Posts in the “zen” category

Eckhart Tolle on temporary forms and life and death

The following quote from Eckhart Tolle is from this video with Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass:

These are just temporary forms. (Pointing to Ram Dass) This form will be gone soon. (Pointing to himself) This form will be gone soon. (Pointing to the audience) And sooner or later, all these forms will have dissolved. Poof. Like soap bubbles. Poof. And all that remains is The One that expressed itself through The Many.

And if you know yourself as The One, which happens when the stream of thinking stops, and there’s just an aware presence, the spacious, aware, formless presence, that’s who YOU are beyond the form. (Ram Dass nods “yes.”) And from there you can enjoy the play of forms.

Favorite quotes about work, mindfulness, and Zen

For many years I struggled with how to combine two of my main interests, Zen and work. I had read that the Zen mind is the mind before thinking, so it seems like Zen and work must be totally unrelated, because you need your mind to work. And then over time I came to understand phrases like, when working, just work; in computer parlance, become single-threaded.

This article contains a collection of quotes that have been helpful to me in understanding the relationship between Zen and work. Please note that I don’t wrap each quote in double quotes, and I also try to attribute each quote to the correct author/speaker. If you’re interested in how to combine Zen and work, I hope you’ll find them helpful.

Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet

I didn’t get to spend much time with her, but I met Kate Johnson at the 2013 Buddhist Geeks Conference and she seemed like a very nice person. I love this quote: “Activism is the rent I pay for living on the planet,” which originally comes from Alice Walker. There’s a little story about Kate Johnson here on LionsRoar.com.

A description of Enlightenment, from Shinzen Young

“There is nothing intrinsically problematic about this ordinary perspective. The problem comes when it is the only perspective available to a person, which unfortunately is the usual case.

Enlightenment, or freedom, comes when we also have a complementary perspective that we can access at any time. To have this complementary perspective, we must come into direct contact with the third level of consciousness, the Source.

When we are in direct contact with the Source, self is not perceived as a separate particle, objects are not perceived as solid, and space becomes elastic and can collapse to a dimensionless point, taking everything with it to the Unborn. And time is cyclic — self and scene arise from and return to that unborn Source over and over.

Over 100 of my favorite “mindfulness” quotes

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This page contains a list of my favorite mindfulness quotes. Most of these are short, concise quotes that help bring me back to the present moment, and work well with my “Just Be” mobile app.

Update: I have replaced my Just Be application — which was written for Android only — with a new application I call Back To Now, which runs on both Android and iOS.

Background: Just Be

Just Be was a mobile mindfulness app that I created for Android users. This is what the reminders/notifications look like when you receive them on an Android phone or tablet:

Just Be, a mindfulness reminders app

Zen koan: It would be better if you died

Zen koans often turn into humorous Abbott & Costello skits. For those new to Zen, the “It would be better if you died” reference just means that you should meditate like you’re in your coffin, which is further embodied in the Zen phrase, “Dead men have no desire.” (As long as you have desire, Zen will keep its distance from you.)

~ From the book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Yogi, Samadhi, and One’s True Nature

“A Yogi is one who has union with the supreme consciousness.”
~ Yogi Bhajan

“Samadhi is the culmination of yoga; it is a state of bliss and union with the universal spirit.”
~ B.K.S. Iyengar

“Seeing into one’s own nature is the goal of Zen.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Ram Dass, Buddha, Maharaj-ji, and Yoda on non-duality

Inspired by a conversation with a friend recently about “trying to love everyone,” I dug into things a little more and found the following information from Ram Dass, Zen masters, the Maharaj-ji (Neem Karoli Baba), and Yoda.

As I keep trying to figure out what Ram Dass means when he says, “love everyone,” I dug through his book, be love now and found these two quotes:

I will continue to be (Thich Nhat Hanh)

I will continue to be.
But you have to be very attentive to see me.
I will be a flower or a leaf.
I will be in those forms and I will say hello to you.
If you are attentive enough, you will recognize me, and you may greet me.
I will be very happy about it.

Types of silence you’ll find in meditation

When I’m not writing about Scala and functional programming, I’m often meditating and/or practicing yoga. The following content is something I wrote about silence in meditation back in 2018.

Fake Absolute Silence

These days in meditation I spend a lot of time in a place I call “Fake Absolute Silence.” In this state you might be fooled into thinking that you’re in the real state of Absolute Silence, but that’s part of the problem — you’re still thinking. Things are definitely quiet in this state; there aren’t many thoughts, and your concentration is focused on your breathing without distraction. However, I find that I’m still very aware of my body and outside noises. But despite that, it’s generally a mentally quiet place.

Sometimes you just have to let people be wrong about you

In my experience, some “judgy” people will make up their own opinion about you — about what you should do or shouldn’t do — when they don’t know all the facts. I use the word judgy, because if you’re a Christian, Jesus was very clear on this point:

Judge not, that ye not be judged.

To wit, sometimes you just have to let people be wrong about you. (From this tweet by TinyBuddha.)

Two tips on understanding Zen koans

A couple of stray Zen thoughts this morning:

If you’re interested in Zen koans, sometimes you need to know the back story of a koan to even have a chance at understanding it. For instance, there’s a koan about a cat that died, and when a monk hears about it, without saying anything, he puts his sandals on his head and walks away. I never understood that (intellectually) until I read that it was a custom at that time to walk with your sandals on your head during a funeral procession.

Another thing to know about koans is that when they say someone was enlightened, there are different forms of enlightenment. For example, one form of enlightenment is an initial enlightenment, and another is the big kahuna.

Notes on several Shinzen Young videos

I’m a big fan of Shinzen Young and his teaching. At this point in this video, he talks about how we might think we’re going closer to The Source, but you may really be on a detour.

And then in this video he talks about three key moments related to his becoming enlightened. I love that he is willing to speak the truth of his experience, like this: “Suddenly, for no reason, I dropped in Equanimity, big time.” He mentions that his pain level was exactly the same, but the suffering dramatically reduces.

He then said, “A few years later he was asking, ‘Who am I’, and I looked at my boundaries, and they vanished. And they never came back, and I was never the same. (later) It never went away, ever. ”

Finally, I wrote about Shinzen Young’s description of enlightenment.

The great way is not difficult ...

“The great way is not difficult if you just don’t pick and choose.”
~ Zen Saying

“Everything is suffering for those who discriminate.”
~ Patanjali (in the Yoga Sutras)

“Many paths lead to the same garden.”
~ Me