Never a Time

There is never a time when
your life is not "this moment."

Eckhart Tolle

A Secret About a Secret

A photograph is a secret about a secret,
the more it tells you the less you know.

Vivian Maier

Full of Magic Things

The world is full of magic things,
patiently waiting for our senses
to grow sharper.

Unknown

Make Your Soul Grow

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting,
drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction,
essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly,
not to get money and fame, but to experience
becoming, to find out what's inside you,
to make your soul grow.

Kurt Vonnegut

Find Your Own Way

Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else's footsteps.
Each of us has to find his own way.

Joseph Campbell

Ideology is Toxic

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology.
It's not that there are good ones and bad ones.
All ideology is toxic, because ideology is
a kind of insult to the gift of free human thinking.

Terence McKenna

Definition of Mindfulness

My favorite definition of mindfulness is
purposely being present in this moment,
without judgment. So there's a couple
of interesting elements. There's a little bit
of effort because you're purposely
paying attention to whatever you're doing
at this moment and you're doing it
in a very non-judgmental way.

Chris Niebauer

The Turning Around

The whole search begins to be abandoned
and instead of searching, we begin to see
that practice isn't a search. Practice is
to be with that which motivates the search,
which is unease, distress. And this is
the turning around.

Charlotte (Joko) Beck

A Pity to Say So

Once upon a time there was a Zen student who
quoted an old Buddhist poem to his teacher which says,
"The voices of torrents are from one great tongue,
the lines of the hills are the pure body of Buddha."
"Isn't that right?" he said to the teacher.
"It is," said the teacher, "but it is a pity to say so."

Alan Watts

Practice is Always a Battle

Practice is always a battle between
what we want and what life wants.

Charlotte (Joko) Beck

Don't Move

Don't move. Just die over and over.
Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now,
because this is your last moment.
Not even enlightenment will help you now,
because you have no other moments.
With no future, be true to yourself - 
and don't move.

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

This Kind of Understanding

We should practice zazen
like someone who is dying.
For him, there is nothing to rely on.
When you reach this kind of understanding,
you will not be fooled by anything.

Shunryu Suzuki

You Will Always Exist

You will always exist
in the universe
in some form.

Shunryu Suzuki 

Zen is Right Here

Zen is everywhere.
But for you,
Zen is right here.

Shunryu Suzuki

Relief vs. Freedom

Therapy tends to give relief
and sitting gives freedom.

Charlotte (Joko) Beck

Be That

You are the soul.
Be that, and when you hear
yourself in some hypocrisy,
cut free. Quickly, cut.

Rumi

Searching and Finding

I searched for God

and found only myself.
I searched for myself

and found only God.

Rumi

What Kind of Difference

You cannot get through a single day without
having an impact on the world around you.
What you do makes a difference, and you have to
decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Jane Goodall