"Increasing intellectual understanding only supplies more information, not Comprehension." - unknown Comprehension: The action or capability to understand something. Understand: Perceive the intended meaning or interpret, view, something a certain way. A group inquiry on these words and concepts quickly ground to a halt. We are always using these words but I have a problem... Continue Reading →
"One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end." - J. Krishnamurti I committed to a group dialogue yesterday, and during the group one of the Zen teachers said in reply to a question, "Nothing happens next." In a very wise and decisive tone. My comment was,... Continue Reading →
"We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, We create it to be able to stay. - Lynda Berry Experience right? Gautama encouraged paying attention to your own experience in order to find what's truthful for each of us. To not accept anything on face value no matter who said it. Check it out.... Continue Reading →
"Did you really think you can change your way of life by an intellectual desire?" - Ama Ma I must have at least a dozen little processes tucked away, that in theory, will help dissolve suffering. But, (that word really pisses me off sometimes.) I don't engage them in the moments of need. Do you?... Continue Reading →
" We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think, Think, Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap." - Anthony Hopkins Exactly so, Anthony! The reason we suffer is we seriously believe that the content of out streaming thoughts, the thoughts themselves, are... Continue Reading →
"I intend to live forever or die trying" - Groucho Marx I love patterns and processes, so much that it's really become more of a view than anything. We love content, but we rarely look at the process, the how of things. All our current "belief" systems insure some form of immortality don't they? Even... Continue Reading →
"Oh, it's not that they don't know, it's they don't really care if it's not about them." - Ama Ma I posted a new page on a perspective called the tasks. they are the "action components" of Gautama's path. The "how to do" the Four Ennobling Truths. It's a process, one that can be used... Continue Reading →
"Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?" - Charles Bukowski I was late to the party, not worried late, but concerned late. For a minute I sat at a light and contemplated how strange it is to be driving and simply not recognize streets or directions. I'm... Continue Reading →
"If you don't comprehend the meaning by making it yours, then you throw the most valuable resource you have in the trash, your time." -Ama Ma I facilitated a group on inquiry yesterday, the focus was on Nothingness and Emptiness, it took a strange direction. One of the monks had pointed out that so many... Continue Reading →
" I think it was just a different chord in the melody of our lives together." - Carol Ludwig Carol is a mother, an artist, poet, psychiatric nurse, wordsmith, and an empath, she hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan. The work featured is one of her visual songs. She, has a wonderfully deep shamanistic feel to... Continue Reading →
"Freedom from, is also a Freedom." - unknown but sounds like J. Krishnamurti I am fond of Zen stuff. I think because the word Zen doesn't mean anything, it's a direction of process, like the Tao. One afternoon the guide was talking about the "Freedom from the elbow bending backwards," and it was one of... Continue Reading →
"You'll know when your absolutely in the present moments when there's nowhere else to go." - Suti Na In presence, there's nowhere for the body, emotions, moods, feelings, and senses to escape. Experience is right here, right now. But the system we call "Bryan" doesn't care about being in this "location" for very long. It... Continue Reading →
"Educating the mind without educating the heart, is no education at all." - Aristotle I felt so burned out after another conversation about "training the mind" to do this and that, notice when idea's form, notice when emotions are rising so I can cut them off, and notice when "bad" thoughts are formulating to prevent... Continue Reading →
"Surround yourself with people who inspire you." - Unknown, but must have been an artist. Last month I had joined an online writers group to discuss Buddhism. As we discussed our various perspectives someone asked how much I write everyday. Hmmm. I wondered, not out loud, why we place such importance on the amount of... Continue Reading →
"How you look at it is pretty much the way you'll see it." - Rasheed Ogunlaru It's part of conditioning. We learn to see things in a very specific way. And when we haven't actually explored our own conditioning, it's more challenging to move in a conscious chosen direction. Below are a few ways in... Continue Reading →
"I just want to be happy." - All of us at some point. It was in the middle of July, in Kentucky, on one of those nights when the heat permeates your brain and your stream of thought is operating in a crock pot. I was sitting in a large open barn with 37 Zen... Continue Reading →
"True friendship is the entirety of spiritual life." - Gautama to Ananda Sangha can be an inspiration and offers many forms of social support. A family of sorts, one founded on certain beliefs and principles. Digging a little deeper we find that having a friend, someone who is a true friend, can provide a wealth... Continue Reading →
"Sorry I missed it. I was on the Onefold path at the dog park." - Dharma Brother Pat Pat's response to an email concerning some information I was going to share with the Still Mountain Meditation group. But he did something more important instead. Dogs carry Zen and Tao. Our job, if there is one,... Continue Reading →
"Think of me as you, only over here. Think of you as me, only over there."
