Philosophy 04 (Jan 25 - Dec 26)

[winston]

Awaken Here and Now

If you look deeply at the forms around you, you’ll find that they do not exist apart from your awareness.

This is one way we can start to grasp the true meaning of emptiness and begin to awaken here and now.

- Haemin Sunim, “Nothing Is Outside of Awareness”

[winston]

Suffering Is Sickness and Medicine

Rather than medicine opposing sickness, emptiness sees in medicine and in sickness a mutual yielding and healing.

That we suffer and share this great fact of impermanence together, is profound medicine in itself, a medicine that releases compassion, love, connectedness and forgiveness, as the healing source.

- Susan Murphy, “Why Love What You Will Lose?”

[winston]

Hearing the Suffering of Others

Compassion is that which hears the suffering of others.

In fearful conditions, our own noise can drown that out.

Wisdom is in part a recognition of our interdependence; fear can hide that from us.

- Sallie Jiko Tisdale, “Alone on the Path”

[winston]

Intimacy with the Natural World

The more you can develop an intimacy — meaning a non-dualistic relationship to the natural world that you are and that is around you — the more at ease you can be as an earthling; the more wise you can be as a son or daughter or being of the earth.

- Larry Ward, “The Circle of Your Influence”

[winston]

You Are a Tourist

Consider yourself a tourist. Think of the world as it is seen from space, so small and insignificant yet so beautiful.

Could there really be anything to be gained from harming others during our stay here?

- Dalai Lama, “Consider Yourself a Tourist”

[winston]

Right View Is Embarrassing

The eightfold path starts with right view and I see right view as looking back at our life to see how we’ve caused our own suffering.

That requires the ability and willingness to be very embarrassed.

- Paley Ellison, “Cultivating Healthy Embarrassment”

[winston]

Wisdom Arises from Suffering

When we face suffering, we will have to find the way to solve it.

Only then can wisdom arise.

- Ajaan Suchart Abhijato, “The Forest Container of the Rains Retreat”

[winston]

Confronting Crises

The fact that human beings have the capacity to recognize themselves as a manifestation of the entire cosmos, opens up a possibility that, if embraced, may help us through the crises that now confront us.

- David Loy, “In Search of the Sacred”

[winston]

Living in the Body

The body is our house — and how we live in it and where we occupy it, are uniquely ours, as well as being part of the common human experience.

The body is a treasure trove and an exquisite vehicle for our practice of waking up and being with what is.

- Jill Satterfield, “Meditation in Motion”

[winston]

Higher than Heaven

One must be beyond the heavens of sensual existence, formish existence and formless existence, to be an arahant, the highest kind of person.

It is necessary to be above heaven in all its meanings, in order to be totally free, liberated from dukkha.

- Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, “All Heavens Bite”