zen316

The issues of the mind all boil down to two minds: one that likes to do good, and one that likes to do evil. One mind, but there’s two of it. Sometimes an inclination to do good takes hold of us, and so we want to do good. This is called being possessed by skillfulness. Sometimes an inclination to do evil takes hold of us, and so we want to do evil. This is called being possessed by unskillfulness. In this way, our mind is kept always unsettled and unsure. So the Buddha taught us to develop our awareness in order to know what’s good and worthwhile, and what’s evil and worthless. If unawareness obscures our mind, we can’t see anything clearly, just as when haze obscures our eyesight. If our knowledge gets really far up away from the world, we’ll have even less chance of seeing anything, just as a person who goes up high in an airplane and then looks down below won’t be able to see houses or other objects as clearly as when he’s standing on the ground. The higher he goes, the more everyt...

And when you have perfect  composure in your practice. you include everything. You are not  just you. You are the whole world or the whole cosmos. and you  are a Buddha. So when you sit. you are an ordinary human. and  you are Buddha. Before you sit. you may stick to the idea that you are ordinary. So when you sit you are not the same being as  you arc before you sit. Do you understand?  You may say that it is not possible to be ordinary and holy.  When you think this way, your understanding is one-sided. In  Japanese, we call someone who understands things from just one  side a Itllllbtlll-ktlll. "someone who carries a board on his shoul- der." Because you carry a big board on your shoulder, you can- not see the other side. You think you are just an ordinary human,  but if you take the board off, you wiu understand, "Oh, I am  Buddha, too. How can I be both Buddha and an ordinary  human? It is amazing!" That is enlightenment....