Philosophy 04 (Jan 25 - Dec 26)

[winston]

Reciprocity Is a Dance

Reciprocity is a dance like life itself.

The air we breathe, the food we eat, the wounds we carry and the love we share, are all given and received.

Reciprocity reminds us to look beyond roles to relationship.

When we give without differentiating self from other and when we receive without differentiating it from the giving, then we can find the gift of dana (charity) everywhere.

- Melina Bondy, “The Dance of Reciprocity”

[winston]

The Flow of Freedom

If you think of freedom as a state, you are in effect looking for a kind of heaven.

Instead, think of freedom as a way of experiencing life itself — a continuous flow in which you meet what arises.

- Ken McLeod, “Forget Happiness”

[winston]

What Comes Just Comes

Do not measure your practice by the experience of others.

My experience is mine; yours is yours.

Indeed, I should not even try to replicate my own experience.

What comes just comes — or it does not.

- Ian Kilroy, “Fear of Losing Oneself”

[winston]

The Prescription

To end suffering, the Buddha prescribed a compound of three essentials:
1. Morality
2. Meditation and
3. Wisdom

Meditation practice without morality and wisdom, is like a stool with only one leg — it is bound to fall over.

- Bodhin Kjolhede, “Don’t Just Sit There”

[winston]

Just Thoughts

One of the most life-changing realizations you can have is “I don’t have to believe my thoughts . . . they are just thoughts!”

- Tara Brach, “A True Taste of Peace”

[winston]

True Awakening

A true awakening would expand the awareness of those impacted by our thought, speech and bodily action, to include not only other people but all beings we recognize as living — plants, animals, fungi and bacteria — and even those existences we consider nonliving — rocks, water and sunlight.

- Jan Bays

[winston]

One Kind of Love

I believe that there is only one kind of love — real love — trying to come alive in us despite our limiting assumptions, the distortions of our culture and the habits of fear, self-condemnation and isolation that we tend to acquire just by living a life.

- Sharon Salzberg, “Real Love”

[winston]

Let Go of Ideas

As soon as you notice you are attached to an idea, discard it.

Notice but don’t hold on. Don’t make it an intellectual pursuit.

Steal the notion with your breath. The breath will help you see that you are Buddha already, that Christ is not separate from you.

- Matthias Birk, “Immature Practice Imitates, Mature Practice Steals”

[winston]

Giving in to Anger

When you give in to aversion and anger, it’s as though, having decided to kill someone by throwing him into a river, you wrap your arms around his neck, jump into the water with him and you both drown.

- Chagdud Tulku, “Putting Down the Arrow”

[winston]

Our Nature Is Change

The Buddha said that all conditions, whether they are internal conditions, bodily conditions or external conditions, are not-self — their nature is to change.

Contemplate this truth until you see it clearly.

- Ajaan Chah, “Our Real Home”