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Late Saturday night
using the tablet
to read your posts
what I call a
Zen moment
Zen Proverb
“Student says ” I am very discouraged. What should I do?” Master says, “encourage others.”
– Zen Proverb
Zen Proverb
“Student says ” I am very discouraged. What should I do?” Master says, “encourage others.”
– Zen Proverb
Sunday Zen Quote
“Mind is simply a combination of all the thoughts, of all the clouds. Mind has no independent nature of its own. When all the thoughts are gone and the sky is clean and clear, you will see that everything that you have paid so much attention to is nothing but emptiness. Your thoughts were all empty. They contained nothing, they were void. ” – Osho
Zen Saying
“Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen; Talking or silent, moving unmoving, The essence is at ease. ”
– Yoka
Zen Saying
“Happiness is a simple thing: you are happy when you are not trying to be happy. ”
– Zen saying
Wednesday Evening Quote
“In Zen, you drop off all the stuff you don’t need- your worries, fears, opinions, preconceptions, attachments because you really don’t need them!
Complete Idiots Guide to Zen Living” –
Tuesday Evening Quote
“You do not need to leave your room, remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you. To be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet. ” – Franz Kafka
Zen Saying
“A silent mind is beautiful and dynamic. ”
– Zen Saying
Zen Quote
“Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.” – John Bradshaw
Zen Quote
“When hungry, eat your rice; when tired close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.” – Lin-Chi
One
“The one is none other than the All, the All none other than the One.”
– SENG TS’AN
Cosmic Order
“Everything in the universe is connected, everything is osmosis. You cannot separate any part from the whole: interdependence rules the cosmic order.”
– Taisen Deshimaru
Zen Proverb
“On the human chessboard, all moves are possible.”
– Miriam Schiff
Zen Proverb
“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
– John F. Kennedy
Japanese Zen Saying
“The world is like a mirror you see? smile and your friends smile back.”
– Japanese Zen Saying
Zen Proverb
The blue mountains are of themselves blue mountains;
The white clouds are of themselves white clouds.
Zenrin Kushu
Zen Proverb
Simplicity before
understanding is
simplistic; simplicity
after understanding
is simple.
Edward De Bono
Zen Proverb
Not creating delusions is enlightenment.
Bodhidharma
En
Ben
Den
En
Fen
Hen
Jen
Ken
Len
Men
Pen
Ten
Then
Wen
When
Yen
Zen
A Pondering Mind
The Way It Is
When I see blue sky with a smattering of clouds, it makes me happy. This my fellow readers, is all I need. Don’t need religion, nor read the bible. Don’t need to be told how to enjoy life. I am just basically one happy man, that likes solitude, peace of mind, and quietness.
The coffee tastes so much better, when I’m in a Zen moment. It makes the day much easier to enjoy, and live life to the fullest.
This work A Pondering Mind is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
A Master …..
A master, holding up his
staff, says:
“If you have one, I give
you mine; if you have
none, I will take it away
from you”.
Zen Koan
A Zen Sky
Peaceful Zen summer sky.
The atmosphere at its best.
It makes people happy.
Time of photo: 5:48 PM.
Three Things
Time of photo: 7:40 PM.
Sky
Time of photo: 5:39 PM.
Clouds
Click on photo to enlarge it.
Happy Birds
It’s early Saturday evening, and in an hour, the sun will be setting at 8:24 PM. Have the windows open, the baseball game is on the TV, and the best part is, the numerous birds all happy and chipper as they are tweeting away in one massive chorus. Sitting here listening to the birds, they are saying that there is still a lot to like about the earth, that we all call home. With a touch of Zen, life is grand.
Tree of Nut
Each night the Tree of Nut out of naught knits neat nuts.
Saiom Shriver
Proverb
When you get there, there isn’t any there there.
Zen Proverb
Quote
The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.
Buddha
When you try ……
When you try to stay on the surface of the water,
you sink; but when you try to sink, you float.
Zen Proverb
Anxiety
So an ancient once said, “Accept the anxieties and difficulties of this life”. Don’t expect your practice to be clear of obstacles. Without hindrances the mind that seeks enlightenment may be burnt out. So an ancient once said, “Attain deliverance in disturbances”.
— Kyong Ho
Special
Zen says everything is divine so how can anything be special?
All is special. Nothing is non-special so nothing can be special.
— Osho
Existence
Only one thing is certain — that is, nothing is certain.
If this statement is true, it is also false.
— Ancient Paradox
Rules
Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one’s own rules–this
is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.
— D. T. Suzuki
Two monks were arguing ….
