an invisible temple
". . . There is then a world in me which is utterly unlike any world I know of. I do not think it is my exclusive property - it is only the angle of my vision which is exclusive, in that it is unique. If I talk the language of my unique vision nobody understands: the most colossal edifice may be reared and yet remain invisible. The thought of that haunts me. What good will it do to make an invisible temple?"
- Henry Miller
- Wynetka Ann Reynolds
Monk: "What does one think of while sitting?"
Master: "One thinks of not thinking."
Monk: "How does one think of not thinking?"
Master:"Without thinking."
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains,
at the huge waves of the sea,
at the long courses of rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars;
And they pass by themselves without wondering.
- St. Augustine
"We owe many valuable observations to people who are not very acute or profound, and who say the thing without effort which we want and have long been hunting in vain. The action of the soul is oftener in that which is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any conversation. It broods over every society, and they unconsciously seek for it in each other. We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more. I feel the same truth how often in my trivial conversation with my neighbors, that somewhat higher in each of us overlooks this by-play, and Jove nods to Jove from behind each of us."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"O, how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was so beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all; but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing, perhaps, was still waiting and listening."
- Hermann Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund
"This is the essential point: the world speaks to us; it comes and lets itself be caught in the snare of words; the words that these grand images wrench from us are full of its presence. And here perhaps we are at the very source that we sought to regain, at that point where the world reveals itself to us, where what is spoken is itself speaking."
- Mikel Dufrenne
Language and Philosophy
". . . [I am] utterly entranced, at times, with the mere fact that there are other people, and that they experience themselves as the primary center of consciousness just as I do.
That fact alone . . .
Well, that fact alone is staggering."
- Joyce Carol Oates
"Go ahead, light your candles and burn your incense and ring your bells and call out to God, but watch out, because God will come and He will put you on His anvil and fire up His forge and beat you and beat you until He turns brass into gold."
- Sant Keshavadas
"Once, when I was in college, I wrote home complaining about the food, and my mother sent me a Julia Child cookbook. In the book was a section on dealing with eggs in which she said that the sign of a really good cook is knowing eggs. And so I took an egg out. You can watch an egg - you can learn certain things just by watching it, but you don't learn very much. To learn about eggs you have to put them in a pan and try to make something out of them. If you do this long enough you begin to understand that there are variations in eggs, and there are certain ways that they react to heat and ways that they react to oil or butter or whatever. And so by actually working with the egg and trying to make something out of it, you really come to understand eggs. It's similar with clay: you really don't know clay until you become a potter and actually try to make something out of the clay.
And it's the same with the mind: unless you actually try to make something out of the mind, try to get a mental state going and keep it going, you don't really know your own mind. You don't know the processes of cause and effect within the mind. There has to be a factor of actual participation in the process. That way you can understand it. This all comes down to being observant and developing a skill. The essence of developing a skill means two things. One, you're aware of a situation as it is given and, two, you're aware of what you put into it. When the Buddha talks about causation, he says that every situation is shaped from two directions - the causes coming in from the past and the causes you're putting into the present. You need to be sensitive to both. If you aren't sensitive to what you're putting into a situation, you'll never develop any kind of skill. As you're aware of what you're doing, you also look at the results. If something isn't right, you go back and change what you've done - keeping at this until you get the results you want. And in the process, you learn a great deal from the clay, the eggs, or whatever you're trying to deal with skillfully."
- Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness
"Knowledge is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges toward an ideal view; it is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness."
- Paul Karl Feyerabend
"It is a bright afternoon: what am I going to do? I am going to work with my mind and with my pen, while the sky is clear and while the soft white clouds are small and sharply defined in it. I am not going to bury myself in books and note taking. I am not going to lose myself in this jungle and come out drunk and bewildered, feeling that bewilderment is a sign that I have done something. I am not going to write as one driven by compulsions but freely, because I am a writer, because for me to write is to think and to live and also in some degree even to pray."
- Thomas Merton
The Search For Solitude
we don't move, today is today, always today."
- Octavio Paz
The Endless Instant
All
The craziness,
All the empty plots,
All the ghosts and fears,
All the grudges and sorrows have
Now
Passed.
