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 Pay attention and you'll find that even a seemingly uneventful day is filled with precious gifts.  Danaparamita, the "perfection of generosity" or sharing is perhaps the most accessible entry into prajñaparamita, the "perfection of wisdom" which is the insight into the not-self nature of all phenomena.
 Note how often we find ourselves struggling to find the right conditions for meditation and the cultivation of a "spiritual" mind amidst the chaos of our lives. We may feel that we need stillness and isolation to practice, withdrawal from the round of daily life. But a central teaching of the Zen tradition is that anyone can awaken to intimacy with life, and nobody can start from anywhere other than where they are at the moment.
 This dialogue between the Buddha and Kutadanta resounds through history and is replayed between teacher and student often.
 In The Bhagavad-Gita Krishna tells Arjuna that the attitude of focusing on action without attachment to the outcome is yoga: “Self-possessed, resolute, act without any thought of results, open to success or failure. This equanimity is yoga.”
Similarly, Patanjali tells us in Yoga Sutra I:12 - 16 that abhyasa, continuous applied effort, coupled with vairagya, the willingness to observe experience without getting caught in reactivity to it, will lead to freedom from suffering.  The fourth of the Four Immeasurables, along with mudita, is often quite challenging, is ultimately the foundation and nourishment needed to expand the other three (friendliness, compassion and joy) 'immeasurably!'
 "Two things will lead you to supreme understanding (prajnaparamita). What are those two? Concentration (samatha) and insight (vipassana)."
--- The Buddha Andrew Olendzki has written on papañca ( most often translated as proliferation) and, like much of his work, it is quite good. Showing just what papañca is, its pervasiveness, and that it is just this aspect of our mental experience that we are working with in meditation provides a valuable clarification of practice. It is just here that we find a basis of commonality across all Buddhist traditions. In the Pali Canon, we hear the Buddha say, “In the hearing let there just be hearing…” In Zen, we say, “Take the backward step” from being engulfed in proliferation to “just this.”  |
AuthorPoepsa Frank Jude Boccio is a yoga teacher and zen buddhist dharma teacher living in Tucson, AZ. Categories |
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