"A fool is one who goes on trusting;
a fool is one who goes on trusting against all his experience. You deceive him, and he trusts you;
and you deceive him again, and he trusts you;
and you deceive him again, and he trusts you.
Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not learn. His trust is tremendous; his trust is so pure that nobody can corrupt it. Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don't try to create a wall of knowledge around you. Whatsoever experience comes to you, let it happen, and then go on dropping it. Go on cleaning your mind continuously; go on dying to the past so you remain in the present here-now, as if just born, just a babe." 

-Osho

"Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy."
-Lao Tzu

"Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven." 
-Lao Tzu

"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt."
-Lao Tzu

Thursday's Thoughts - July 5th, 2012

“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.” 

-Huang Po

The river at its source is irrepressible, but as it travels it loses its potency. The river with its tributaries, turns, and forks loses the strength it had in its dedicated direction. The mind is not unlike this river, and as we think our mind forks, and we lose our dedicated purpose.

Does this mean that we should not have thoughts? No, it means we should not dwell on them. To think of the past is to be consumed by it, and to dwell on thoughts of your future will accomplish nothing in the present. You must let thoughts come and go, perpetually flowing in and out of our temporal existence, acting only as your nature dictates.

Can you silence the mind, and satiate your desires? To yearn for something is to neglect what you have, and happiness can never be achieved when you fail to realize the import of your own value over all else. Envy not, for this is yet another form of desire, and such practices bring imbalance to your existence.

The ancient Ch'an Sect expresses this ideal by the maxim:  "If you open your mouth, you are wrong.  If you give rise to a single thought, you are in error."  So, if you can quiet your mind in entirety, all that remains is ensō, voidness, stillness, and the Tao. You will not be tempted, or goaded into an emotional response. You will simply be.

Are you capable of understanding how to halt the concept-forming activities of your mind? This is the only way you can make certain of attaining your reward. Only when you have foregone all perceptions, will there be nothing objective to perceive. Only when chaos obstructs you no longer; only when you have shed from yourself the scores of dualistic concepts of the ignorant and Enlightened, will you understand the Tao.