I must have inhaled
A strange
Feather
That finally
Fell
Out.
- Hafiz
"Enlightenment is found only on the way, while sojourning through the ordinary world in an extraordinary manner, that is, by greeting each incident as an opportunity for improvisation. Improvisation is the spontaneous creativity that occurs between one person and another or between people and events. There is always an established melody within which a particular note or chord surprises us. It can cause us suffering when we dwell on its departure from the rhythm or tonality of the established song. Or it can be taken as inspiration for an improvisatory riff. Enlightened beings are masters of spontaneity and improvisation. They have rooted out suffering by freeing themselves from the personal narrative which would otherwise have reacted to interruption and discord with pain. Those who are enlightened wander through the world without goals and find opportunity for creative spontaneity everywhere."
- Peter Hershock
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
"Because it is bitter,
"And because it is my heart."
- Stephen Crane
"We are here and it is now.
Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine."
- H. L. Mencken
"But I'd better say: I have no religion. I don't need any, don't practice any, I don't pray, don't meditate, don't confess and don't atone, I am no sinner and no saint, no eremite and no philosopher – I just live, amidst this colorful world, again and again enjoying the experience of the immediate nearness and the deep community with every thing existing, and based on the insight that everything belongs to one all embracing totality which becomes manifest in me like in all other things, and so gives me the security to live in the present, to enjoy day by day whatever they may bring."
- Yun-Men
"The best thing about writing is not the actual labor of putting word against word, brick upon brick, but the preliminaries, the spadework, which is done in silence, under any circumstances, in dream as well as in the waking state. In short; the period of gestation. No man ever puts down what he intended to say: The original creation, which is taking place all the time, whether one writes or doesn't write, belongs to the primal flux: it has no dimensions, no form, no time element. In this preliminary state, which is creation and not birth, what disappears suffers no destruction: something which was already there, something imperishable, like memory, or matter, or God, is summoned and in it one flings himself like a twig into a torrent. Words, sentences, ideas, no matter how subtle or ingenious, the maddest flights of poetry, the most profound dreams, the most hallucinating visions, are but crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow to commemorate an event which is untransmissable. In an intelligently ordered world there would be no need to make the unreasonable attempt of putting such miraculous happenings down. Indeed, it would make no sense, for if men only stopped to realize it, who would be content with the counterfeit when the real is at everyone's beck and call? Who would want to switch in and listen to Beethoven, for example, when he might himself experience the ecstatic harmonies which Beethoven so desperately strove to register. A great work of art, if it accomplishes anything, serves to remind us, or let us say to set us dreaming, of all that is fluid and intangible. Which is to say, the universe. It cannot be understood; It can only be accepted or rejected. If accepted we are revitalized: if rejected we are diminished. Whatever it purports to be it is not: It is always something more for which the last word will never be said. It is all that we put into it out of hunger for that which we deny every day of our lives. If we accepted ourselves as completely, the work of art, in fact the whole world of art would die of malnutrition. Every man Jack of us moves without feet at least a few hours a day, when his eyes are closed and his body prone. The art of dreaming when wide awake will be in the power of every man one day. Long before that books will cease to exist, for when men are wide awake and dreaming their powers of communication (with one another and with the spirit that moves all men) will be so enhanced as to make writing seem like the harsh and raucous squawks of an idiot."
- Henry Miller
Why Don't You Try To Write?
Henry Miller on Writing
"Living in forests far away from other people is not true seclusion. True seclusion is to be free from the power of likes and dislikes. It is also to be free from the mental attitude that one must be special because one is treading the path.
Those who remove themselves to far forests often feel superior to others. They think that because they are solitary they are being guided in a special way and that those who live an ordinary life can never have that experience. But that is conceit and is not a help to others. The true recluse is one who is available to others, helping them with affectionate speech and personal example."
