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[milesbutterball]

Six Ways to Prepare for Meditation

How to plan ahead before you hit the cushion

Make your effort diligent, yet joyful. Don’t get caught up in expectations. And always remember, there is no such thing as a “bad” meditation.

—John Yates (Culadasa) and Matthew Immergut, “Six Ways to Prepare for Meditation”

[lowly-waters]

“samsara is nirvana.”

Samsara typically means our everyday, ordinary life: setting the alarm, getting up, making the coffee, coming to the Zendo, going to work, coming home.

- Bodhisattvas Have More Fun, The delights of living a life of service

By Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara, Tricycle.org

[lowly-waters]

Lovingkindness can be cultivated in the heart with great benefit to ourselves. But the ultimate destination is egolessness, because the more lovingkindness there is in the heart, the less ego. The more the ego diminishes, the more love can come from the heart.

When other people are taken into the heart, the self has to step aside to make room.

- Love Is a Skill, Ayya Khema, Tricycle.org

[plotinuslovemachine]

Chanting as the Whole of Life

A Nichiren Buddhist priest explains the many approaches to reciting the sacred title “Namu-myoho-renge-kyo.”

Chanting as meditation occurs when one’s mind is fully engaged with the chant’s sound and rhythm. One must be fully present to chant properly. The full engagement of body and mind brings one into deep meditation. Conversely, if one is distracted, one will fall out of the rhythm and harmony. It becomes immediately obvious when this happens, and so chanting becomes a key to mastering one’s mind, rather than being mastered by it, and a method of polishing one’s life. When one chants with integration of body and mind, one enters into a deep connection with one’s buddhanature.

Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin 

[lowly-waters]

But to be overly busy cannot possibly bring peacefulness. It cannot bring contentment. It cannot bring a heart full of love; it cannot bring a heart that can actually bring the mind to meditation.

- There’s No Need to be Busy

Ayya Khema on making time to do nothing

Ayya Khema Fall 2022

Tricycle.org

[milesbutterball]

How to Cultivate Equanimity

Equanimity is the ability to maintain a balanced mind in the midst of chaos. Learn how to cultivate equanimity and experience peace.

In Buddhism, it’s considered appropriate and helpful to cultivate and enhance our well-being. It is all too easy to overlook the well-being that is easily available in daily life. Even taking time to enjoy one’s tea or the sunset can be a training in letting in well-being.

Gil Fronsdal, “A Perfect Balance”

[milesbutterball]

Healthy Boundaries

A Jewish Buddhist on the benefits of being a busybody

If we bring our full identities into practice with others, we can function within our identities in a way that is participatory rather than self-involved, and so allows us something beyond.

Leora Fridman, “Healthy Boundaries”

[lowly-waters]

All feelings come and go, and are by their nature ephemeral. But if we don’t train our minds to see that, we end up riding life like the old roller coaster at Coney Island that threatened to hurl people from their seats every now and again.

Tricycle.org

Pilar Jennings, “Fear”