About book Being Zen: Bringing Meditation To Life (2003)
"Our difficulties are not obstacles to the path; they are the path itself. They are opportunities to awaken. Can we learn what it means to welcome an unwanted situation, with its sense of groundlessness, as a wake-up call? Can we look at it as a signal that there is something here to be learned? Can we allow it to penetrate our hearts? By learning to do this, we are taking the first basic step toward learning what it means to be open to life as it is..."I liked the way this author presented Zen Buddhism more practically and less philosophically. It is less about enlightenment as a path to salvation and more about the practice of meditation to have an open heart and and be able to flow with life. I am a sometimes meditator, but I believe in the word practice applied to anything spiritual. If you practice opening your heart, you will have an open heart. If you practice seeing the good in everyone you meet, you will meet good people. I really liked his loving-kindness meditation, which you direct toward yourself first, then to people close to you, and then to the whole world. May I dwell in the open heart.May I attend to whatever clouds the heart.May I be awake in this moment, just as it is.May the awakened heart be extended to all beings.
so, last night we went to Winco, and before we left I took New Moon out of my purse and placed it on the coffee table and said, Don't eat this! (to the Boone and River) Then when got home....you can guess....well...no more New Moon for me :( It was ripped into a thousand pieces! And I told you they destroyed my Twiligt DVD?! Man, they really hate the Twilight Saga! LOL
Do You like book Being Zen: Bringing Meditation To Life (2003)?
Ezra Bayda is a dharma heir of Charlotte Joko Beck, who was the first Buddhist author I read. I'm working my way through our Buddhist bookshelf, and this is the current one.August 14Bayda has the best discussion of lovingkindness meditation I've come across. I've always had a sort of resistant feeling about the practice because it seemed too prone to self-delusion and reminded me of affirmations. He just blasts right past that limitation. He has also, for the first time, given me a glimmer of what's meant by saying our true nature, underneath all the nonsense, is a loving connectedness with everyone. My daughter-in-law tells me that in Continuum movement practice they work a lot with the "heartspace," and Bayda also talks a lot (and coherently) about that.
—Harley