- Prajnaparamita
ten set-asides of zen
Set aside the notion that Zen is not friendly
Set aside the notion that Zen is formal
Set aside the notion that in Zen, pain is important
Set aside the notion that in Zen, concentration is important
Set aside the notion that in Zen, emotions are dampened
Set aside the notion that Zen is macho
Set aside the notion that Zen is mysterious and secret
Set aside the notion that in Zen enlightenment is important
Set aside the notion that in Zen enlightenment is not important
Set aside the notion that these set-asides are important
- Lewis Richmond
ten set-asides of zen
and become one's key to the experience of others."
- James Baldwin
"I looked anxiously around me: the present, nothing but the present.
Light and solid pieces of furniture, encrusted in their present, a table, a bed,
a wardrobe with a mirror and me. The true nature of the present revealed itself:
it was that which exists, and all that was not present did not exist. The past did not exist. Not at all, neither in things nor even in my thoughts. True,
I had realized a long time before that my past had escaped me.
But until then I had believed that it had simply gone out of my range."
- Roquentin/Jean-Paul Sartre
"A traveler, who has lost his way, should not ask, "Where am I?" What he really wants to know is, "Where are the other places?" He has got his own body, but he has lost them."
- Alfred North Whitehead
- Jesus
"A student of Christianity, hearing that Zen talks of emptiness, offered for comparison a definition of holiness. Holiness, he said, means completeness, with nothing added to it.The word holiness is found in Buddhism, too. A Buddha is holy. But in Buddhism, when you become a Buddha, you are supposed to forget you are a Buddha. When you are conscious of being a Buddha, you are not truly a Buddha, because you are ensnared by the idea. You are not empty. Every time that you think you are achieving something - becoming a Buddha, attaining holiness, even emptiness -you must cast it away."
- Katsuki Sekida
Zen Training
- Buddha
The Pebble
The pebble
is a perfect creature
equal to itself
mindful of its limits
filled exactly
with pebbly meaning
with a scent which does not remind one of anything
does not frighten anything away does not arouse desire
its ardour and coldness
are just and full of dignity
I feel a heavy remorse
when I hold it in my hand
and its noble body
is permeated by false warmth
- Pebbles cannot be tamed
to the end they will look at us
with a calm and very clear eye.
- Zbigniew Herbert
And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.
Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again -
Unless . . . Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I've foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.
- Anna Akhmatova
"The truth is that writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."
- Virginia Woolf
"If you say the painting is not real, then the material phenomenal world is not real, the Dharma is not real. Unsurpassed enlightenment is a painting. The entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting. Since this is so, there is no remedy for satisfying hunger other than a painted rice cake."
- Dogen
"The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon."
- Franz Kafka
Then he answered himself, "Yes, sir."
And after that he added, "Become sober."
Again he answered, "Yes, sir."
And after that, he continued, "Do not be deceived by others."
"Yes, sir. Yes, sir." he answered.
Truly, words have no power.
Even though the mountain becomes the sea,
Words cannot open another's mind.
- Mumon
"If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue"
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The little book of Buddhism
One day while walking in the vegetable garden at Tassajara, Suzuki noticed a student who was sitting on a stone looking at a sunflower growing nearby. He went over and sat by her.
"What are you doing?"
"Meditating with the sunflower," she said. "It rotates with the sun."
Suzuki sat with her for a long time. That night Suzuki referred to his garden visit.
"Unless you get through to emptiness, you are not practicing. But if you stick to the idea of emptiness, you are not a Buddhist yet. Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful; I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation."
- Shunryu Suzuki
"Once when the new students were all coming in one by one for their interview at the beginning of the practice period, Zhaozhou asked each
one, "Have you been here before?"
And one would say, "Yes."
Zhaozhou would say, "Oh, good, have a cup of tea."
The next one would come and Zhaozhou would say, "Have you been here before?"
"No, no, I have never been here before, this is my first visit."
"Oh, have a cup of tea."
This went on, yes, have a cup of tea, no, have a cup of tea.
The prior of the monastery was watching all this and getting very upset. He said, "Somebody comes in and says no I haven't been here before
and you say go have a cup of tea and somebody else comes and says yes I have been here before and you tell him go have a cup of tea. What
is the meaning of this?"
And Zhaozhou said, "Prior?"
And he said, "Yes?"
