#john tarrant

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“Zen is a method for transformation. It’s fierce, you don’t hide out, you appear as yourself. You want freedom, you want to understand the universe. You want to stop building the house of pain.”

- John Tarrant

[Alive On All Channels]

[julesofnature]

Time softens when I listen; the wind in the trees, set in action long ago when the universe began, has something to say.  Not explaining a moment allows it to blossom.  ~ John Tarrant

[johnesimpson]

Way Up There, Swinging in Your Seat and Laughing

John Tarrant, Robert Bly, and the Hell Courtesan: 'Way Up There, Swinging in Your Seat and Laughing'

[Image: “Hell Courtesan,” painted by Kawanabe Kyosai (1831–1889). After reading the whiskey river posts which I share below, I tried mightily to find one of the paintings described by John Tarrant. I could not — at least, not before finding this one, first… which delighted me too much not to share! (For more about the painting, see the portion of this post which follows the whiskey river excerpts.]

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[salonduthe]

When Bodhidharma was asked, "What is the first principle of the holy teaching", he didn't say suffering. He said, "Vast emptiness. Nothing holy." This is what the Heart Sutra says, too. The Heart Sutra says, "Things are founded on emptiness." This means really that things don't truly have a cause. Things have a virtue in themselves beyond anything we can say that causes them. So you have a virtue in yourself beyond anything that brought it about. Any suffering that arises in you because of your history, any gifts you have because of your history, these are strong things, yet they are also just a pure appearance of Buddha nature. Even your suffering and also your joy. I think in some sense we can't take credit for either. We just have to learn to love our lives so deeply that we welcome whatever comes.

~John Tarrant, Poison and Joy

(with thanks to aliveonallchannels)

[atsoukalidis]

“Attention is the most basic form of love”

John Tarrant

[dk-thrive]

It’s really nice to have your delusions exploded; it’s like getting out of prison.

I saw then that this is one of those embarrassing stories in which the storyteller unconsciously describes his own mind. I thought the koan was boring, but I hadn’t let it all the way in. I thought the koan was lazy, but no, that was also me...  It’s really nice to have your delusions exploded; it’s like getting out of prison. If you can see a delusion of your own, it’s wonderful, you can breathe, you can’t find the walls that lately hemmed you in...And that’s what meditation is like really, doing nothing, looking at nothing in particular, relishing the plainness, the life in between.

– John Tarrant, Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life (Shambhala; November 11, 2008)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Diamond Sutra says, “Out of nowhere, the mind comes forth.” Working With the Koan Usually people work hard to make things happen. Yet it might be that things happen by themselves, coming out of nowhere. + When you forget your carefully assembled fiction of who you are, you can find a natural delight in people, in the planet, the stones, and the trees. There is no observable limit to this beauty, and no one is excluded from it. Then, if you are fighting an enemy, you may be fighting them as well as you can, but you won’t be a true believer. You will know that an enemy is not truly other and that the fighting is some kind of misunderstanding. The worries that lead to quarrels may still be present, but they are not the main thing. Your problems could be a kind of dream, very powerful when you are in it, and yet a dream. You might notice that, even deep in dreaming, you are near to waking up. And the more you are awake, the kinder the world might seem. + from Bring Me The Rhinoceros and other Zen Koans that will save your life John Tarrant

[All Channels Archive]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Magnificent Pink beach

* * * *

“When Bodhidharma was asked, "What is the first principle of the holy teaching”, he didn’t say suffering. He said, “Vast emptiness. Nothing holy.” This is what the Heart Sutra says, too. The Heart Sutra says, “Things are founded on emptiness.” This means really that things don’t truly have a cause. Things have a virtue in themselves beyond anything we can say that causes them. So you have a virtue in yourself beyond anything that brought it about. Any suffering that arises in you because of your history, any gifts you have because of your history, these are strong things, yet they are also just a pure appearance of Buddha nature. Even your suffering and also your joy. I think in some sense we can’t take credit for either. We just have to learn to love our lives so deeply that we welcome whatever comes.“

- John Tarrant Poison and Joy

[via Quidnunc]