Ready

by 10k films on February 29th, 2012

Ten-thousand teachings
Settle to the bottom of my cup
The tea is ready
- Gu Shen Yu

The Song of the Strange Ascetic – Gilbert Keith Chesterton

by 10k films on February 27th, 2012

If I had been a Heathen,
I’d have praised the purple vine,
My slaves should dig the vineyards,
And I would drink the wine.
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And his slaves grow lean and grey,
That he may drink some tepid milk
Exactly twice a day.

If I had been a Heathen,
I’d have crowned Neaera’s curls,
And filled my life with love affairs,
My house with dancing girls;
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And to lecture rooms is forced,
Where his aunts, who are not married,
Demand to be divorced.

If I had been a Heathen,
I’d have sent my armies forth,
And dragged behind my chariots
The Chieftains of the North.
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And he drives the dreary quill,
To lend the poor that funny cash
That makes them poorer still.

If I had been a Heathen,
I’d have piled my pyre on high,
And in a great red whirlwind
Gone roaring to the sky;
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And a richer man than I:
And they put him in an oven,
Just as if he were a pie.

Now who that runs can read it,
The riddle that I write,
Of why this poor old sinner,
Should sin without delight-
But I, I cannot read it
(Although I run and run),
Of them that do not have the faith,
And will not have the fun.

Anandamayi Ma

by 10k films on February 13th, 2012

“Whatever comes to pass is all right” (ja hoya jay) — Anandamayi Ma

Music: Lata S. Patel- Jaya Jaya Ma (Thanks A.M.)

“Who is it that loves and who that suffers? He alone stages a play with Himself; who exists save Him? The individual suffers because he perceives duality. It is duality which causes all sorrow and grief. Find the One everywhere and in everything and there will be an end to pain and suffering.” – Anandamayi Ma

Birth of a Star

by 10k films on February 10th, 2012

Thanks M.K.

Mu

by 10k films on February 6th, 2012

Mu (無) (in Japanese/Korean) or Wu (simplified Chinese: 无; traditional Chinese: 無; Mandarin Pinyin: wú; Jyutping: mou2), is a word which has been translated variously as “not”, “nothing”, “without”, “nothingness”, “non existent”, “non being”, or evocatively simply as “no thing”.

“No.”

by 10k films on February 4th, 2012

“A monk asked Zhaozhou: “Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?”  Zhaozhou said: “No.” (Mu) This word No is not the No of existence and non-existence.  It is not the No of true nothingness.  Ultimately, what is it?

When you arrive here, you must abandon all with your whole body, not doing anything, not doing not-doing-anything.  Go straight to the empty and free and vast, with no pondering what to think.  The previous thought is already extinct, the following thought does not arise, the present thought is itself empty.  You do not hold to emptiness, and you forget you are not holding on.  You do not reify this forgetting: you escape from not reifying and the escape too is not kept.  When you reach such a time, there’s just a spiritual light that’s clearly aware and totally still, appearing as a lofty presence.

Do not wrongly give birth to interpretations: just bring up the meditation saying twenty-four hours a day, whatever you are doing.  Do not be oblivious of it for a moment: diligently come to grips with it and study it in fine detail.  If you keep studying like this, pulling it back and forth, when you reach the proper time, you better look back most carefully and see what Zhaozhou’s No means.  When you are [unable to turn back] like a rat going into a [hollow] horn, then views are cut off.

When those of sharp faculties get here, they empty through and smash the lacquer bucket [of ignorance] and capture and defeat Zhaozhou.  They have no more doubts about the sayings of the world’s [enlightened] people.

Even if you are awakened like this, do not speak of it in front of people without wisdom.  You must go see a legitimate teacher of the school.”

[A Buddha from Korea: The Zen Teachings of T’aego, translated by J. C. Cleary. Teaching No. 15 is on pp. 106–107.] See also the 10k film: “Master T’aego Addresses the Great Assembly of Dragons and Elephants“