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DONGSHAN’S ILLNESS
When someone says you are not looking at all well, who is it that is ailing? When that person says you looked better the last time he saw you, which you did he see? If you look in the mirror do you see someone looking ill, and if you do, who is that person, for…
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WHERE?
Take the pencil in hand and grasp it firmly and flex and extend your wrist until loose. On a clean sheet of paper mark a small X which will become of great importance shortly. Look around you in all directions, starting as close to yourself as possible and expanding out as far as the…
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MIRRORED
It isn’t the seeing of something that matters, for what is seen was there to be seen so seeing is just its natural consequence. It is only when you label it, give it a name that it ceases to exist, for you at least, for at that moment what exists is the label and no…
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BEING
“Be in the moment,” he says repeatedly, imagining this is what the teacher should say. I want to tell him there is no other possible moment I could be in, but having to try to find the words instantly takes me out of this and every other possible moment. It is said that when the…
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ALONG THE MIDDLE WAY
Each day he stops briefly in the small park along the path, and picks up a pebble which he tucks in the coin pocket of his jeans. There it rests until he comes the pond where he sits on the shore staring out into the heart of the water. He pulls the pebble and tosses…
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THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA’S WISDOM
If you wish to find true wisdom where do you begin to look? Everywhere you look is the wrong place, for true wisdom is everywhere. If this confuses, first look for yourself. Where will you find yourself? If you say in the mirror, all will laugh for the mirror is nothing more than reflective glass.…
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ONCE
It was easier being Buddhist when I was young, despite the fact I had no good idea what Buddhism truly was. for a child the moment is all there is, the past so short that it means nothing, the future something that will arrive as and when it wishes. For a child, things will go…
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DIRECT ROUTE
He would rather be from somewhere. Where he is or is not going matters very little to him now, he will be where he will be, will go where he needs or wants to go or is taken, and when there, that is where he should be, so being there is no problem. But until…
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GATE GATE
The hardest thing of all is that there is no one to entreat, no one who has to sort the infinite voices, note who requested what so that delivery of the prayers, the few that warrant granting, go to the correct person, particularly given that there is no system in place to track the whims…
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FROM HERE TO
He finds it hard to believe that no matter which path he chooses, and he has chosen so very, very many over time, each path seems always to lead him to one particular place. The place always seems the same, here, though he knows it should be different each time he arrives. It frustrates…
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an old writer and his words 