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"...if we never let our mind attach to anything, we shall gain liberation."

Hui Neng
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"Since the mind is nonexistent, wherever you are, you are emancipated."

Lin Chi
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"Whatever you attend to becomes your reality."

William James
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"If one has true awakening and attains to the fundamental, then at that time that person knows for himself that cultivation and non-cultivation are just dualistic opposites. Like now, though the initial inspiration is dependent on conditions, if within a single thought one awakens to one's own reality, there are still certain habitual tendencies that have accumulated over numberless kalpas which cannot be purified in a single instant. That person should certainly be taught how to gradually remove the karmic tendencies and mental habits: this is cultivation. There is no other method of cultivation that need be taught to that person."

Pai Chang
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"If one considers the emphasis on meditation in the nondualist Asian traditions, one might conclude that the act of thinking is nothing but an interference that distorts reality; therefore we should strive to eliminate or minimize it. But this inference would be just as wrong as believing that sense-perception or physical activity must be 'transcended'. None of these should be rejected, but their actual nature must be realized."

David Loy
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Patterns of consciousness are always known by pure awareness, their ultimate, unchanging witness.

Consciousness is seen not by its own light but by awareness.

Patanjali
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"If each link of pratitya-samutpada is a trace of all the others, if each jewel in Indra's Net mutually conditions and is conditioned by all the other jewels, then to become completely groundless is also to become completely grounded, not in some particular but in the whole web of interdependent relations. The supreme irony of my struggle to ground myself is that it cannot succeed because I am already grounded in the totality. Or, better: as the totality."

David Loy
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"Now that the ocean of birth and death had turned into the ocean of knowledge, Sudhana had found the way of ascent and rested peacefully in patience, not deluded by the bedevilments of birth and death."

Li Tongxuan, on the Gandavyuha Sutra
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"...all phenomena are empty: just as it was explained with regard to the five aggregates, one should also know that all mundane and supramundane phenomena, from the six senses to the knower of all phenomena, are emptiness."

Jnanamitra, on the Heart Sutra
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"Truth cannot be reached through name and form, nor understood by consciousness."

Seng Chao
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And see Kathleen's post for today.

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I bow before the sun of Truth,
Which is neither being nor non-being,
Nor both being and non-being,
And neither diferent from being nor from non-being;
Which cannot be speculated upon and is beyond explanation,
But is revealed only by introspection and is peace;
And destroys craving, aversion, and delusion
with respect to objects of cognition.

Ratnagotravibhaga
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"You can talk about God; you can discuss God; you can even decide to change the image of God; or you can make up more synonyms for God; but all this is in the realm of toys, an intellectual game. Actually, it is a form of idolatry because it is the making of graven images, only instead of being made of gold, wood, or stone, these images are built out of the substance of thought. So one concept of God is exchanged for another concept of God, and what you end up with is not God but merely your concept of God, your thought about God.
"You can see why spiritual practice cannot be fruitful as long as it is addressed to a thought about Truth, an image of God, or a concept of the Absolute. What possible difference could it make if your concept is Jewish, Vedantic, Muslim, Buddhist, or Christian, as long as all you have is a concept?"

Joel Goldsmith
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Comes from nowhere,
Goes nowhere.

Now here.

Never born,
Never dies.
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Love is seeing all equally.
Wisdom is seeing all equally.
Love and wisdom are not different.
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"Judgment and love are opposites."

A Course In Miracles
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"What can be remembered and forgotten is not you. The remembering and forgetting [who we really are] appears on the knowing. You wouldn't be able to remember and forget if the knowing wasn't there. So, the knowing is there but is seemingly obstructed by the clouds [of delusion]."

Bob Adamson
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"That which, taken as causal or dependent, is samsara, the process of birth and death, is, taken non-causally and beyond all dependence, declared to be nirvana."

Nagarjuna
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From the Lankavatara Sutra again:

"When the external world is not grasped as real there is neither causation nor reality; there is the essence of suchness, which is the realm of the wise."
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"Thusness devoid of mind,
Not a thing, and also not a non-thing..."

Lankavatara Sutra
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"Every fear is fear of death."

William Stekel
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Slow down.
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You say you don't get it.
Who is it that knows that you don't get it?
That is who you are.
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An old pine preaches wisdom.
A wild bird is crying the truth.

Zenrin
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"If one has an insight into the nature of one's own being, one will understand the truth in whatever way it is presented either affirmatively or negatively. One knows how not to get attached to either side since one has grasped the principle of things as they move on. But one of no such spiritual insight is attached to this and that when reference is made to either of them."

Hui Hai
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Dependent Origination

Forward Order

Dependent on ignorance, reaction (conditioning) arises;
Dependent on reaction (conditioning), consciousness arises;
Dependent on consciousness, mind-body arise;
Dependent on mind-body, the six senses arise;
Dependent on the six senses, contact arises;
Dependent on contact, sensation arises;
Dependent on sensation craving and aversion arise ;
Dependent on craving and aversion, clinging arises ;
Dependent on clinging, the process of becoming arises ;
Dependent on the process of becoming, birth arises;
Dependent on the base of birth, ageing and death arise,
together with sorrow, lamentation, physical and mental sufferings and tribulations.

Thus arises this entire mass of suffering.

Reverse Order

With the complete eradication and cessation of ignorance, reaction (conditioning) ceases;
with the cessation of reaction (conditioning), consciousness ceases;
with the cessation of consciousness, mind-body cease;
with the cessation of mind-body, the six senses cease;
with the cessation of the six senses, contact ceases;
with the cessation of contact, seansation ceases;
with the cessation of sensation, craving and aversion cease;
with the cessation of craving and aversion, clinging ceases;
with the cessation of clinging, the process of becoming ceases;
with the cessation of the process of becoming, birth ceases;
with the cessation of birth, ageing and death cease, together
with sorrow, lamentation, physical and mental sufferings and tribulations.

Thus this entire mass of suffering ceases.
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Realize that whatever arises is the display of the absolute,
The primordial nature, unbroken simplicity.
If you don't cling, whatever arises is naturally freed.
Simply remain in the great equal taste, without rejecting or accepting.

Childish sentient beings, not knowing this,
Treat phenomena as if they were solid and real;
Thus begins a chain of attractions and aversions,
And the great sufferings of existence--a nonexistent masquerade!

The powerful roots are
Ignorance and taking beings and phenomena to exist truly;
Conditioned existence comes about
From getting used to those things.

Nothing to illuminate,
Nothing to eliminate,
Looking perfectly at perfection itself,
Seeing perfection, one is perfectly free.

Shechen Gyaltsap
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"How does one attain this quality of love? Anything you do will only make it forced, cultivated and therefore phony, for love cannot be forced. There is nothing you can do. But there is something you can drop. Observe the marvelous change that comes over you the moment you stop seeing people as good or bad, ...and begin to see them as unaware and ignorant."

Anthony de Mello
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