Tag: Prayer
-
38. An Oak Tree in the Garden
A monk asked Joshu why Bodhidharma came to China.Joshu said: “An oak tree in the garden.”
Words cannot describe everything.
The heart’s message cannot be delivered in words.
If one receives words literally, he will be lost,
If he tries to explain with words, he will not attain enlightenment in this life. -
Six of Swords
passed through a stormy or difficult time recuperate, and consider the difficulties which have arisen around us. pressure has eased, make new decisions for our future. greater objectivity, clarity and new perspectives healthy balance between the emotions and the intellect, a family sits in a small boat, which is being poled across a river by the father of the family.
-
37. A Buffalo Passes Through the Enclosure
Goso said: “When a buffalo goes out of his enclosure to the edge of the abyss, his horns and his head and his hoofs all pass through, but why can’t the tail also pass?”
Mumon’s comment: If anyone can open one eye at this point and say a word of Zen, he is qualified to repay the four gratifications, and, not only that, he can save all sentient beings under him. But if he cannot say such a word of true Zen, he should turn back to his tail.
If the buffalo runs, he will fall into the trench;
If he returns, he will be butchered.
That little tailIs a very strange thing.
-
Red Book 4
The supreme meaning is not a meaning and not an absurdity, it is image and force in one, magnificence and force together.
-
[SPEX6]
Sixth Annotation. The sixth: When he who is sees that no spiritual movements, such as consolations or desolations, come to the soul of him who is exercising himself, and that he is not moved by different spirits, he ought to inquire carefully of him about the Exercises, whether he does them at their appointed times, and how.
.So too of the Additions, whether he observes them with diligence.
-
[SPEX5]
Fifth Annotation.
The fifth: It is very helpful to him who is receiving the Exercises to enter into them with great courage and generosity towards his Creator and Lord, offering Him all his will and liberty, that His Divine Majesty may make use of his person and of all he has according to His most Holy Will.
-
Red Book 2
The spirit of the depths took my understanding and all my knowledge and placed them at the service of the inexplicable and the paradoxical.
He robbed me of speech and writing for everything that was not in his service, namely the melting together of sense and nonsense, which produces the supreme meaning.
-
36. Meeting a Zen Master on the Road
Goso said: “When you meet a Zen master on the road you cannot talk to him, you cannot face him with silence. What are you going to do?”
Mumon’s comment: In such a case, if you can answer him intimately, your realization will be beautiful, but if you cannot, you should look about without seeing anything.
Meeting a Zen master on the road,Face him neither with words nor silence.Give him an uppercutAnd you will be called one who understands Zen
.
-
[SPEX4]
Fourth Annotation.
The fourth: The following Exercises are divided into four parts: First, the consideration and contemplation on the sins; Second, the life of Christ our Lord up to Palm Sunday inclusively; Third, the Passion of Christ our Lord; Fourth, the Resurrection and Ascension, with the three Methods of Prayer.
Though four weeks, to correspond to this division, are spent in the Exercises, it is not to be understood that each Week has, of necessity, seven or eight days.For, as it happens that in the First Week some are slower to find what they seek — namely, contrition, sorrow and tears for their sins — and in the same way some are more diligent than others, and more acted on or tried by different spirits; it is necessary sometimes to shorten the Week, and at other times to lengthen it.
The same is true of all the other subsequent Weeks, seeking out the things according to the subject matter.
However, the Exercises will be finished in thirty days, a little more or less.
David Given Schwarm 
