I like this kirtu! I am trying to remember the story of one monk (I think Zen) who desperately needed water and in the middle of the night found himself in a cave and found what he thought was pure water and drank. It tasted absolutely amazing. The next morning he saw that it was filled with debris and maggots and other horrible things and vomited up all the water. At that moment he was enlightened.
That was Wonhyo, a famous Seon master.
Kirt
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”
"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
"Only you can make your mind beautiful."
HH Chetsang Rinpoche
Wonhyo "The Unbridled" and a fellow monk took shelter in a cave overnight during a storm, they found convenient water cups which turned out to be human skulls, the cave being a mortuary. He is an interesting writer.
Wonhyo spent the earlier part of his career as a monk. In 661 he and a close friend - Uisang (625–702, founder of the Hwaeom) - were traveling to China where they hoped to study Buddhism further.
Somewhere in the region of Baekje, the pair were caught in a heavy downpour and forced to take shelter in what they believed to be an earthen sanctuary.
During the night Wonhyo was overcome with thirst, and reaching out grasped what he perceived to be a gourd, and drinking from it was refreshed with a draught of cool, refreshing water.
Upon waking the next morning, however, the companions discovered much to their amazement that their shelter was in fact an ancient tomb littered with human skulls, and the vessel from which Wonhyo had drunk was a human skull full of brackish water. Upon seeing this, Wonhyo vomited.
Startled by the experience of believing that a gruesome liquid was a refreshing treat, Wonhyo was astonished at the power of the human mind to transform reality. After this "One Mind" enlightenment experience, he abandoned his plan to go to China. He left the priesthood and turned to the spreading of the Buddhadharma as a layman.
CedarTree wrote:“You don’t have to say anything in particular or do anything in particular to be helpful to people. You become a bodhisattva by wishing for your own happiness as well as the happiness of others, and by opening to your own experience in a loving way. When you love yourself and are kind enough to yourself to be who you really are, you’re showing others what they need to do in order to be free.”
beautiful
I know, I like that one too, now it's your turn to add a Soto Zen quote!
“While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life. The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself.”
“Your breath is a unique object to meditation because it resides right at the boundary between inside and outside, between you and the outside world.”
― Steve Hagen
You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.
Taisen Deshimaru, "Just Before Dark"
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”
"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
"Only you can make your mind beautiful."
HH Chetsang Rinpoche
Our tendency in life is to avoid things that frighten us. But in order to become whole, we need to go deeper and deeper into ourselves by reaching further and further into the things we fear.
Bernie Glassman
"Zazen is the dragons roar. This dragons roar is the wind passing and whistling through a hollow tree. This can be a metaphor for your Zazen practice and or even your life. If you can let go, greatly let go, this dragons roar can manifest through you. It is much bigger than the individual."