Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano writes in his introduction:
The faith of the Buddhist grows out of experience fortified by instruction. The Buddha shows how to make the journey out of suffering to emancipation, and if we feel quickening of interest we can take steps ourselves to investigate and to test what we have learned. This collection of essays is about finding the right direction and then moving forward with mindfulness and deliberation (page xi).
I hope that sharing these ideas and my musings about them will help you discover the power of your practice, to allow it to enlighten and brighten your life, to help bring you to a place of peace, love, and compassion for self and others each and every day.
This journey is never an easy one because we are required to look within, to set aside time to mediate, contemplate, and to push through our fears, anxieties, old beliefs, and doubts. However, with determination, concentration, and support from the author and others on the path all things are possible!
Bhikkhu goes on to write:
Fortunately the teaching of the Buddha is universal, giving us the chance not just to admire what others have admired but to make our own search—to observe, meditate, and discover through our own efforts (page xii).
Thus, it does not matter if you were raised in a non-religious household or a religious one of any denomination or teaching truth is truth no matter where it comes from. In your life I know that you have discovered what you believe through actions propelled from book learning, intuition, help from another, or seemingly by accident. It does not matter how it came the important thing is that it did. It gave you that cosmic AH HA! Or Yikes—Or Oh my god! It could have felt like you were hit with a hammer, a banana, or a cream pie, but hit you were!
I hope our wandering through this wonderful book will give you many cosmic experiences! Good luck with that…
rada Roshi in his beautiful book, Moon By The Window, wrote:
t is the source of everything.”
Dr. Jan Chozen Bays author of How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness (2011), has a great exercise that I recommend for everyone who feels limited in health of mind, body, and/or spirit. She is a physician and Zen teacher who has written this great book filled with easy exercises to invite mindfulness, meditation, and concentration into our lives in a fun and playful way!
unlockthedoortolearning 
Meet Your Good Today… Part 13 Liberation
Posted in attachment, BUddhism, cause and effect, clinging, fears, happiness, Kazuaki Tanahashi, love, meditation, Mindfulness, self-help, sickness, suffering, The Four Sufferings, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary, tagged "Setting Out the Bowls", anger, anxiety, boundlessness, Buddah, Buddha, Buddhism, challenges, compassion, contemplation, fear, goals, happiness, health, joy, Kazuaki Tanahashi, liberation, life, love, meditation, mind, mindfulness, monasteries, oryoki, patience, peace, sitting, stinkin thinkin, suffering, Tathagata, Zazen, Zen, Zen Buddhism on August 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I opened up one of my favorite books by Kazuaki Tanahashi, Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary, looking for some sage advice today and sure enough I got it!
In Buddhist monasteries you may sit and eat in oryoki style which is sitting on the floor with your bowls of food in front of you. The word oryoki roughly means “that which contains just enough.”[1] When you are ordained you receive these three bowls nested together with chopsticks and wrapped in a napkin. Additionally, you carry these with you wherever you travel. This allows you to dine sitting anywhere.
When was the last time you took a meal where you focused your time and energy on the eating. Where you did not fill the plate to over flowing and eat way too much—but just enough to be satisfied. If you focus your attention on the food and savor the textures and the flavors and the smells your food will taste better, it will satisfy you more, and the process will ultimately have you eating less.
You will be liberated from indigestion that is caused by the ruminations controlling your mind from the day or the week of that nasty boss, or the bills, or the fears and anxieties of everyday living. You can focus on the boundlessness of that liberation and know that through silence comes liberation, whether the silence is during a meal, during your meditation, walking the dog, or at break during your workday.
Our lives are filled with noise from the TV, radio, cellphone, traffic, people talking, children crying, or the chatter inside our heads. Silence is a “utensil” that you can use to clear your mind and body of irritations, “stinkin thinkin,” and more. Silence can bring you liberation from the self-talk and exaggerations that we create about our life and its circumstances. Liberate yourself from hyperbole, and critical thinking, and see how peaceful your life can be. See how filled with gratitude, love, and compassion it can be. Then watch your physical ails slowly disappear into nothingness.
Remember you are boundless and limitless only if you think you are! Create your own “three wheels” of peace, love, and compassion in your body, mind, and spirit then watch what happens in your life—liberation!
Let me know how it goes!
Shokai
[1] The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (1991) Shambhala Press:Boston
[2] The three wheels of boundlessness:
The Four Noble Truths
Emptiness
Buddha Nature
[3] Tanahashi, K. (2015) Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary. Shambala: Boston & London
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