10-31-2005 Quote for today

"What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers."
– Matina Horner

Buddhist Story - The Story of 11 Piglets

Once upon a time in Yongzhou (China), there lived a butcher whose surname was Zhang. Everyday he would kill a pig to supply the demand for the people who lived around him. However, slaughtering pigs was an act of killing sentient beings.

Therefore he often thought of making a living out of another profession, "Hmm, I should change my profession! There are many jobs I can do out of '360 professions'. Why should I be a butcher? My knife has to kill a pig and "dye" it red each day. If I kill 30 pigs each month, then I would have killed 360 pigs every year. It's terrible whenever I think about it."

However, Butcher Zhang had a family to feed. Slaughtering pigs was a profession he could do with ease. Therefore his thought of changing profession became replaced by another thought. He would reassure himself, "Oh well, well! Changing profession is not that easy, is it? Furthermore, it isn't me who like killing pigs. It's other people who like to eat pork. Otherwise, who would I sell them to when I kill them? Even though I incur bad retribution, those who eat pork should also share the responsibilities with me as well. Also we keep pigs because we want to eat them, don't we?!!"

Since he has to arrive at the morning market early, and because the pigs made tremendous noise as he killed them, he chose to slaughter at dawn. Butcher Zhang had a habit which he had been keeping up for years. Every morning, as soon as he heard the bell sound from the nearby Buddhist temple, he would get up and slaughter a pig. This habitual action had never changed.

However, one day, he got up late. Later, he found out that the temple did not ring the bell at all that morning. When the butcher went to the pig-shed, he discovered the mother pig he was going to kill had given birth to 11 piglets in the morning. Every one of them was leaning close to the mother, suckling her milk. How lovely they were! He felt the event was extraordinary.

Therefore he went to the temple. The abbot of the temple told him, "I had a dream last night. I dreamt of 11 children who knelt down to beg me to save the life of their mother. I asked them how I could save her. They replied it was very simple. All I needed to do was not to ring the bell." 11 children? 11 pigs? Suddenly the butcher understood the relationship between them. He threw his butcher knife into the river. Eventually, he changed his profession.

- Extract of "Buddhist Children Stories" (The White Cloud Cultural Centre) [slightly touched up]

10-30-2005 Quote for today

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
- Albert Einstein

10-29-2005 Quote for today

We are punished by our sins, not for them.
- Elbert Hubbard

Zen Story - Egotism

The Prime Minister of the Tang Dynasty was a national hero for his success as both a statesman and military leader. But despite his fame, power, and wealth, he considered himself a humble and devout Buddhist. Often he visited his favorite Zen master to study under him, and they seemed to get along very well. The fact that he was prime minister apparently had no effect on their relationship, which seemed to be simply one of a revered master and respectful student.

One day, during his usual visit, the Prime Minister asked the master, "Your Reverence, what is egotism according to Buddhism?" The master's face turned red, and in a very condescending and insulting tone of voice, he shot back, "What kind of stupid question is that?"

This unexpected response so shocked the Prime Minister that he became sullen and angry. The Zen master then smiled and said, "THIS, Your Excellency, is egotism."

10-28-2005 Quote for today

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
- Henry David Thoreau

10-27-2005 Quote for today

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.
- Saint Augustine

10-26-2005 Quote for today

It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.
- Mother Teresa

Zen Story - Eat & Sleep

A student once asked his teacher, "Master, what is enlightenment?"

The master replied, "When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep."

10-25-2005 Quote for today

If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.
- H. G. Wells

10-24-2005 Quote for today

"We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are."
– Tobias Wolff

10-23-2005 Quote for today

"We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn."
– Mary Catherine Bateson

10-22-2005 Quote for today

Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you'll know you're dead.
- Tennessee Williams

The Mystery of the Buddha's Flower

There is a story about a flower which is well known in the Zen circles. One day the Buddha held up a flower in front of an audience of 1250 monks and nuns. He did not say anything for quite a long time. The audience was perfectly silent. Everyone seemed to be thinking hard, trying to see the meaning behind the Buddha's gesture.

Then, suddenly, the Buddha smiled. He smiled because someone in the audience smiled at him and at the flower. The name of the at monk was Mahakashyapa. He was the only person who smiled, and the Buddha smiled back and said, " I have a treasure of insight, and I have transmitted it to Mahakashyapa."

The story has been discussed by many generations of Zen students, and people continue to look for its meaning. To me the meaning is quite simple. When someone holds up a flower and shows it to you. He want you to see it. If you keep thinking, you miss the flower. The person who was not thinking, who was just himself, was able to encounter the flower in depth, and he smiled.

That is the problem of life. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. When a child presents himself to you with his smile, if you are not really there thinking about the future or the past, or preoccupied with other problems then the child is not really there for you. The technique of being alive is to go back to yourself in order for the child to appear like a marvelous reality. Then you can see him smile and you can embrace him in your arms.

10-21-2005 Quote for today

"Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little."
– Plutarch

10-20-2005 Quote for today

The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will intrest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.
- Thomas Edison

10-19-2005 Quote for today

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.
- Martin Luther

10-18-2005 Quote for today

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.
- William C. Bryant

10-17-2005 Quote for today

Ask yourself the secret of YOUR success. Listen to your answer, and practice it!
- Richard Bach

10-16-05 Quote for today

Life is as if a king has sent you to a country to perform one special task. If you go there and accomplish a hundred other things, but not that particular task, then it's as if you've accomplished nothing at all.
- Persian mystic poet Rumi

What is the task? All the sages tell us that we've come into this world to realize God. Buddhists, of course, would not say "God," but "Buddha nature." Or they might say that the task is to become fully awakened.

