Sublime

when we practice in this way, becoming aware of everything that enters our life (whether internal or external), our life begins to transform. And we gain strength and insight and even live at times in the enlightened state, which simply means experiencing life as it is. It’s not a mystery.

we truly open up to our own lives we open up to all life. The delusion of separateness diminishes as we pay the price of attentive practice. To overcome that delusion is to realize that in practice we are not only paying a high price for ourselves, but for everyone else in the world.

Our Zen training is designed to enable us to live comfortable lives. But the only people who live comfortably are those who learn not to dream their lives away, but to be with what’s right-here-now, no matter what it is: good, bad, nice, not nice, headache, being ill, being happy. It doesn’t make any difference.

This questioning combines an open-mindedness, the “don’t know” mind of Zen, with a “discriminating wisdom” that can separate what is useful from what is bad, that keeps the eyes open to learn. With an open mind we are always learning.

So I’m asking you to reexamine some of your thoughts about wanting to achieve enlightenment and to face this job that must be done with steadiness and intelligence.

“Zen pretty much comes down to three things:

everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”

And he who realizes Buddha in himself, “the one behind your face, listening to my sermon,” lives in self-confidence.

We have all spent many years building up a conditioned view of life. There is “me” and there is this “thing” out there that is either hurting me or pleasing me.

the unreality of our self-centered thoughts. Then we can remain dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by them.