Contemplation: Together-Action

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:

Together-action saves this world.

from a remarkable Dharma talk by Zen Master Wu Kwang, at this link.

Contemplation: Good and Virtuous Friendship

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:

It is all due to the good and virtuous friendship of Devadatta
That I attained complete enlightenment
And extensively saved innumerable sentient beings.

Lotus Sutra, Chapter 12, as chanted at Tendai Buddhist Institute

Contemplation: The Buddha Appears in This World

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:

The Tathagatas of past, present, and future intrinsically lead sentient beings to be exposed to the Buddha's knowledge and insight and attain the patience which comes from realizing the truth of non-arising.  The Buddha appears in this world through the conditioned co-arising of his great deeds.

Chih-i, Fa Hua Hsuan I, translated and published in Paul Swanson's Foundations of T'ienTai Philosophy, p. 248; punctuation altered.

Contemplation: Tathagata's Chamber, Robe, and Seat

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:

If people want to expound this Sutra,
They should enter the Tathagata's chamber,
Put on the Tathagata's garments
And sit on the Tathagata's seat.
They then should face the people without fear,
So that they may extensively
Illuminate and explain it to the assembly.
The Tathagata's chamber is great compassion,
His garments are gentleness and perseverence,
And his seat is the emptiness of all existent things.

from Lotus Sutra, Chapter 10, as chanted at the Tendai Buddhist Institute

Contemplation: Labor

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:

Just as the rich elder,
Knowing his son's inferior disposition,
By his skillfulness
Trains his mind,
And afterward gives him
All his wealth,
So it is with the Buddha
In his display of rarities.

Threefold Lotus Sutra, p. 123, translation altered slightly.  Posted in honor of Labor Day. Lotus Sutra Chapter 4 is an extended parable invoking the role of labor in everyday life and in the Buddhist path.