Homeless Kodo's "TO YOU" - Chapters 27, 28 & 29

[Jundo]

Dear All,

Moving on, although no place to go ...

As it is a fairly easy read, and chapters are rather short, consisting mostly of small quotes, we will take a few chapters at a time. This week, Chapters 27, 28 and 29.

The rules of the game are pretty easy: Just mention here, in our discussion, any quotes (none, one or many) that ring your bell and resonate with you, and briefly say why.

That's it!

If you need a version to "cut and paste" a quote, there is one here. However, PLEASE PURCHASE THE ACTUAL BOOK! I ask everyone to use the following only for ease in cutting and pasting a quote or two into this discussion, not for purposes of reading the entire book. Thank you!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13v2...ew?usp=sharing

What trips your trigger, strikes your fancy, inspires and makes your day? Try to say why it does so for you. (You can also feel free to disagree with Ol' Kodo too, but be prepared to say why!)

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[paulashby]

Page 104: So, I fill the entire universe. I'm not that fool playing with his pocket
change.

Reflection:
The sages of Vedanta point upward and proclaim-I am THAT.
That in my perception is a thing that is out there or over there.
It feels separate and distant. It is That not THIS.
Kodo reminds me I am THIS.
Not this person,thing,animal or mineral...THIS.
Look at Raphael's School of Athens.
Plato points up up to affirm some up there THAT.
Aristotle is not some fool playing with pocket change- he pulls his hand
out of his pocket and spreads his fingers in every direction...
We are THIS.
Peace,Paul SATLAH ANANDA

[Tairin]

If you have "mind," you always have something to complain about. If you have "no mind," you have no mind of compassion either.
Don't have either mind or non-mind. That's difficult. That means thinking from the depths of non-thinking
What's called "beyond thinking" is something so vast it can entirely contain mind as well as non-mind.

Mind blown.

Religion isn’t an idea. It’s a practice.

I keep coming back to quotes like this one.

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." When you put it into words you impose a sequence onto it. When you say it aloud, one comes after the other. In reality it's simultaneous. "In reality" means in the practice.

I thought this was interesting and I didn’t realize until I read this that when I recite this in the Heart Sutra I treat emptiness and form as two separate things.

Buddhism is difficult because it teaches something that can't be explained.

Yes! I think this is why it has to be practiced and lived.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Tai Do]

Like Tairin, I also found this quote very meaningful and personal:

Religion isn’t an idea. It’s practice.

I link it with these three:

Don’t get lost in thoughts about the buddha-dharma.

And

There’s nothing more phony than teaching Buddhism without any real practice.
However, when you see the sutras as a symbolic expression of the practice, then
there’s no art form that’s quieter and more transparent.

And

Many confuse faith with a type of intoxication. Faith means, however, just the opposite is complete sobriety from any form of intoxication.

We put ourselves into all sorts of intellectual problems and contradictions when we try to understand Buddhism in terms of a doctrine and its dogmas that have to be believed. The complexity of theory is on sharp contrast with the simplicity of practice.

Gassho,
Mateus
Satlah

[Heikyo]

There were lots of good quotes in chapter 27 about non-self and oneness with the universe.

You can’t hold on to your self. The very moment you give your self up, you realize the self which is one with the universe.

When a drop of water enters the sea, and when a speck of dust settles on the ground, then that drop is already the sea, and that speck of dust is already the earth.

All things are contained in my self. That’s why, in my actions, I also have to pay attention to what others think.

As a scientist myself, I really liked this one from chapter 28:

What an experiment is for scientists is what real practice is for us. In the same way that science is meaningless without experiments, Buddhism is meaningless without practice.

Gassho
Paul
Sat today, LAH

[ZenKen]

Faith means having faith that you are the entire universe, regardless of whether your intellect happens to find that convincing or not. Only this faith can support the religious effort that never tires.

This one struck me hardest out of all them. It feels to me that it is the heart and essence of Buddhism - the idea of interconnectedness is one thing, the abstract conception of it, but this really sums up how vast and difficult and wonderful and terrible that concept is. Can my intellect understand/believe it? Most of the time, no. But when I do get that sense of overwhelming connection, well, that's the thing, isn't it? Even as I strive not to attach to it, to let it go when it goes, those moments of understanding are a thing of beauty.

Gassho
Anna
sattoday