Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart

This is the whole point of mindful awareness: to be able to live our life truly as we wish to live it

Although seeing a large golden Buddha in a large golden Buddha is easier, when you see a large golden Buddha in a blade of grass, your joy will be something special. So we need to practice respect for things with great effort.

I couldn’t distract myself by reading about practice rather than doing it.

every action that we take has an effect on our life and the lives of those around us. And so we become more awake to the actions we take, the actions of body, speech, and mind.

The Dalai Lama’s bodhisattva vow is “Every day, think as you wake up: ‘Today I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive. I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it. I’m going to use my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts

We don’t sit to become a buddha, we sit because it is what buddhas do. And we are all buddha from the beginning. So

respecting things and respecting each other, because when we respect things, we will find their true life. When we respect plants, we will find their real life, the power and the beauty of flowers. Though love is important, if it is separated from respect and sincerity, it will not work. With big mind and with pure sincerity and respect, love can r

We all want to be the one who knows. But if we decide we “know” something, we are not open to other possibilities anymore. And that’s a shame. We lose something very vital in our life when it’s more important to us to be one who knows than it is to be awake to what’s happening.

are we practicing just to express this limitless being, or because we think we’re not a limitless being? And once we discover we are a limitless being, will we continue practicing? Well, of course. That’s what limitless beings do. This is Dogen Zenji’s practice-enlightenment, practice-realization. This practice itself expresses the limitlessness th