🅲Week 2021-21: On Compassion

"Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world." (Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", cca 400 BC)

"Bodhisattvas who study prajna-wisdom must first have deep compassion for all beings and a deep longing to save all of them. They must practice samadhi meditation with great care. Refusing to practice zazen only for their own emancipation, they must promise to ferry these sentient beings over to the other shore." (Dogen Zenji, "Zazen gi", cca. 13th century)

"First awaken your compassionate mind with a deep longing to save all sentient beings. You must practice samadhi meditation with great care, and promise to ferry these sentient beings over to the other shore, refusing to practice zazen only for your own emancipation." (Dogen Zenji, "Zazen gi", cca. 13th century)

"When you see others’ errors and you want to guide them because you think they are wrong and you feel compassion for them, you should employ tact to avoid angering them, and contrive to appear as if you were talking about something else." (Dogen Zenji, cca. 13th century)

"Man builds a house and lives in it, while the Buddha dwells in his body. The householder resides constantly in the house, and the Buddha resides in the heart of man. If through compassion things and deeds become easy, the heart becomes clear, and when the heart is clear thc Buddha appears. If you wish to clarify your heart, sit in meditation and approach to the Perfected One." (Shido Bunan, "Sokushinki" ["On the Mind"], 1670)

"What is called generosity is really compassion. In the Shin'ei it is written 'Seen from the eye of compassion, there is noone to be disliked. One who has sinned is to be pitied all the more.' There is no limit to the breadth and depth of ones heart. There is room enough for all. That we still worship the sages of the three ancient kingdoms is because their compassion reaches us yet today." (Yamamoto Tsunetomo, "Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai", cca. 1716)

"From the sea of effortlessness, let your great uncaused compassion shine forth." (Hakuin Ekaku, "Keisō Dokuzui" ["Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn"] , 1758)

"Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987

"Compassion means the wish to benefit all beings and free them from the causes of suffering." (Akong Tulku Rinpoche, "Taming the Tiger: Tibetan Teachings for Improving Daily Life", 1987)

"What acts as a far more effective circumstance for generating compassion and what, in fact, rouses us from our comfortable meditation seat is actually seeing or hearing others - encountering others directly, not just conceptually in our imagination." (Dalai Lama & Alexander Berzin, "The Gelug/Kagyü Tradition of Mahamudra", 1994)

"Make a decision today that can immediately change or improve the quality of your life. Do something you’ve been putting off, master a new set of skills, treat people with newfound respect and compassion, call someone you haven’t spoken to in years. Just know that all decisions have consequences. Even making no decision at all is a decision in its own way." (Anthony Robbins, "Giant Steps: Small Changes to Make a Big Difference", 1998)

"The feeling of unbearableness at the sight of other peoples’ suffering, other sentient beings’ suffering. In order to generate that feeling one must first have an appreciation of the seriousness or intensity of another’s suffering. The more fully one understands suffering, and the various kinds of suffering that we are subject to, the deeper will be one’s level of compassion." (Dalai Lama & Howard C Cutler, "The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living", 1998)

"When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our life could be lived with greater compassion and greater weakness." (Jack Kornfield, "Meditation for Beginners", 1998)

"In all practices and traditions of freedom, we find the heart's task to be quite simple. Life offers us just what it offers, and our task is to bow to it, to meet it with understanding and compassion." (Jack Kornfield, "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry", 2000)

"Much of our work is based on the use of our brains, by which I mean our intelligence. But compassion is something that arises or is present at a much deeper level of the mind, very much just as the roots of a tree - unlike its branches - are present within and beneath the ground." (Gyalwa Karmapa, 2000)

"The root of compassion is compassion for oneself." (Pema Chödrön, "When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times", 2000)

"Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity." (Pema Chödrön, "The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times", 2001)

"Compassion without attachment is possible. Therefore, we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment. True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, a truly compassionate attitude towards others does not change even if they behave negatively. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the needs of the other..." (Tenzin Gyatso [14th Dalai Lama]," The Compassionate Life", 2001)

"The first miracle brought about by mindfulness is your own presence, your real presence. With this energy dwelling in you, you become completely alive. When the energy of mindfulness is dwelling in you, Buddha is dwelling in you. The energy of mindfulness is the energy of Buddha. It is the equivalent of the Holy Spirit. Where the Holy Spirit is, there is also understanding, life, healing, and compassion." (Thich Nhat Hanh,"You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment", 2001)

"Mindfulness and compassion actually develop at the same pace. The more mindful you become, the easier you’ll find it to be compassionate. And the more you open your heart to others, the more mindful you become in all your activities." (Mingyur Rinpoche & Eric Swanson, "The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness", 2007)

"Live with compassion. Work with compassion. Die with compassion. Meditate with compassion. Enjoy with compassion. When problems come, experience them with compassion." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, "How to be Happy", 2009)

"We need to strengthen such inner values as contentment, patience and tolerance, as well as compassion for others. Keeping in mind that it is expressions of affection rather than money and power that attract real friends, compassion is the key to ensuring our own well-being." (Dalai Lama, [address] 2013)

🅲Week 2021-20: On Conception

"You know how the divine Simplicity enfolds all things. Mind is the image of this enfolding Simplicity. If, then, you called this divine Simplicity infinite Mind, it will be the exemplar of our mind. If you called the divine mind the totality of the truth of things, you will call our mind the totality of the assimilation of things, so that it may be a totality of ideas. In the divine Mind conception is the production of things; in our mind conception is the knowledge of things. If the divine Mind is absolute Being, then its conception is the creation of beings; and conception in the human mind is the assimilation of beings." (Nicholas of Cusa [Nicolaus Cusanus], "Idiota de mente: The Layman: About Mind", 1450))

