The second arrow - Mindfulness Meditation

We are all by now familiar with Rinzai’s old saying “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” That saying, once startling, is in danger of becoming a cliché, preventing us from experiencing the full force of the words. We need to “kill” any idea we have of the buddhahood being “out there,” or down the road or in any way outside ourselves.

An action from a confused and suffering being in the past doesn’t represent who that being is forever; it is only an expression of that being’s suffering.

“There is a story, a metaphor, that perhaps you may find useful,” said His Holiness. “A man arrives home to find a huge pile of sheep manure has been dumped on his front yard. He didn’t order the manure. He does not want it. But somehow, it is there, and his only choice now is to decide what to do with it. He can put it in his pockets and walk arou

Suffering arises in secondary experience.