Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Put a Little Zen in Your Life

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



The aim of practice is practice itself and practice itself is to wake up. How hard is this? Very. It requires our every moment awareness, diligence, and effort. We practice; we live. We fail to practice; we die.



In Zen, life and death have nothing to do with breathing, cell division, or metabolism. Life and death are synonymous with awake or asleep. Awake we see the big picture; asleep we reside in the details. Just as everything asleep needs to wake up; everything awake needs sleep.



What is the big picture? What are the details? These are the questions that arise through our practice, these are the things, the body and mind, that fall away.



It is cold; it is not cold; cold is our mind creating cold. When one, cold and hot disappear. Body and mind fall away. Awake we need no coat; asleep we need a coat.



Just so, what is practice?



Be well.

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