Be humble, and never hesitate to ask

ZiGong asked, saying, "On what ground did KungYu get that title of Wen?"
The Master said, "He was of an active nature and yet fond of learning, and he was not ashamed to ask and learn of his inferiors! -On these grounds he has been styled Wen."

During the time known in the Chinese history as 'Spring and Autumn' , there lived an aristocrat by the name of Kung Yu (Kung was his last name, and Yu first name). He as a learned and humble man. After his death, the Duke of Wei awarded him the honorific title of 'Wen'. Thus he became known as Kung WenZi.
ZiGong, a student of Confucius who also came from Wei, didn't think Kung Yu was worthy of such high honor. One day, he asked Confucius, "Why was he given the title of 'Wen'?"
Confucius replied, "Kung Yu was diligent in learning and very smart. Yet he was humble and not afraid to ask questions of people who are not as smart or learned as he was. That is why he deserved the title of 'Wen'."
The story is told in Analect, Chapter 5, Section 15. Ever since, the phrase, "Be humble and not hesitate to ask those who may be lesser than you are." [bu chi xia wen] has been a motto to one and all.

http://www.confucius.org/

Temporary Meditation

Every time you get a strong feeling of the changing nature of things; hold it as long as you can!

- Think of landscape outside, the trees, birds, and clouds.

All are made up of moving atoms; try to imagine this and concentrate on the feeling.

- Think of this room and everything in it; is it all permanent?
- Think of your body, is it the same as yesterday, last month, 10 years ago?
- Think of the mind, is it static or changing every moment?

Concentrate on the experience.

- Is it realistic to value things so high if they do not last forever?
- Is it realistic to expect friends not to change?
- Is it realistic to expect my friends will live forever?
- Will I live forever?
- What will last longer, my possessions and friends or I myself?

Questons and answers

There is no logical answer.
The only true answer is who you become as you confront the question.

Beauty/Uglines

Where beauty is, then there is ugliness;
where right is, also there is wrong.
Knowledge and ignorance are interdependent;
delusion and enlightenment condition each other.
Since olden times it has been so.
How could it be otherwise now?
Wanting to get rid of one and grab the other
is merely realizing a scene of stupidity.
Even if you speak of the wonder of it all,
how do you deal with each thing changing?
-Ryokan-

To Be Free

If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.
- Linji

YogaJournal.com: Karma: Facing our Destiny with Free Will

kiachu has sent you this article from YogaJournal.com courtesy of Yoga Journal Magazine.

Article:
Karma: Facing our Destiny with Free Will, By Dr. Swami Shankardev Saraswati and Jayne Stevenson

Summary:
Karma is one of the most basic concepts at the heart of Indian philosophy. When we combine an understanding of karma with yogic practice, we can consciously and quickly journey toward enlightened living and higher consciousness.

URL:

http://www.yogajournal.com/teacher/1562_1.cfm

Spring arrives in my Life today

Wisps of clouds like wings of birds are streaming across my sky.
The earth is coming alive with vibrations of growth all around me.
The feel of the branches in my hands is warm and soft.
It has been a long time waiting for these energies to return.
Waiting for winter to end.
by: Kiachu shen Ku

3-16-2007 Quote for today

There simply is nothing, to which we can attach ourselves, no matter how hard we try.

In time, things will change and the conditions that produced the desires will be gone.
Why then cling to them now?

Ven. Hsing Yun

Quote for today 2-27-2007

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear...but around in awareness.
- James Thurber

Quote of today - Feb 18, 2007

The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.
~William Shakespeare

The Art of Peace

The real way of the warrior is based on compassion, wisdom, fearlessness, and love of nature.

Quote for today - 10-29-2006

Style or posture does not matter, its Energetics and Intent that is Tai Chi.
If were not careful, all the rest is either a nice therapeutic dance, or just fists and feet.

~Kiachu

10-15-2006 Quote for today

Learning to interpret and use what you receive is something most us need to learn how to do. ~Kiachu

Quote for today - 9-21-2006

TO PENETRATE THE MYSTERIES, to bless with a good conscious, to be great and yet empty, to return to stillness and be forgiving, to be compassionate and to deliver all people, to do good deeds and help people reach the other shore - these are the great benefits of our Path of cultivation. To calm people in stormy times, to help them understand the nature of things, to maintain purity, to nourish all things, to respect all life, and to answer the needs of those whose beliefs come from the heart - these are the services the Order can offer.
- from a Chinese Stelae, 781 A.D.

Quote for today - September 12, 2006

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
~Peter De Vries

The Man and the Sandpiper

Once there was a man who wished to find the way to attain his goals. So he prayed to the Almighty for help.
That night the man had a dream in which he was a little sandpiper on a wave-swept shore. As he stepped nimbly in and out with the wave tips, his sandpiper heart beat with a happy wisdom that his human mind had never known.
When the man awoke, he sought out the seashore to study the sandpiper. Returning to his life, he experienced increasing happiness and success.
On occasion the man would return to the seashore to study under the inspiration of the long-legged little sandpiper. Eventually his quest touched upon inner aspects of being.
Gradually the man was imbued with spiritual presence. Compassion flowed from him. Things he touched flourished. And when he laid himself down for his final earthly sleep, his spirit, resembling a little, long-legged bird of purest light, rose in glory into the heavenly shining.

The obstacle is the path

Obstacles do not obstruct the path.
To cross them is to advance on the path.

Meditation

By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom.
By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind.

Meditation

He who treads the Path in earnest
Sees not the mistakes of the world;
If we find fault with others
We ourselves are also in the wrong.

-Dhammapada, 188-192

They go to many a refuge,
to mountains, forests,
parks, trees, and shrines:

people threatened with danger.
That's not the secure refuge,
that's not the highest refuge,
that's not the refuge,

having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering and stress.

But when, having gone for refuge
to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha,
you see with right discernment
the four Noble Truths —

stress,
the cause of stress,
the transcending of stress,
and the Noble Eightfold Path,

the way to the stilling of stress:
That's the secure refuge,
that, the highest refuge,
that is the refuge,

having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering and stress.