Tag: dailysuccesshabits
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Sitting with Buddha and Fixing my House
Two years ago, I bought an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. I was tired of the noise and congestion of city life, and I wanted to be closer to nature. More than that, I wanted to use the skills I’d learned by apprenticing on organic farms across the country. I wanted to build…
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Love the Fight
No one ever talks about the connection between homesteading and crisis management. If one goes to Instagram and searches for #homesteadlife or #hobbyfarm, they’ll be greeted with pictures of happy chickens, well-groomed garden beds, and barns that look like they came from a magazine. The message is that growing food and caring for animals is…
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Living a Holy Life
In the meditation hall, I have an altar dedicated to Amida Buddha and the bodhisattvas Kannon and Jizo. It contains three statues, which bear their respective images along with candles and an incense burner. The statues are of good quality, but they aren’t that different from other figurines. They’re white, standing approximately six inches tall.…
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92. Keep A Not Moving Center
You must silence the constant stream of mental chatter. “It is hard toconceptualize, no less experience an openness of mind in the midst of thisconstant internal chatter.” Guo Gu Poet Ryokan also famously said, “There is nothing better than saying nothing.” Itis both possible and actually preferable to teach others simply by a calmpresence. Speak…
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91. Zen Phrases
1.) The test of zen is to find that still point within, even in the midst of chaos.2.) Hakuin Zenji taught: Find the silence which contains thoughts.3.) The ego is a fabricated illusion4.) People are afraid to empty their minds fearing that they will be engulfed by the void.What they don’t realize is their own…
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Letting Go of Minimalism
As a younger man, I prided myself on being a minimalist. I never owned more possessions that what I could fit into a duffel bag. I did my best to avoid clothing purchases; choosing to make due with the free t-shirts that were passed out at college fairs and job recruitment events. When I finally…
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Rolling in the Grass
As I write this, it feels like hundreds of ants are biting my arms and legs. I have a grass allergy, and prolonged exposure results in itching and small bumps appearing on my skin. It’s been this way my whole life. When I was a child I loved playing outdoors with my friends. We spent…
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possession
I had just turned 17 when my older sister and I went to see a movie that had taken the public by storm. It was called “The Exorcist,” and it was based on a bestselling book by the same name. Since at least half of the world’s current population wasn’t born by 1974, you might…
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goodness and mercy
A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. — Luke 6:44-46 The other day I was working the New York Times crossword when one of…
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The perfection of character
“The practice of Zen,” declared Yamada Koun Roshi (1907-1989), “is the perfection of character.” To those accustomed to thinking of Zen as a means of “living in the present” or relieving stress, that stark pronouncement may come as a surprise. In any event, it merits and rewards a closer look. To begin with, Yamada Roshi…