Zhaozhou said, "Have a cup of tea."
1. The perception of a loss of self:
I have searched long and hard for a self and haven't found it anywhere. It appears to not be lost, rather to never have been there to begin with. There is the concept of self which occurs as part of every thought - this continues to occur when thought does but is transparent as thought.
2. The fusion with reality observed:
Has more of an undulating quality, otherwise communication would be impossible. Perhaps this undulation is the difference between the mystic and the madman.
3. Oneness:
This is the most striking and obvious attribute, which is the collapse into a unitary world where there is only one thing happening. It would seem that we all share this attribute, but that the nature of thought (which projects multiplicity) often veils the obvious fact of oneness.
4. Integration of the self with the nonself:
I have no sense of a self with a non-self or seeing anything that was hidden or any transition from something to something else. How would I know if such occurred? This is not to say that such did not occur, simply that there is no knowing of this occurring.
5. A revelation:
Sorry, no revelation. That would be a great story to tell, but who would be telling it, the before-revelation-me or the after-revelation-me?
6. The event itself is experienced as bliss:
No event. Have had bliss. I think I had bliss, at least once. At least I have the memory of having bliss. Does this count? I think I maybe failing miserably as the subject of this study.
7. The event itself is transient:
Yes. This one I definitely, absolutely, without qualification can say yes to. Every experience is transient, so the event, or non-event is definitely transient.
8. An illumination or insight remains.
- Steven Harrison
Sustained Transcendental Experience
Explorations in Spiritual Transformation, Meditation and Actuality
"The sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain. This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is."
- Annie Dillard
"Of course spiritual practice could quite easily be a fantasy, a set of images, legends, doctrines and explanations that might serve to distract us from the fierce reality of our confused desires - offering them a higher and more socially acceptable path for projection to take, a more sophisticated way to freeze ourselves in place than a mere personal ego."
- Norman Fischer
Saved from Freezing
The poet is an inventor.
He invents so completely
That he succeeds in inventing
That the pain he really feels is pain.
And those who read what he writes
Really feel in the pain they have read,
Not the two which he felt,
But only the one they do not have.
And thus in the wheel ruts
There goes round and round, diverting Reason
That clockwork toy train
Which is called heart.
- Fernando Pessoa
Shogen asked, "Why does the enlightened man not stand on his feet and explain himself?"
A monk asked Fuketsu, "Without speaking, without silence, how can you express the truth?"
Fuketsu observed, "I always remember spring time in southern China. The birds sing among innumerable kinds of fragrant flowers."
throw out your words,
throw out your silence,
and tell me
about
your
own
Zen.
Daibai asked Baso, "What is Buddha?"
Baso said, "This mind is Buddha."
"The sutras say, "Mind is the teaching." But people of no understanding don't believe in their own mind
or that by understanding this teaching they can become a sage."
- Bodhidharma
"People are backwards. Ignorant of the true Self they pursue things willingly, suffering immeasurable pains in their greed for a little bit of pleasure. In the mornings before they've opened their eyes and gotten out of bed, when they're still only half awake, their minds are already flying about in confusion flowing along with random thoughts. Although good and bad deeds have not yet appeared, heaven and hell are already formed in their hearts before they even get out of bed. By the time they go in to action, the seeds of heaven and hell are already implanted in their minds."
- Ta-Hui
"The ocean seal samadhi is what is actually happening all around us; it is our own expression of what is actually happening. It is our ongoing, imperfect efforts to reach out to others in the midst of what is actually happening. We do not have to wait to reach out: because we are inherently free from ourselves, we are already in the waters of this samadhi, already always expressing what is actually happening. As we express ourselves, we reach out to all things; as what is actually happening happens to us, we are moved by all things. No matter how far we reach out, no matter how deeply we are moved by things, we remain one with them. Opening ourselves to others and being touched by them is the self in the waters of this samadhi; opening ourselves to others and being touched by them is simply our own practice of being ourselves."
- Dogen
translated by Carl Bielefeldt
The Ocean Seal Samadhi - the famous state of concentration, in which it's said that all things are revealed to the mind like images on the surface of the water.
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