30 March 2015

Contemplation: The World and the Way

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:
If you follow the present-day world, you will turn your back on the Way; if you would not turn your back on the Way, do not follow the world.
Takuan Soho, The Unfettered Mind (highly recommended reading).

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23 March 2015

Contemplation: Take Heed

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:
Let me respectfully remind you:
Life and death are of supreme importance.
Each of us should strive to awaken.
Awaken!
Take heed!
Do not squander your life.
"Evening Gatha" as recited at Tendai Buddhist Institute

16 March 2015

Contemplation: The Body

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:
The body, apt to practice sacred teaching,
Should not be harmed in trivial pursuits.
If this advice is kept, the wishes of all beings
Will swiftly and completely be attained.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva, p. 74

09 March 2015

Contemplation: Always Labor for the Benefit of Beings

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

Therefore understand this well
And always labor for the benefit of beings.
The far-seeing masters of compassion
Permit, to this end, that which is proscribed.

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva, p. 74

02 March 2015

Contemplation: Fired by the Highest Aspiration

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your contemplation:
Always fired by the highest aspiration,
Laboring to implement the antidotes,
You will gather virtues in the fields
Of qualities, of  benefits, of sorrow.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva, p. 73