The Ground
Can quake
At any timeStand firm
Between
Cloud and EarthKnow your feet
Know your mindStand straight
Between
Storm and FloodFeet planted:
Rooting ground,
Mind planted:
Cultivating skyStrongly
Your heart
CenteredUp and down:
Openly held.
Thanks Jack for this. All your own words.
Ordinary life and Buddhahood have no distinction. Great knowledge is not different from ignorance. Why should one seek outwardly for a treasure, when the field of the body has its own bright jewel?
Pao Chih The Nonduality Of Buddhahood And Ordinary Life
We come to practice with these sicknesses of anger and
fear, mistrust, love and hate, and soon they begin to manifest
in the practice itself. We see them functioning in groups, in
families, in nations, in cultures.Is it possible to function in this life in a nondual way?
Vimalakirti said yes. Buddha said yes. Manjusri said yes.
Countless Buddhas and Ancestors from time immemorial
have said yes.
From a lecture by John Daido Loori. Vimalakirti’s Gate of Nonduality
Tonight I’d like to think the pillar we see here on the church kneeler symbolizes what we call mountain still sitting. For the next couple of weeks I will be publishing more photographs of kneelers from St. Mary’s church in the Mallerstang valley, Cumbria. There will be quotes about mountains, and pillars and stupas and the like. If you have a quote or poem you would like to offer into the pot, I’ll use what I can. Please send what you have via the contact form or directly if you have my email address.
In her writings my teacher Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett referred to the iron pillar which penetrates the universe (that might not be an exact quote), spoken of from her own experience of meditation. It was her way of talking about mountain still sitting written about by Zen Master Dogen. Let’s sit!
Read also Axis Mundi for wider understanding and appreciation.
This quote struck me this evening as I looked around for inspiration for a post.
One man cannot do right in one department
of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong
in any other department. Life is one
indivisible whole.
~Mahatma Gandhi
Relatively recently I heard a story of a man who was said to be a gambler, and not a very good one because he was always broke. Being a gambler was the explanation for why he was so short of money. After his death it transpired that he actually lived a double life. He was always broke because he was supporting two families! He was indeed a gambler!
Gambler – Someone who risks loss or injury in the hope of gain or excitement. And who in this world has not done that? And who has not lived to regret that?