Loving-kindness Intention at Work

     “Imagine whenever you meet anybody, your habitual, instinctive first thought is, I wish for this person to be happy. Having such habits changes everything at work, because this sincere goodwill is picked up unconsciously by others, and you create the type of trust that leads to highly productive collaborations. Such habits can be volitionally trained.”

       Tan C-M. Search inside yourself. The unexpected path to achieving success, happiness (and world peace). HarperCollins, NY, 2012.       NOTE: the author is Google's celebrated engineer & "jolly good fellow" Meng.

Photo: P. Michael Lovas & Mandy Wintink

What holds me back?

     What holds me back from: giving more generously? being less judgmental? being more helpful? Surely it's being overly concerned about, fearful for "me, myself & I" - craving.
     But "who is afraid?"
     When ego is quiet, there is only radiating warmth, free flow of energy, harmony, timelessness

Endless piles of "stuff" for sale

Buddhism - a Culture of Awakening

     “While Buddhism has tended to become reductively identified with its religious forms, today it is in further danger of being reductively identified with its forms of meditation. If these trends continue, it is liable to become increasingly marginalized and lose its potential to be realized as a culture: an internally consistent set of values and practices that creatively animates all aspects of human life. The challenge now is to imagine and create a culture of awakening that both supports individual dharma practice and addresses the dilemmas of an agnostic and pluralist world.”

         Batchelor S. “Buddhism without beliefs. A contemporary guide to awakening.” Riverhead Books, NY, 1997. www.stephenbatchelor.org

Wooden Bowls & Photo by P. Michael Lovas

Caring for & Cultivating Life

     “Just as a garden needs to be protected, tended, and cared for, so do ethical integrity, focused awareness, and understanding. No matter how deep our insight into the empty and contingent nature of things, that alone will do little to cultivate these qualities. Each of these areas of life becomes a challenge, an injunction to act. There is no room for complacency …”

         Batchelor S. “Buddhism without beliefs. A contemporary guide to awakening.” Riverhead Books, NY, 1997. www.stephenbatchelor.org

Photo: P. Michael Lovas

Complete Freedom of Heart and Mind

     “The Buddha was not a mystic. His awakening was not a shattering insight into a transcendent Truth that revealed to him the mysteries of God. He did not claim to have had an experience that granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the universe ticks. Only as Buddhism became more and more of a religion were such grandiose claims imputed to his awakening. In describing to the five ascetics what his awakening meant, he spoke of having discovered complete freedom of heart and mind from the compulsions of craving. He called such freedom the taste of the dharma.”

         Batchelor S. “Buddhism without beliefs. A contemporary guide to awakening.” Riverhead Books, NY, 1997. www.stephenbatchelor.org

Ben Horne   http://www.fredmiranda.com/

 

An Actual Way of Life, Course of Action, Challenge to Act

     “each truth requires being acted upon in its own particular way (understanding anguish, letting go of its origin, realizing its cessation, and cultivating the path) …”

         Batchelor S. “Buddhism without beliefs. A contemporary guide to awakening.” Riverhead Books, NY, 1997. www.stephenbatchelor.org

Photo: poppyjk   www.dpreview.com

Mind, Buddha-nature & Confusion

     “When the mind disappears, buddha-nature naturally appears, but buddha-nature is present even when the mind is scattered and vexed. 
     One can compare the mind of vexation and buddha-nature to a wavy, moving line, and a still, straight one. The two lines may appear to be different, but if we pull the ends of the moving line taut and hold it steady, then it becomes straight and still. When the line is constantly moving, it is difficult to see clearly its true nature. We can say that the straight, still line represents buddha-nature, and the moving line represents vexation, but both lines have the same nature, and the deluded mind is not different from buddha-nature.”

       Sheng Yen “Song of Mind. Wisdom from the Zen Classic Xin Ming.” Shambhala, Boston, 2004.

Photo: santamonica812   www.dpreview.com