We cannot live without excitement.  However, when excitement becomes the sole purpose in life that’s out of balance, that does not work.  It seems, we strive to be on a constant high all the time.  Having fun almost becomes an addiction.  But the craving for the extraordinary dulls the palate, and we lose our sense for the ordinary.

When our practice is calm and ordinary,  nothing is lacking and our everyday life itself is enlightenment.

Don’t engage disturbances, and emotional reachings gradually fade away.

Don’t engage distractions and spiritual practice naturally grows.

Wilbur Mushin May Sensei 

What to do when feeling overwhelmed



Sister Chân Không

Let go

The universe does not revolve around us.
The stars and planets,
spinning through the ballroom of space,
dance with one another
quite outside of our small life.
We cannot hold gravity or seasons;
even air and water inevitably evade our grasp.

Why not, then, let go?

We could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless or ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing the native element.
Why pretend we can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in our blood
before breath releases us into the world again.

Did we think the fragile boundary of our skin
could build a wall?

Let’s listen.
Every molecule is humming its particular pitch.
Of course we are a symphony.
Whose tune do we think
the planets are singing
as they dance?

 Lynn Ungar,  Boundaries

Sunday Quote: A deep yearning

Advent starts today, the period of looking forward to Christmas, but more deeply, it is a good season to look at desire and longing. There is a type of hole at the heart of human subjectivity, which gives rise to a perpetual cause of desire. In traditions,  both East and West,  it is understood that this desire, this restlessness or emptiness, will never go away. Indeed, it the this emptiness which gives rise to a longing that takes us beyond ourselves.  Advertisers try to lure us into the belief that we can make this longing go away, encouraging us to think that once we we get this thing or feeling we will be at rest.  

Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?