stillmountainmeditation.org 10:45 EST USA On Sunday the 8th join me for a discussion on the Four Tasks and their relationship to the Four Ennobling Truths and The Eightfold Path. We will look at how the Eightfold path can be use as a reflective process to see our current state in a clearer way. We sit... Continue Reading →
"Unless one is willing to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax." Alan Watts I truly appreciate Allan Watts, he was honest. He never denied that he had an alcohol problem. He never called himself a master this or that, he openly said he was an entertainer, a showman, and not a... Continue Reading →
"Meditation works by itself, you don't have to do anything." - John Butler I'm sitting in for a zen teacher, holding the class in place for a minute while she rides out some medical problems. It's interesting, during the question and answer periods most question were about sitting in meditation and the frustration and utter... Continue Reading →
"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." - Norma Jeane Mortenson Pretty yin and yang stuff isn't it? I have always been fascinated by the process that took Norma Jeane from point A to X. A being unknown and X being terminally known. From a Human,... Continue Reading →
"Live with it." - Dr. --- I was anxious, sitting in the examination room, holding internal conversations with the skeleton standing in the corner, all smiley and friendly, and creepy. It was a conflicted time. I didn't want to go through spinal surgery again, yet was hoping for the problem to get fixed. Right, fixed.... Continue Reading →
"I have to be careful about what I want, usually what I want is wanted until it's gotten, then it's replaced, by another want." - Soto Zen Monk, Emily M. Occasionally I find a way to open my cell door. You know, the one I keep closed while I rant on about my freedom. It's... Continue Reading →
Atelophobia: fear of imperfection I decided this morning that I'm adequate. It's not a bad place, not the horrible demeaning position of "less than others" that I thought it was, not at all. Adequate is meeting life in the middle, it means I have this much energy, this much to give right now, and that's... Continue Reading →
"It's OK to make mistakes, to feel tired of everything, to not have things figured out. It's not OK to give up. Keep going, even if it's a slower pace, You got this." - Karen Salmonsohn Late one night in the hills of southern California, I sat in this sweltering hall, and listened to a... Continue Reading →
"I will stay the course, I'm refusing to abandon my experience, I will laugh with and at the gods, I will laugh until I can't laugh anymore." Laughing and crying, an old and very wise friend, very stoned, wrote these words one summer night. And he meant it. he meant every word. And, indeed, laughed... Continue Reading →
"Only those who care about you can hear you when your quiet." Me Ti I know people who read moods. They have a special way of seeing. I can say nothing, just appear, and they pick up on the bodies signs, like facial cues and body language. But I think sometimes it goes deeper. A... Continue Reading →
"We must first become Human before seeking anything superior." - Rene Daumel If there is one thought that keeps me grounded it's this one. It's amazingly unknown. It reminds me of a guide I had decades ago who would always tell me when I waxed philosophical, "Keep one hand on the earth and one hand... Continue Reading →
"Be as unsure as possible, know nothing, see conclusions come and go, swim in your fear, and then go stand in the light of the Great Eastern Sun and breathe. Do you see this? Do you see?" - Elder of the Fox People I realized the other day that I finally comprehend freefall. I had... Continue Reading →
"Take these moments and live them." - Song of So Sometimes in life, meaning is magnified in a conscious holding of the passing moments, a sense of being present. I am here. Sometimes, I am here, and you are here, too. We are together here. Also. Two universes enmeshed, information flows, feelings flow, meanings are... Continue Reading →
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on." Robert Frost Regardless of whether I'm in joy, sadness, or just "OK," life goes on. But, I have been missing something that has dropped in lately. Being OK. I'm slowly learning that nirvana is simply nothing going on, or those... Continue Reading →
"When your mind is full of assumptions, conclusions, and beliefs, it has no penetration, it just repeats past impressions."- Sadhguru Lately I find myself projecting the past into the future. As though the pain, drama, fear, and agony of past experiences will somehow repeat, or, and just as delusional, that somehow I will avoid the... Continue Reading →
"This is it. This is it. This is it. This is it. This is it. This is it." = Freefall At one time you find your presence feeling safe and loved, and somehow more complete, more compelled, and enmeshed in the flow of life instead of the dead observations, and for seconds, everything folds into... Continue Reading →
