Mudra

''It is easy to theorise and talk eloquently about the Void, but the meditator may still be unable to deal with certain situations. In a Maha Ati text it is said:

'Temporary realisation is like a mist which will surely disappear.'

Meditators who have not studied these dangers will never derive any benefit from being in strict retreat or forcibly restraining the mind, nor from visualizing, reciting mantras or practicing Hathayoga.''

(From the same book by Chogyam Trungpa)

Κάιζεν

''Η λέξη 'Κάιζεν' είναι ουσιαστικό στα ιαπωνικά και σημαίνει βελτίωση, είτε μεγάλη είτε μικρή, μεμονωμένη ή διαρκή. 

 Χρησιμοποιείται συχνά στις πολεμικές τέχνες, όπου ενδείκνυται η ιδέα της βελτίωσης ενός συγκεκριμένου τμή-ματος της τεχνικής με τρόπο σταδιακό και σχολαστικό. Η φιλοσοφία του Κάιζεν εκφράζει τη συνάντηση Ανατολής και Δύσης, αφού στην πραγματικότητα γεννήθηκε στις ΗΠΑ και κατόπιν μεταφέρθηκε με μεγάλη επιτυχία στην Ιαπωνία μετά το Β' Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο.''

(''ΚΑΙΖΕΝ, Μικρά βήματα, Μεγάλοι Στόχοι'' της Σάρα Χάρβει,

εκδόσεις ΤΕΧΝΗ ΖΩΗΣ 2017)

Fear as a Guest

DIMITRI: Michael, goodbye to the old fears, welcome to new ones?

HUGHES: Then ask fear in for a cup of coffee.

... old roads like this

 I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. The wind, even at sixty miles an hour, is warm and humid. When it's this hot and muggy at eightthirty, I'm wondering what it's going to be like in the afternoon.

 In the wind are pungent odors from the marshes by the road. We are in an area of the Central Plains filled with thousands of duck hunting sloughs, heading northwest from Minneapolis toward the Dakotas. This highway is an old concrete two-laner that hasn't had much traffic since a four-laner went in parallel to it several years ago. When we pass a marsh the air suddenly becomes cooler. Then, when we are past, it suddenly warms up again.

 I'm happy to be riding back into this country. It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that. Tensions disappear along old roads like this. We bump along the beat-up concrete between the cattails and stretches of meadow and then more cattails and marsh grass. 

(from Robert M. Pirsig's  ''ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE'')

Bull of Dharma

'' From Vishnu's chest rose a bull. ''Behold the bull of dharma. Love, truth, discipline and compassion are its four limbs. So long as it stands upright, the world will survive,'' said the lord. Brahma revealed, ''Every time this bull of dharma loses a leg, an age will come to an end. The first age to come to an end will be the age of perfection, Krita-yuga. After this will come Treta and Dvapara yugas, periods of increasing corruption. Finally, when the bull stands on only foot will be the age of Kali, the age of materialism and spiritual blindness, at the end of which the floods of doom will engulf the earth.'' ''

(''VISHNU, An Intoduction'' by Devdutt Pattanaik. 

Mumbai 1998) 

The Bon Religion

''As many scholars have long noticed, Bon is one of the basic cultural strata of Tibet, without which a well-balanced 

understanding of Tibet cannot be expected.

 Unfortunately, however the study of Bon culture has lagged far behind that of Buddhism. Although several outstanding 

studies have been published in Europe, far fewer re-searchers have been engaged in the study of Bon than in the study of Buddhism.''

from ''Mandalas of the Bon Religion''. Edited by Tenzin Namdak, Yasuhiko Nagano and Musashi Tachikawa, Japan 2000

Heaven and Hell

I planted roses, but without you they were thorns.

I hatched peacock eggs. Snakes were inside.

Played the harp, sour music.

I went to the eighth heaven. It was the lowest hell.

from the ''QUATRAINS OF RUMI'' by Jelaluddin Rumi, Threshold Books 1988