The echoing hallway

Foggy mind is like an echoing hallway: past events and past thoughts keep echoing in it again and again, sometimes reinforced by new events and new thoughts.

Clear mind is like an open field: events and thoughts happen once and then disappear like a sound in the vastness of the air, without any trace.

Mindful listening

When listening to music, follow every sound as if you hear the piece for the first time.

A labelled picture

The real world: 

How we see it:

One moment at a time

Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Just take it one moment at a time.

Letting go

Sometimes the way I act reminds me of a child who accidentally grabbed the hot end of a fire poker. The child is crying but he won't let go, and the longer he is holding it, the more painful it becomes.

This would be the simplest of life lessons: if it hurts, let go.

Then why is it so hard to do?

Good student, bad student

A good student learns even from a bad teacher.

A bad student doesn't learn even from a good teacher.

Being unhappy

If a problem can be solved,
Why be unhappy?

If a problem cannot be solved,
What is the use of being unhappy?

~ A Tibetan monk (?)

Four types of people

We meet four types of people in life, 
And we must know how to deal with them: 

Those who know and know that they know - they are the wise - follow them. 
Those who know but don't know that they know- they are misguided - enlighten them. 
Those who don't know and know they don't know- they are the students - guide them. 
Those who don't know and don't know they don't know - they are fools - avoid them.

~ An Arabian proverb

Teaching

Central Asian monk teaching East Asian monk. 9th century fresco from the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves near Turfan, Xinjiang, China. 

Snow meditation

Looking up in the sky, trying to see the point from which the snow is falling.

Nothing holy

廓然無聖 
Vast emptiness, nothing holy.
(Kakunen mushõ.) 

~ Bodhidharma

Source.

Genro's cave

A cloud rests at the mouth of the cave
Doing nothing all day.
The moonlight penetrates the waves through the night,
But leaves no trace in the water.

~ Genro's comment in The Iron Flute Koan Collection

Subtlety

入林不動草、入水不立波

"Entering the forest he moves not the grass;

Entering the water he makes not a ripple." 

~ Zenrin Kushû (The Way of Zen 152, 224)

Source

Alertness

When a small insect flies by so close to your skin that you can feel the movement of the air caused by its wings.

Evening bell from mist-shrouded temple

Flowers and birds

Clarity

Crystal-clear clarity of every moment as it goes by.

Hedgehog in the Fog

Simplicity

And an old black woman
was dandling a baby and singing:
'If I were a pharaoh,
I'd buy myself two pears:
I'd give one to my friend,
and I'd eat the other one myself...'

From Alexandria Songs by Mikhail Kuzmin

А старая черная женщина
качала ребенка и пела:
"Если б я был фараоном,
купил бы я себе две груши:

одну бы отдал своему другу,

другую бы я сам скушал..."

Из "Александрийских песен" Михаила Кузмина

The fragrant time

The short period of fragrant blooming trees comes once a year.