Friday, March 6, 2015

CORE CURRICULUM


Impermanence
Be aware of the reality that life ends

Examine the nature of unborn awareness
Thoughts have no birthplace
Thoughts are unceasing
Thoughts are not solid

Don’t be swayed by external circumstances
Be grateful to everyone
Always maintain only a joyful mind
Always maintain only a joyful mind
Always maintain only a joyful mind 


The Well of Being is an illustrated inquiry into the pursuit of happiness, and what it means to be radically alive in our daily moments. It opens with an account of life's ultimate purpose as taught by Ramchal, an 18th Century Italian mystic. It concludes with a unique retelling of the puzzle we call growing up, and offers a refreshing and empowering way to rethink it.

The Well of Being by Jean Pierre Weill)
 ~*~

Take responsibility for yourself
You only find what you're looking for
If you're looking for trouble,
most likely you're going to find it
 Don’t misinterpret
Maintain awareness of the preciousness of human life.
 The Four practices are the best of methods
Don’t get caught up in how you will be in the future
 Stay in the present moment

~*~
One day Chao-chou fell down in the snow
He called out, “Help me up! Help me up!”
A monk came and lay down beside him
Chao-chou got up and went away
~*~

All Buddhist teachings are about lessening the ego
Lessen self-absorption
When the many are reduced to one,
to what is the one reduced?

~*~

Biographical Notes

(1940)
"Our Town" by Thornton Wilder
http://youtu.be/Y30j0UQZHhs


(1961)
Regard all dharma as dreams
Although experiences may seem solid,
they are passing memories
~*~

Source Material
 
Lojong was originally brought to Tibet by an Indian Buddhist teacher named Atisha.  It is a mind training practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and is based on a set of aphorisms formulated in Tibet in the 12th century by Geshe Chekhawa. The practice involves refining and purifying one’s motivations and attitudes.

6 comments:

jude said...

since we cannot but know now, we were never born and we will never die.

Mo Crow said...

that watercolour from the Well of Being by Jean Pierre Weil brought tom oind a favourite photo named "Flying Lesson" from
The Architect’s Brother by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison
http://parkeharrison.com/architect-s-brother/earth-elegies/356

Mo Crow said...

Thinking a lot about how we share ideas and their influence on art, Rebecca Solnit says it beautifully in "The Faraway Nearby" (pages 191-192)
"With practice you can pause the conversation in your head and around you, but exiting it is not an option; it is you; and if you're lucky you're it, participating in making this tangible and immaterial world around us and within you. You build yourself out of the materials at hand and those you seek out and choose, you build your beliefs, your alliances, your home though some of us have far more latitude than others in all those things. You digest an idea or an ethic as though it was bread, and like bread it becomes part of you. Out of all this comes your contribution to the making of the world, your sentences in the ongoing interchange. The tragedy of the imprisoned, the unemployed, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized is to be silenced in this great ongoing conversation, this symphony that is another way to describe the world."

Ms. said...

Jude says it complete.

Mo...I see the resemblance. Maybe the LINK will come through here: http://parkeharrison.com/architect-s-brother/earth-elegies

Ms. said...

No, I guess one just has to copy paste....you know if you go to the link I posted, there are more drawings from the book- The Well of Being is an illustrated inquiry into the pursuit of happiness, and what it means to be radically alive in our daily moments. It opens with an account of life's ultimate purpose as taught by Ramchal, an 18th Century Italian mystic. It concludes with a unique retelling of the puzzle we call growing up, and offers a refreshing and empowering way to rethink it.

grace Forrest~Maestas said...

Jude's comment...Nisargadatta
same