There are three fundamental rules that all the wisdom traditions say will help us accomplish our task, if we follow them.
The first is to be cautious about materialism: Don't want too much. Live modestly.
The second is to dedicate yourself to something you believe in, something you think is beautiful and important.
The third is to commit yourself to a personal spiritual practice that you can follow every day, even if just for a few minutes. Devote some part of your day to sitting in silence and saying, "Here I am. Guide me."

The point is that if we search outside ourselves for the meaning of life, we'll probably never find it. But if we center ourselves and look for meaning in life, we'll find that it's waiting for us right here in the present moment. And I'm not just talking about the popular notion of "seizing the day," which sometimes can mean little more than eating dessert first. I mean that a more profound spiritual power and freedom are available to us; that we are much deeper than we usually let on.

10-15-05 Quote for today

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
- Carl Sagan

10-14-05 Poem

A Flower
Opens to a new day
It is beautiful to look upon
-Kiachu Shen Ku

10-14-2005 Quote for today

"Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."

– Sarah Bernhardt

Taoist Story - Dreams

Chuang Tzu, ancient Chinese Taoist, once experienced a dream in which he was a butterfly fluttering to & fro. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person; he was simply a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found that once again he was a human laying in bed. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"

10-13-2005 Quote for today

The best way to know God is to love many things.
- Vincent Van Gogh

10-12-05 Quote for today

In life you are always climbing a mountain.
As you move higher you have to drop more baggage.
You will find that at times carrying yourself is enough.
When standing on the summit, without baggage,
You are enlightened!
- Kiachu Shen Ku

10-11-2005 Quote for today

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be sightly harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg."

– C. S. Lewis

Zen Story - Destiny

During a momentous battle, a Japanese general decided to attack even though his army was greatly outnumbered. He was confident they would win, but his men were filled with doubt. On the way to battle, they stopped at a religious shrine. After praying with the men, the general took out a coin and said, "I shall now toss this coin. If it is heads, we shall win. If tails, we shall lose. Destiny will now reveal itself."
He threw the coin into the air and all watched intently as it landed. It was heads! The soldiers were so overjoyed and filled with confidence that they vigorously attacked the enemy and were victorious. After the battle, a lieutenant remarked to the general, "No one can change destiny."

"Quite right," the general replied as he showed the lieutenant the coin, which had heads on both sides.

Zen Story - Desperate

The son of a master thief asked his father to teach him the secrets of the trade. The old thief agreed and that night took his son to burglarize a large house. While the family was asleep, he silently led his young apprentice into a room that contained a clothes closet. The father told his son to go into the closet to pick out some clothes. When he did, his father quickly shut the door and locked him in. Then he went back outside, knocked loudly on the front door, thereby waking the family, and quickly slipped away before anyone saw him. Hours later, his son returned home, bedraggled and exhausted. "Father," he cried angrily, "Why did you lock me in that closet? If I hadn't been made desperate by my fear of getting caught, I never would have escaped. It took all my ingenuity to get out!" The old thief smiled. "Son, you have had your first lesson in the art of burglary."

10-10-2005 Quote for today

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
– Pablo Picasso

10+9+2005 Quote for today

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
- Robert Burton

10-8-2005 Quote for today

"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience."

– Henry Miller

Tao Te Ching - Jeff Rasmussen

Something
mysterious
timeless
solitary
perpetual
infinite
empty

I do not know its name I call it Tao

It flows
up and down
far and near
in and out
ever leaving and ever returning

Humankind follows earth
Earth follows heaven
Heaven follows Tao
Tao follows Tao

Zen Story - Curiosity

Once there was an old man who lived at the top of a very high and dangerous precipice. Every morning he would sit at the edge of the cliff and view the surrounding mountains and forest. One day, after he set himself down for his usual meditation, he noticed something shiny at the very bottom of the precipice. Now even though it was very far below him, the old man had keen eyes and could just barely make out what it was. It looked like a rather large, black chest with gold trimmings, just sitting there atop a rock. The old man thought to himself, "Where did it come from? What could be inside?"

10-7-2005 Quote for today

"Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will back up to them."

– Elbert Hubbard

10-6-2005 Quote for today

To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.
- Henry Drummond

Zen Story - Concentration

A young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot. "There," he said to the old man, "see if you can match that!" Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain. Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit. "Now it is your turn," he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground. Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target. "You have much skill with your bow," the master said, sensing his challenger's predicament, "but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot."

10-5-2005 Quote for today

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.
- Wendell Berry

10-4-2005 Quote for today

When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago - since that time he has been toiling, working, and striving to make himself worthy of general discovery.
- James Whitcomb Riley

10-3-2005 Quote for today

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
- Galileo Galilei

Lyrics - PBS's Arthur Theme Song

'And I say hey
HEY!
What a wonderfull kind of day
Where you can learn to work and play
and get along with eachother...


You gotto listen to your heart
listen to the beat
listen to the rythm
rythm of the street
open up your ears
open up your eyes
something something to make it better
by working together

It's a simple message
and it comes form the heart
believe in yourself
'believe in yourself'
thats the place to start!'

10-2-2005 Quote for today

The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.
- Eric Berne

10-1-2005 Quote for today

"Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same."

– Lois McMaster Bujold