Daily Archives: April 20, 2012

destiny of thoughts

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Watch your thoughts…. they become words.

Watch your words…… they become actions.

Watch your actions ….they become habits. 

Watch your habits…… they become character. 

Watch your character….. it becomes your destiny.

Lao Tzu (570-490 BC).

The Sound of One Hand

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Ancient Words of Wisdom

Zen Stories

Zen

The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protégé named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master’s room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidence in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.

Toyo wished to do sanzen also.

“Wait a while,” said Mokurai. “You are too young.”

But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.

In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai’s sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.

“You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together,” said Mokurai. “Now show me the sound of one hand.”

Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From his window he could hear the music of the geishas. “Ah, I have it!” he proclaimed.

The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.

“No, no,” said Mokurai. “That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You’ve not got it at all.”

Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. “What can the sound of one hand be?” He happened to hear some water dripping. “I have it,” imagined Toyo.

When he next appeared before his teacher, he imitated dripping water.

“What is that?” asked Mokurai. “That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again.”

In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind. But the sound was rejected.

He heard the cry of an owl. This was also refused.

The sound of one hand was not the locusts.

For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year he pondered what the sound of one hand might be.

At last Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. “I could collect no more,” he explained later, “so I reached the soundless sound.”

Toyo had realized the sound of one hand.

Epilogue …… Body is in the horizontal dimension of time so for sound needs clapping of two hands but soul is in the vertical dimension of timeless so sound of one hand …. the soundless sound ….. only awareness ….that is enlightenment ….the conversation with God .

freedom from all thinking…..

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Good and God’s morning …… Enlightenment is freedom from all thinking…..there is so much talk on positive thinking and it is made to understand that it is just opposite to negative thinking …..

so freedom from thinking has to be both kind of thinking ….positive as well as negative ….

as light and darkness are complimentary to each other so is positive and negative thinking ….. so today we will understand what is thinking ? …. what is positive and negative thinking ?….and then how to think scientifically ? and at last how to have freedom ?

today is Friday …..and my date to update my facebook page and wordpress blog …… 
Enlightenment = conversations with God…… and links are ….

https://www.facebook.com/ram05ram

http://ram05ram.wordpress.com/

so one can read all previous post on above links and before we start thinking let us think first and see how beautifully….. God has added one more day in our life…….life is a celebrations of everyday as birthday….Happy Birthday to everyone …….with all the good wishes and greetings …..

love all

(c) ram0ram ……. freedom to right copy and share