The stubborn intellect can be crafty and tends to want “answers” and concepts to hold onto, and naturally, as students, we would appreciate a little help here. However, our idea of help and a true teacher’s is rarely the same.

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Making the Altruistic Vow…serves to focus on our intentions and purpose here and now. What have we committed to? What better time of year to contemplate this lofty vow than now?

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Constancy – it has a lovely ring to it and actually is similar to one of the paramitas in Buddhism. Seeking the right phrase or word to express any spiritual concept can be challenging.

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This piece is profoundly deep and vast in its scope. It’s as if all the true essentials of Buddhism and Zen are laid out right before us.

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Muso is touching on points we have covered many times over the years. It is so easy to fool ourselves with our understanding. Too often, there is confusion in thinking that knowing the meaning of a word equals the experience and manifestation of that principle.

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The ability to stay focused on a train of thought, a task that takes days to complete, or a conversation that goes beyond things right in front of us is becoming a lost art in our times.

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The sheer beauty and simplicity of this piece speak for itself. Especially now when the times seem so extreme, and we are overstimulated to react, to be able to pause and remember to practice always returns us to center.

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Depending on how long one has practiced, at some point, we all realize the dead end of intellectual understanding. That doesn’t mean there is no value in “words and letters.” What is criticized above is the substitution of meditation time with what can become the distraction of reading one more teacher’s instructions, one more sutra, and how about that new school of Zen?

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