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Zen Buddhism : Practise of passing through a gate less gate and hearing the sound of one hand clapping.

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The Buddhist conception of enlightenment isn’t intellectual. It’s experiential. It’s kind of like being a parent: If I went back in time and tried to explain to my younger self what it feels like to be a dad, nothing I could say would adequately convey it. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be a dad until I actually became one. In the same way, you cannot truly know what it’s like to be enlightened unless you’ve realized enlightenment. To be enlightened is to be liberated from our habitual reactivity, freed from our perceptions and ideas to see reality as it is without wanting it to be different. I would go further and say that enlightenment is also freedom from wanting to be enlightened. Any notion we have about what enlightenment is can get in the way of actually experiencing it. Put another way, enlightenment isn’t something you get or find; it’s something you rediscover—a state of being that has always been in you but that has been covered with made-up stories...

Philosophy

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The you that you do not know. The reality is the Mind dreaming. The mind of the other is always enigmatic. There is no free will. There is no clear line between right and wrong. Death is negative only when you think about the end of all the positive possibilities. Death if accepted as neutral is neither positive nor negative. (Dreams tell us how our minds can manipulate the information. Before studying philosophy you are not serious. While you are studying philosophy, you are serious. When you have studied the philosophy , you will be no more serious. Vedanta is idealist and believes in non-duality. Zen is practical and says it's neither one nor two. It can be interconnected or even shunya.) - Book,What does it all mean (Thomas Nagel)

Zen pearls

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Striving to improve ourselves, we have destroyed ourselves. Our greatest enemy is any thought that promises to improve ourselves, Following a promise to improve ourselves is a sheer disrespect for what we are. Every thought is a distraction from what we are. And so are the circumstances and characters we meet and the substances we use. We are already Buddhas. That´s why Zen master says "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him." -Dosti Regmi  

"मामु, बाबा।"

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मध्य रात, म टेबलमा पढ्दै, सोच्दै छु; आखिर मानिसहरु म सङ किन यस्तो व्यबहार गर्छन् ; म मानिसहरु सङ कस्तो व्यबहार गरुँ । ओछ्यानमा सुतिरहेको छोराले आफू एक्लै भएको थाहा पाएर बोलायो, "मामु, बाबा।" उत्तर, खोजेको भन्दा नजिक हुन्छ। आँकलन गरेको भन्दा सरल, सजिलो हुन्छ। अक्सर सोचेको भन्दा फरक हुन्छ। सत्य, कुनै पुर्णिामाको रात बुद्धलाई आफ्नो अनुहार देखाएर, सधैंका लागि अलप भएको पनि होइन होला। यो त घर, घरमा  जन, जनमा मन, मनमा, बिहान,दिउसो, बेलुकी  घटित भैरहेको हुन्छ। Truth is more near and simple than we think and often counter-intuitive. Here, now and beyond mind; to be precise.

Love affair with my life and other meditations

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We all have one nasty friend. Everything he does is annoying. Everything is ridiculous. You don't like the way he does anything. You disapprove the way he talks,walks,sits, and speaks. You want to debate with everything he says. You want to correct everything he says. You already have a different explanation, logic and point of view that what he says. You always cannot help fixing him but later realize he is unchangable and just accept him for what he is. Similar nasty friend is your mind. Watch his moves. This will be easier for you. The watcher will be you. You are pure. Your friend is nasty. That nasty friend is your mind. What ever you add to what is already pure will be an impurity. Your are already pure. If there is light in the third eye, well and good. If there is dark nothingness, even better. When you have thet purity, the purity will spill out of the time of meditation. Meditation is not about making you prepared or prone to enlightenment. Meditation is enlightenment. Yo...

Zen mind. Beginner's mind. -

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Jhana -> Chan -> Zen Simplicity and an open mind are the essence. Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind, there are few. Right practice: Right posture:  There is no two and no one. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature.  Right breathing: Breaths are just like the swinging door. Ebb and flow of the waves. You observe but cannot control it. This moment the swinging door is opening in one direction, and the next moment, the swinging door will be opening i...

A samurai story.

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There is a story about a samurai whose master was assassinated. It was this samurai’s duty to restore his lord’s honor by avenging his death. As days stretched into weeks, the samurai relentlessly tracked the killer. When he finally found the assassin, the samurai drew his sword and prepared to deal the killing blow that would settle the score. But before he could, the murderer spat in the samurai’s face. Enraged, the samurai sheathed his sword and walked away. The samurai knew that if he killed his master’s assassin from a place of anger, there would be no honor in his actions. The samurai understood that motive matters. He knew that to live with honor, we must practice self-awareness, be deeply honest with ourselves about what’s really driving our behavior, and make choices based upon that which we truly value.

Emptiness

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  Many critics of Buddhism see emptiness as a form of nihilism, contradiction,  or plain absurdity. But these accusations are based on shallow understanding. In fact, throughout its history,   Buddhist philosophy has developed at least  5 distinct meanings of śūnyatā. Each of these is profound enough to change one’s entire perception of reality.  In any case, I have to warn you. The great Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna wrote that  ‘when it is wrongly seen, emptiness destroys the dull-witted, like a snake wrongly grasped’.      1 NO SUBJECT:   In the Suñña Sutta,   Buddha   talks about emptiness like this: ‘It is … because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’’ The first meaning of emptiness is that in the world of our experience a self (or anything belonging to a self) is nowhere to be found.  Anatta.   For the Buddha, as music arises is when the mus...

THERAVADA BUDDHISM IN A NUTSHELL —Ajahn Amaro

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T HERAVADA B UDDHISM IN A N UTSHELL  - Ajahn Amaro (Adapted from a talk given on a retreat held at the Angela Center, Santa Rosa, California, November 1997) A couple of days ago   a few people asked: “What is Theravada Buddhism?” It’s a good question. Often people have come across vipassana , insight meditation, and its related teachings, disconnected from their origins. Sometimes they are unaware that vipassana has anything to do with Buddhism or who the Buddha was. How it began The Buddha started his life as the crown prince of a small kingdom in what is now Nepal. He was born around 563 BCE although, of course, scholars and different Buddhist lineages disagree on the exact date. After being cosseted within the confines of the palace for his first 29 years, the spiritual impulse led him to take up the life of a wandering ascetic. After a few years of intense meditation practice and many pointless austerities, he found t...