Two monks were arguing about the temple flag in the wind. One said, “The flag moves.” The other said, “The wind moves.” They argued back and forth but could not agree. Hui-neng, the sixth Patriarch, said: “Gentlemen! It is not the flag that moves. It is not the wind that moves. It is your mind that moves.” The two monks were struck with awe.
Zen Koan
The ego is ….
The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.
— Alan Watts
Possess
All that is great cannot be possessed – and that is one of
the most foolish things man goes on doing. We want to possess.
— Osho
Old Age
A life of peace, purity, and refinement
leads to a calm and untroubled old age.
— Cicero
In any given moment …
In any given moment the answer to your problem is
staring you in the face – if only you can see it.
— Heather Jansch
The Path
You cannot travel the path
until you have become the path.
— Buddha
Snow Covered Park
On my daily walk this morning, I decided to cut through the local park, as the walking was kind of on the treacherous side. Lots of icy spots. I only took this one photo, and it does have a Zen look to it.
He knows not ….
He knows not where he’s going,
For the ocean will decide,
Its not the destination,
It’s the glory of the ride.
–Edward Monkton, Zen dog
Being
The human being is constantly is torn from calm and peace of simple existence by two things; wanting what you don’t have, or disliking what you have. — Paul Fleischman
There comes a time in life ….
There comes a time in life when you walk away from all the drama, and the people who create it. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is part of life. Getting back up is living.
— Unknown author
Present Moment
Worrying is worthless. When you stop focusing on what has already happened and what may never happen, then you’ll be in the present moment. Then you’ll begin to experience joy in life. — Brian Weiss
Mind
A mind that is fast is sick.
A mind that is slow is sound.
A mind that is still is divine.
— Eknath Easwaran
Meditation is a time ……
Meditation is a time to focus, train the mind, and bring it to stillness. It is not a time to rest and relax. — Darren Main
Lonely Intersection
Trying my hand doing black and white. A photo of a lonely intersection by bare trees, and a fence. To me, its Zen!
Living
Instructions for living a life.
Pay Attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
–Mary Oliver
Everything
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.
— Shunryu Suzuki
Meditation
Meditation is not about finding the self–quite the contrary: it is about finding one’s way beyond the self. Meditation is also not about ‘explaining the mind’. It is instead about clearing away clutter created by the mind. — David M. White
Conversation
A conversation is so much more than words: a conversation is eyes, smiles, the silences between the words. — Annika Thor
Sun And Trees
A wonderful sunny and cool day. Its a Zen like day.
Opinions
But opinions, judgements, memories, dreaming about the future–ninety percent of the thoughts spinning around in our heads have no essential reality. — Charlotte J. Beck
Reality
To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is. — Thich Nhat Hanh
We may believe ……
We may believe that we know what another person is thinking, but most often our efforts at ‘mind reading’ are projections of our own inner, self-centered concerns.
— Susan Edmiston, Leonard Scheff
Thinking
I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.
— Jack Kerouac
Right speech ……
Right speech is to speak truthfully, being loyal to the truth when speaking with others, not creating harm or speaking cruelly, not exaggerating or embellishing, and speaking in a way that relieves suffering and brings people back to themselves. — Marc Lesser
If you can do something about it ……
If you can do something about it, then why get upset? If you can’t do anything about it, then why bother getting upset. — Lama Christie McNally
We cannot see …..
We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only still water that we can see.
— Zen Saying
Doing Nothing
It’s better to be doing nothing than to be busy doing nothing. — Zen Saying
“Zen” Moment
The True Path ….
The True Path is the path on which there is no coming and no going.
— Traditional Zen Koan
Fill your bowl ….
Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knives and it will blunt.
— Lao Tzu
Whoever is happy ….
Whoever is happy will make others happy too. — Anne Frank
Meditation brings wisdom; …
Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom. — Buddha
Zen lives in the present
Zen lives in the present. The whole teaching is: how to be in the present; how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is.
– Osho
Zen Bamboo
The tongue like a sharp knife… – Buddha
The tongue like a sharp knife…kills without drawing blood.
– Buddha
“Zen is not bothered about anything…” – Osho
“Zen is not bothered about anything superhuman; its whole concern is how to make ordinary life a blessing.”
-Osho
Zen Girl Meditating
Bamboo Plant
Japanese Garden – Kyoto
A beautiful garden that looks like it would be relaxing, and peaceful.
http://deviantart.net
The only thing that can compare… – Ansel Adams
Click on image for the full resolution.
http://zen10.com.au/
