The Human Game

The Human Game (Alan Watts) “Now existence you see is something that is spontaneous, the Chinese word for nature (Tian ran), means that which happens of itself. Your hair grows by itself. Your heart beats by itself. You breathe pretty much by itself. Your glands secrete their essences by themselves. You don’t have voluntary control …

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Nirvana, The Waterfall

If you go to Japan and visit Eiheiji monastery, just before you enter you will see a small bridge called Hanshaku-kyo, which means “half-dipper bridge.” Whenever Dogen-zenji dipped water from the river, he used only half a dipperful, returning the rest to the river again, without throwing it away. That is why we call the …

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Will I Ever Be Happy? Stop Waiting For The Perfect Moment

Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Take a moment and make it perfect. ~Unknown If you came to this site by Twitter, by Googling Mindfulness or through a random click, I believe your impulse wasn’t entirely random; there is an underlying impulse that made this topic, which is ultimately about mindfulness, desirable to you. Well, …

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11 Zen Stories

1. A Cup of Tea Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more …

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Lost Yourself? How About a Walkabout.

If you’re not careful, you can lose yourself in the world. You get too busy with things, not busy enough with yourself! You’ll spend your days and nights living someone else’s agendas, fighting someone else’s battles and you’re doing the work someone else wants you to be doing, but everyday there’s less and less of …

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Calmer Than You Are

If there’s one thing that never fails to make me angry, it’s a traffic light changing as I’m approaching it. I’m talking unnaturally angry. Like, expletive spewing, steering wheel punching angry. And for what reason? Because I’ve just been halted for a minute? Because of the (relatively) minor inconvenience of having to come to a …

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