Just do this, just do that, life is this, life is that. Opinions, more spiritual opinions, while inside a storm rages on. I have this friend who happens to be a Zen Priest. Hmm. It must be important because he likes to interject that into conversations. As though I haven't been there for several years... Continue Reading →
"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." Babe Ruth There's a bigger picture to this. The artificial fear of "striking out" in life. I was sold a lie, well, a lot of lies. About worth, about meaning, and about what it means to be human. I fear "striking out" because I... Continue Reading →
"Meditation works by itself, you don't have to do anything." - John Butler So much for being a "meditator." There is a certain status about being a new meditator, you can smell it on people when they first start to meditate. They all seem like their "doing Meditation" and will soon be in Nirvana, at... Continue Reading →
"We tend to overlook it (reality) in favor or the abstract map-world that thought has painted. But all the while, the actuality (reality) is effortlessly and spontaneously functioning in perfect harmony." Joan Tollifson: "Death, The end of self-improvement." I can live in mapworld, that extracted world of ideas, thoughts, and dreams for days. It's a... Continue Reading →
"Life seems like such dream until you arrive." - Unknown Yesterday a monk had asked, "How do I know when I'm present? How do I know when my experience is real or just dreams and imaginings? In streaming thoughts there are no sounds. No smells, or tastes. No touching in those mental images and movie-like... Continue Reading →
"I tried to do meditation daily but I just run out of time."- Shelly K I was facilitating a group on inquiry, and meditation was the subject. Shelly presented as sincere and had been "meditating" for about a year. As we got further into the issue it seems that Shelly believed she needed to sit... Continue Reading →
"Trust the wait. Embrace the uncertainty. Enjoy the Beauty of Becoming. When nothing is certain, everything is possible." - Mandy Hale Well said, and it certainly points to the incredible beauty of uncertainty, and clarifies that because all possible combinations keep evolving, all possibilities exist. So, in my Layperson's way of thinking, I can embrace... Continue Reading →
"Sangha is not a collective, we don't mindlessly lump together and believe everything we are told. No, Sangha is a herd of cats, not fish. It cannot exist any other way. Each brother and sister with their own perspective, sharing and supporting each other, each path woven into all others, forming a strong and resilient... Continue Reading →
"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, noticing the sun moving across the floor, my life's passing seen as colors, shifting shades and intensities, from bright to dull. And I wanted it to stop, for just a second, and it never did, nor did I." - Maja Mattan No matter what my mood, what I think, or what... Continue Reading →
"I'm my dream I was deaf, no one spoke at the party, the storm raged on in utter silence, and the traffic moved past on the crowded road in deep silence. There's no noise in thoughts. - A Monk during a three month retreat. A Dharma sibling was asking Sunday if there's a sure way... Continue Reading →
"Nothing Happens Next!" - Cheri Huber Sitting on a cushion, nowhere to be. Just sitting like the laziest of frogs on a lily pad, just sitting and being. Not attending to streaming thoughts, not attending to ideas about others, not attending to what "I" want or believe. Just sitting and breathing and noticing. No "meditation... Continue Reading →
"Ritual and Dogma have a place, but only after you comprehend that they are only ritual and dogma. Ritual and Dogma provide nothing but associations to a way of being" - Unknown I had this ongoing argument with a friend who was a "meditation teacher" who insisted people not only need to be led they... Continue Reading →
Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying. "I will try again tomorrow." - Mary Anne Radmacher Courage is losing someone you love and going on, wobbling, sad, lonely, but moving on a step at a time. Courage is losing an animal whose life you accepted... Continue Reading →
I find myself driven to acquire people, places, and things. Lot's of things. Recently I was sitting in my office working when this dropped in, we used to live with just the stuff we could move and carry. And now I live in a box, and I can see that part of the game was... Continue Reading →
Once side knows the TRUTH and debates with the other side about the OTHER TRUTH. If something was to be absolutely TRUE there would be no opinion, no other truth, and no argument. We wouldn’t need to argue over it. There would only be the absolute. People argue and debate over belief about truth. They... Continue Reading →
“Opinions are fantasy. They may be based on fact or not. Opinion presents personal bias and pre-conclusion. Opinions are language trading cards, we use them to gain value and hope to make them true. – People’s Dharma Circle
“The quality of your life will depend entirely upon the focus of your attention.” – Huber
Visions of a People's Dharma 