Time has no beginning;
it has no end.
Throughout immeasurable eons,
violence and conflict have abounded,
and body and spirit deeply wounded.
May the time for healing begin now.
May universal peace be ours.
~amtbweb
Do not seek
the measure of your true worth
in the eyes of others.
Search instead
within your own heart.
~amtbweb
With the wish to help all beings,
May all my thoughts, words and actions
be void of attachment and ego.
May they arise
from compassion and wisdom.
May they be imbued
with patience and joy.
~ Venerable Wuling
Cultivation is not simply sitting
on a meditation cushion.
Cultivation is
correcting our faults,
acting from wisdom and compassion,
having a peaceful and tranquil nature.
~Venerable Wuling
Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots. ~Frank A. Clark
Want to change the world? First, change yourself. ~Venerable Wuling
Ego
Self-importance
keep us
from forgiving others
from forgiving ourselves;
Pride
Arrogance
keep us
from making peace with others
from making peace with ourselves.
~Venerable Wuling
The Third Patriarch of Zen
Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng-T’san
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood,
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such
erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity by passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things
is to miss their reality;
To assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
