lying down, all of this is due to its empowerment.
Just recognize this inwardly, and there you have a place to
start;
there you have direction.
~~~ Wei-tse (d.1348)
The Subtle Path
The subtle path of buddhas and Zen masters is not an irrational
creation of knotty problems, nor is it eccentricity or wierdery.
And
it is not something that is very lofty and hard to practice: it
is
just
what you presently use all the time in your everyday activities.
If
we have to give it a name, we might call it the natural real
Buddha
in your own nature, or the master within your own self.
In everyday terms, at all times and in all places, you see and
hear
with Shakyamuni Buddha's eyes and ears, you speak and breathe
with Zen founder Bodhidharma's tongue and nose. In ultimate
terms,
the individual lives of all the buddhas and Zen masters of the
ten
directions are all in your grip - whether to gather them together
or let them disperse is all up to you.
~~~ Wei-tse
From Teachings of Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``
Avadhut Gita
chapter 2 verse 23:
A guru gives the gift of wisdom
To both the wise and the foolish man;
But only he crosses over this ocean
Who attains the knowledge of truth for himself.