Tagged with: shunryu+suzuki

That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind.  To experience this is to have religious feeling.  Even though waves arise, the essence of your mind is pure; it is just like clear water with a few waves.  Actually water always has waves.  Waves are the practice of the water.  To speak of waves apart from water or water apart from waves is a delusion.  Water and waves are one.  Big mind and small mind are one.  When you understand your mind in this way, you have some security in your feeling.  As your mind does not expect anything from outside, it is always filled.  A mind with waves in it is not a disturbed mind, but actually an amplified one.  Whatever you experience is an expression of big mind.  The activity of big mind is to amplify itself through various experiences.  In one sense our experiences coming one by one are always fresh and new, but in another sense they are nothing but a continuous or repeated unfolding of the one big mind.  With big mind we accept each of our experiences as if recognizing the face we see in a mirror as our own.  Because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind, we do not care for any excessive joy.  So we have imperturbable composure, and it is with this imperturbable composure of big mind that we practice zazen.

That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind.  To experience this is to have religious feeling.  Even though waves arise, the essence of your mind is pure; it is just like clear water with a few waves.  Actually water always has waves.  Waves are the practice of the water.  To speak of waves apart from water or water apart from waves is a delusion.  Water and waves are one.  Big mind and small mind are one.  When you understand your mind in this way, you have some security in your feeling.  As your mind does not expect anything from outside, it is always filled.  A mind with waves in it is not a disturbed mind, but actually an amplified one.  Whatever you experience is an expression of big mind.  The activity of big mind is to amplify itself through various experiences.  In one sense our experiences coming one by one are always fresh and new, but in another sense they are nothing but a continuous or repeated unfolding of the one big mind.  With big mind we accept each of our experiences as if recognizing the face we see in a mirror as our own.  Because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind, we do not care for any excessive joy.  So we have imperturbable composure, and it is with this imperturbable composure of big mind that we practice zazen.

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earthdrop
A Force for Universal Awakening

In meditation we seem to be sitting by ourselves, but we do not sit just for ourselves. By focusing our attention on the breath, the body, thoughts, feelings, and sensations, or any other facet of our experience in meditation, we become more mindful—not mindless—through the transformative power of moment-to-moment alertness and presence of mind. Instead of absentmindedly stumbling through life like sleepwalkers, we can use contemplative practice to achieve extraordinary insight into ourselves ...

- Lama Surya Das

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Experience

This is a blog post I wrote years ago. It’s interesting for me to go back and see where I was at different points in life.

I used to think that I was David experiencing life. Now I feel that I am Life experiencing David.

The more and more I sit back and witness the unfolding experience of this character named David, the less and less I am identified with his mind. For so long, my experience was the view that David’s mind projected on the day to day. I am starting to realize that this is a ...

- David

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