“Zenfully Quool Quotes”
Currently featuring “The Art of Living”
By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
We may agree with the truth of impermanence, and yet
we still behave as though everything is permanent,
and that is the problem.
This is what prevents us from
taking the opportunities available to us
right now to act to change a situation, or
to bring happiness to ourselves and others.
With the insight of impermanence, you won’t wait.
You’ll do everything you can to make a difference,
to make the person you love happy, and
to live the kind of life you would like to live.
~
The Buddha offered the contemplation on impermanence
not for us to treasure as a notion, but
for us to get the insight of impermanence by applying it to our daily life.
There’s a difference between a notion and an insight.
Say we strike a match to get a flame.
As soon as the flame manifests,
it begins to consume the match.
The notion of impermanence is like the match,
and the insight of impermanence is like the flame.
As the flame manifests, it consumes the match,
which we don’t need anymore.
What we need is the flame, not the match.
We’re making use of the notion of impermanence
to get the insight of impermanence.
We can make the insight of impermanence into a living insight
that is with us in every moment.
~
The insight of impermanence has the power to liberate us.
Suppose someone you love has just said something that has made you angry,
and you want to punish them by saying something unkind back.
He has dared to make you suffer, and
you want to lash back and make him suffer too.
You are about to start an argument.
But then you remember to close your eyes and contemplate impermanence.
You imagine your beloved three hundred years from now.
He will be nothing but ash.
It may not take three hundred years;
perhaps within thirty or fifty years you will both be ash.
You suddenly realize how foolish it is to be angry and to argue with each other.
Life is so precious.
It takes only a few seconds of concentration to recognize
and touch your nature of impermanence.
The insight of impermanence burns away the anger.
And when you open your eyes,
you don’t want to argue anymore.
You just want to hold him in your arms.
Your anger has transformed into love.”
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Zenfully Quool Quotes Quommentary
by rog
Allow yourself to live the life you want to live…
Instead of the one your ego tries to make you live.
Often times in our daily lives…
When were just mindin’ our own bidness…
Some fool comes comes around with a bucket of stupid
and demands that this bucket of stupid is all your fault.
They’ll huff & puff and try to bring on an aneurysm
just to prove how awful you are for conjuring up that bucket of stupid…
When it ain’t your shit, not your monkeys, not your circus.
Then,
they continue to wallow in their own shit, attempting to get some on you…
most peoples egos can’t resist dipping their heads into that bucket… and
perpetuating all the unwholesome emotions of hate, spite, revenge…
but…
that’s an option.
An option most folk gleefully take to be…UNgleeful.
Our True Nature is ineffable… words can’t begin to describe it.
But,
One characteristic is….
Boundlessness.
When you consider everything in this world is perceived within our noggins…
It’s all just thoughts that arrive as:
“Tingling Amorphous Vibrations”.
Everything!
Every sense organ, every emotion, every thought…
All of what we perceive this world to be,
including the imaginary ‘self’ we fool ourselves to be… us.
is just vibrations…
All occurring in the mind-space of our brains.
This perspective is boundless.
So…
There is boundless space for all beings and situations,
to be as they are,
without affecting our well-being.
Remind yourself of this boundless space next time
someone brings out a bucket of stupid
and temps you to dip your head in that bucket.
It’s not worth it!
Namaste
