--- In Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com, Brett Corbin <brettalancorbin@...> wrote:
>
> Before I started practicing meditation, I had hard time dealing with problems
> in my life. The problem, what ever they were, would run through my mind over
> and over again, and I would talk about it over and over again. People would
> tell me to not let it get to me so much, and just let it go, but to tell you
> the truth, I didn't now how to do that. I would try to fix the problems, and
> most of the time, my emotions would get the best of me. It felt like I was
> trying to break down a brick wall with my head, I was not getting any where,
> and I was hurting myself in the process. I was living in the past, and
> dreading the future. This went on for many years, till the point that I felt
> I was having an emotional breakdown. I turned to councilors, churches,
> books and to God. And to some degree these helped, and I learned things from
> these sources, but the way I responded to problem, was my problem, and that I
> was looking to everyone, and everything
> else to find a solution to my torment. The meditation for me has been a
> life saver. Almost instantly I found balance in my life. Not to say I am at
> some place of bliss in my life, but the change in me is amazing. People who
> know me say I am like a different person. I am sorry for going on like that,
> I guess I needed to share that with new cyber space group members:)
> Brett
> http://www.pbase.com/brett1963
>
> Wei Wu Wei commented that its ironic that we spend so much time and energy
> defending, protecting and worrying about our ego when there isn't one. And
> its ironic that we spend so much time and energy obsessing about the past and
> the future when only now exists.
A tormented man stands in the snow outside the gates of the Shao-Lin
temple holding aloft his severed arm and cries out in anguish,
"Master! My mind is never at peace! Please pacify my mind!"
Bodhidharma appears at the gate and says, "How very strange! Please
bring it over here so that I may look at it." "I try to grasp it",
cries the seeker, "but I cannot find it in order to hold it!"
"There!" shouts Bodhidharma, "I have pacified your mind!"
In that little space between inhalation and exhalation is The Center,
which is always right here, right now.
"Do not listen with your ears, but with your mind.
Do not listen with your mind, but with your breath.
The function of the ear ends with sounds.
The function of the mind ends with symbols and ideas.
But in the breath is an emptiness ready to receive all things.
The Way abides in the emptiness.
The emptiness is the fasting of the mind."
-Chuang Tzu
>
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