"Brahman is beyond mind and speech, beyond concentration and meditation, beyond the knower, the known and knowledge, beyond even the conception of the real and unreal. In short, It is beyond all relativity." (Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, 1882)

"The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language." (Anton Chekhov, [letter to A.S. Suvorin] 1892)

"The limits of thought are not so much set from outside, by the fullness or poverty of experiences that meet the mind, as from within, by the power of conception, the wealth of formulative notions with which the mind meets experiences." (Susanne Langer, "Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art", 1942)

"Buddhists have conceived an object as an event and not as a thing or substance [...] The Buddhist conception of ‘things’ as samskara (or sankhara), that is, as ‘deeds’, or ‘events’, makes it clear that Buddhists understand our experience in terms of time and movement." (Daisetzu T Suzuki , "The Essence of Buddhism", 1947)

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dewdrop contains the reflection of all the other dewdrops. And, in each reflected dewdrop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image." (Alan Watts, "Psychotherapy East & West", 1961)

"Anybody can they say they are being 'spiritual' - and they are, because everybody has some type and level of concern. Let us therefore see their actual conception, in thought and action, and see how many perspectives it is in fact concerned with, and how many perspectives it actually takes into account, and how many perspectives it attempts to integrate, and thus let us see how deep and how wide runs that bodhisattva vow to refuse rest until all perspectives whatsoever are liberated into their own primordial nature." (Ken Wilber, "The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad", 1997)

"The modern West, after the enlightenment, became the first major civilization in the history of humanity to deny almost entirely the existence of the Great Nest (or chain) of Being. In its place was a 'flatland' conception of the universe as composed basically of matter (or matter/energy) and this material universe [...] could be studied by science and science alone." (Ken Wilber, "The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion", 1998)

"There seems to be a misconception as to the idea of bardo, which is that it is purely connected with the death and after-death experience. But the experience of the six bardos is not concerned with the future alone; it also concerns the present moment. Every step of experience, every step of life, is bardo experience." (Chögyam Trungpa, "Transcending Madness The Experience of the Six Bardos", 2010)

🪷Week 2021-19: Bodhidharma - Collected Quotes

"A Buddha is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"All know the way; few actually walk it."(Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"All phenomena are empty." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"All the suffering and joy we experience depend on conditions." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"An Awakened person is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad."(Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Detach yourself from various things in the external world and inwardly your mind will not be agitated. By using your mind like a wall you should gain entrance into the Way." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won't see the Buddha." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Many roads lead to the path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen."(Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Outwardly, the activities of all the senses are brought into repose, and inwardly, your mind is not agitated. Using your mind like a sheer wall, you should enter the Way." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are lairs and fools." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"The mind is the root from which all things grow if you can understand the mind, everything else is included." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Throw away your various ties to the external world of dualities and pacify all things, then your mind and body will be one, and there will be no gap between movement and stillness." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn't apparent because it's shrouded by sensation and delusion." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"To find a Buddha all you have to do is see your nature." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

"Whoever realizes that the six senses aren't real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of Buddhas." (Bodhidharma, cca. 6th century)

⛩️Week 2021-18: Masanobu Fukuoka - Collected Quotes

"But intending to understand ten things, you actually do not understand even one. If you know a hundred flowers you do not 'know' a single one." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"Extravagance of desire is the fundamental cause which has led the world into its present predicament. Fast rather than slow, more rather than less - this flashy "development" is linked directly to society's impending collapse." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"Food and medicine are not two different things: they are the front and back of one body." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything, and every action is a futile, meaningless effort." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"I wonder how it is that people's philosophies have come to spin faster than the changing seasons." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"Nature is everywhere in perpetual motion; conditions are never exactly the same in any two years." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"People do sometimes sense the sacredness of nature, such as when they look closely at a flower, climb high peaks, or journey deep into the mountain. Such aesthetic sense, love, receptivity, and understanding are people's most basic instincts - their true nature. These days, however, human are flying in a completely different direction to some unknown destination, and they seem to be doing it as rapidly as possible." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"People think they understand things because they become familiar with them. This is only superficial knowledge." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"We can never know the answers to great spiritual questions, but it's all right not to understand. We have been born and are living on the earth to face directly the reality of living." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"When a decision is made to cope with the symptoms of a problem, it is generally assumed that the corrective measures will solve the problem itself. They seldom do." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

"When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings." (Masanobu Fukuoka, "The One-Straw Revolution", 1975)

📚Week 2021-17: Murasaki Shikibu - Collected Quotes

"Even those people who have no sorrow of their own often feel melancholy from the circumstances in which they are placed."

"No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly [...] and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it." (Murasaki Shikibu, "The Tale of Genji", cca. 11th century)

"No penance can your hard heart find save such as you long since have taught me to endure [...]" (Murasaki Shikibu, "The Tale of Genji", cca. 11th century)

"Nothing can be well learned that is not agreeable to one’s natural taste." (Murasaki Shikibu, "The Tale of Genji", cca. 11th century)

"Life is full of uncertainties, perhaps one day some unforeseen circumstance would bring her into his life once more." (Murasaki Shikibu, "The Tale of Genji", cca. 11th century)

"It is so rare to find someone of true understanding; for the most part they judge purely by their own standards and ignore everyone else." (Murasaki Shikibu, "The Diary of Lady Murasaki", cca. 11th century)

"Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world." (Murasaki Shikibu)

"It is very easy to criticize others but far more difficult to put one’s own principles into practice, and it is when one forgets this truth, lauds oneself to the skies, treats everyone else as worthless, and generally despises others, that one’s own character is clearly revealed." (Murasaki Shikibu, "Murasaki Shikibu Nikki" ["The Diary of Lady Murasaki"] , cca,. 1010)