HELLO? HELLO? ARE YOU THERE? ANYONE THERE? AM I TALKING TO MYSELF? Am I Talking to Myself FLY 2018 He tried to warn us. We wouldn’t listen. Just… Telephone Atrocities and Other Crimes Against Nature
I see you look only at the constructions of the I-ego and end up thinking and believing that those constructions are who you are. But that is a superficial examination of who you… Looking at the Cloth and How it is Put Together – Finding the Flawless Silk
Shraddha – Confident Faith We take in our life through our sense doors. We see what is there and we see what is missing. When I contemplate my parents I know I do not… It’s a Jungle of Faith
We all have some capacity to be open, to both give and receive. Sometimes, however, we close down and are unable to give and receive. This closed down state often says, “I know… The Capacity to Open
For Andrej People who write homilies and other spiritual tracts have a wish list: We’d like a license to skew our grammatical constructions to allow for amphiboly. Ah… to be as oracularly correct as Delphi.… Seeking Truth by Ming Zhen Shakya
The field of boundless emptiness (unconditioned love) is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies (to construct a story) you have fabricated into apparent… ADVANCED TEACHING: Living Without a Storyline
Old Fire Lao Huo Shakya We are happy to welcome a new monk (unsui) to A Single Thread | Contemplative Order of Hsu Yun. The Dharma ceremony took place this month in Evanston, Illinois,… ANNOUNCEMENT: Please Welcome a NEW Monk!
All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do — every experience — comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be. Consciously or not, our desires keep redefining our sense of who we are.
Hard to imagine living life without desire! We are filled with propaganda which keeps us in the dark. This essay is an advanced teaching on how to work with desire — it is simple, but it ain’t for the faint of heart.
MIng Zhen’s wise words are over 20 years old and show us the retrospective links to the governing entities that have run amok! The title change shows the selfie approach to just about everything – WE WANT WHAT WE THINK which apparently means restrictions on hearing teachings that offer wisdom and not just information leading us to THINK WHAT WE WANT which has very little to do with wisdom. Most of what we think are thoughts about our self.
This 1996 gem captures Ming Zhen’s take on some of the craziness that has got us to where wisdom in the name of constitutional interpretations has gotten us here.
People buried in their egos – victims of their own poisonous anger, lust, or ignorance – find release only when they can spew that venom onto others. It’s the only catharsis they get. We hear them on moonless nights, stalking the land, targeting anyone within spitting range.
To avoid the mess during these Nights of the Living Dead, the rest of us have to find a Refuge… and wait for sunrise. It helps to understand – if not the source of their venom – at least the display of it. Sometimes we encounter it “in kind” and sometimes “in degree.”
It is when we do take time to reflect upon moral issues that we need to consider the motivation of those who so vehemently question other people’s morality – and this includes our own outcries as well. Ming Zhen covers a lot of ground — stay with her — the last bit is worth the effort.
The current situation in the nation of separating children from their parents and the following turn around is a case in point. It was a misstep. A mistake. A failure. But the President seemed unable to admit any misstep. Any mistake. Any failure. Instead, he made it into a photo opportunity; a show of words of compassion by signing an executive order to stop a policy that he instituted. On the footsteps of the turn around of the policy he declares a dictum to the Attorney General to file legal proceedings in California to alter the longstanding 1980’s Flores settlement that protects unaccompanied minors (children) crossing the border.
a contentious time when everything seems unreliable where everything is up for grabs Ming Zhen Shakya offers us an opportunity to practice the pull for this and the push for that. She goads us, lures us, all the time getting ready to pull the rug out from under our beliefs and opinions. At the edge of thinking something is right or wrong she goes beyond and leaves us up in the air….uncomfortable, in the lap of the Zen Buddhism. FREE E- BOOK