Sunday
May312020
Friday
May292020
May 29, 2020 Helping naturally and appropriately.
Seeing a young girl struggle to extract a paper towel from its dispenser, I reached over to turn the awkwardly-placed dispenser knob. With that, the paper towel magically rolled out. Eagerly tearing off the towel, the girl turned and looked up at me.
Her smile was radiant. I also had a big happy smile as we shared our moment of hard-won success.
Helping her had been so natural. There had been no need to judge whether she was worthy of help. She was a little girl!
No need to decide if I should be the one to help. No one else noticed her predicament.
And deciding how to help wasn’t an issue because, thanks to personal experience, I knew how to extract the towel!
And so, I offered my help unconditionally and spontaneously. By experiencing a rare flash of clarity, I had gone straight from perception to action. Looking back over what had just happened, I mused that perhaps this could be considered a rare taste of how awakened beings help. Naturally and appropriately.
Monday
May252020
Saturday
May232020
May 23, 2020 Chant the buddha-name.
No problem if you are not a Buddhist.
Chanting “Amituofo” is a form of meditation. It’s a way of calming our mind and controlling where it goes by focusing on a chosen object or idea. The primary aim of this form of meditation is to achieve the mental state of one-mind undisturbed, a state in which the mind concentrates solely on its meditative subject.
We chant “Amituofo” to focus our thoughts on an awakened being, a being who used to be like us but who has now achieved perfect wisdom and compassion.
We are not worshiping him. Just like when we meditate by concentrating on our in- and out-breaths, we aren’t worshiping our breaths.
Or when listening intently to the sound of ocean waves, we aren’t worshiping the ocean. In our chanting, we are focusing our thoughts on a being who possesses the virtues we wish to develop. So, Buddhist or not, chant the buddha-name to develop these same virtues.