Month: December 2020
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Learning How To Not Get Caught Anymore With One’s Pants Down
If we don’t meditate and do so consistently and deeply, then we probably won’t know ourselves. Instead, we’ll catch ourselves well after something has happened or after our “programming” or “conditioning” has already has its way with us. We’ve already booked the flights to Bali and said goodbye to the woman we weren’t sure about…
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There Is Always Something For The One For Whom There Is Always Something
A medical doctor, who has been enlisted in the Army, is currently stationed somewhere in the Middle East. We philosophized this morning. He’s been away from his wife, also a medical doctor, and young child. Anxiety has arisen (when will he be home? how can he live this way, given that things are not within…
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Traces Or Kenosis?
In Faith in Mind: A Commentary on Seng Ts’an’s Classic, Chan master Sheng Yen writes: After a bird has flown from one tree to another, what trace did it leave in the air? Again, when you stand in front of a mirror, you see your image reflected in it. But after you have gone, what is…
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From Scattered Mind To No Mind
About the Chan path, Chan master Sheng Yen writes: The practice of Ch’an should progress in this sequence: scattered mind, simple mind, one mind, no mind. First we gather our scattered thoughts into a more concentrated, or simple, state of mind. From this concentrated state we can enter the mind of unity. Finally, we leap…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 