Thursday, February 15, 2007

Great Wisdom in Short Sentences

      • The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
      • The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
Perhaps it's the ice that is covering my wee house -- courtesy of a massive snow storm that flew up the East Coast over the past few days. Perhaps that is why today I feel sharper, more focused on words and their meanings. Then again, maybe it's only my love of brevity that attracts me to the economy of wisdom of the above one-liners I found on the Mindful Living blog.

They are quotes from Atisha, an 11th century monk who turned his back on a life of luxury (like the Buddha) to become a master of the teachings of Mahayana, Hinayana and Vajrayana Buddhism.

Reading up on this guy, I found it interesting that, even after great training and studying and becoming a monk, he still yearned for the fastest and most direct means of attaining perfect enlightenment. How delightfully human! Could that be the reason for his simple--yet profound--sayings?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you, for both the mention and the corresponding link.

I, too, love the great wisdom in these tiny sentences.

I have been for another long walk earlier today, during which I walked with Rebecca for a while, and the two of us with an older gentleman whom we joined up with and who had spent his whole life in our village and could, thus, speak to the history of the fields which is largely lost (in human terms), and, then, spent time alone in Bodhidharma.

Realizations came to me which Atisha's words say well, succinctly.

Thank you, Don.

Sean

RennyBA said...

What a great and wisdom read - thanks for sharing. I know you've had real winter weather as my wife is from upstate NY you know. In Norway it's just above freezing again. I don't like that at this time of the year.
Wishing you a lovely end to your week:-)

Photography said...

hello, advance happy chinese new year. thanks for the beautiful and enlightening reading. it brought me back to the track.

Unknown said...

:) Mind letting go is quite hard with everything that is going on around. I hope that I can do this too.

Thanks for the inspiration...

Just a human said...

thanks all for your wonderful comments -- means that there are lots of wise folks out there!