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Quotations on:
Being Busy
Something is missing in our lives and we don't quite know what it is, but we
keep looking and looking To find this missing part. We can look for it in terms
of possessions, we can look for it in terms of the form of our body, trying
to change it through dieting or hair style or whatever. You can look in terms
of friends. Anything. And this keeps us very, very busy. Sometimes the busyness
can be very exhausting, but when we stop then we feel lonely. So we get busy
again. Dharma is very helpful here if you want distraction because there are
many kinds of ways to be busy in the dharma. You can focus on having lots of
dharma possessions. You can focus on learning the text by heart, on the mantras
and mudras, on serving the tsog, on doing meditations. There is always something
to be busy with.
Being Right Here: A Dzogchen Treasure Text of Nuden Dorje entitled "The
Mirror of Clear Meaning"
Some people feel patience is showing weakness or pessimism.
But, actually, patience shows the strength and clarity of mind,
which are based on wisdom and compassion.
Without proper wisdom and compassion, one cannot practice patience
.Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche
His Holiness the Dalai Lama |
One can be deceived by three types of laziness:
of indolence, which is the wish to procrastinate;
the laziness of inferiority, which is doubting your capabilities;
and the laziness that is attachment to negative actions, or putting
great effort into non-virtue. |
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How many of us are swept away by what I have come to call an “active laziness”? Naturally there are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea and gossiping with friends.
Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time left to confront the real issues.
If we look into our lives, we will see clearly how many unimportant tasks, so-called “responsibilities” accumulate to fill them up. One master compares them to “housekeeping in a dream.” We tell ourselves we want to spend time on the important things of life, but there never is any time.
Helpless, we watch our days fill up with telephone calls and petty projects, with so many responsibilities—or should we call them “irresponsibilities”?
Naturally there are different species of laziness:
Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practised
in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing
nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking
cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio,
and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different.
It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so
there is no time at all to confront the real issues. This form
of laziness lies in our failure to choose worthwhile applications
for our energy.
Tibetan
book of living and dying'
We are so addicted to looking outside ourselves that
we have lost access to our inner being almost completely. We
are terrified to look inward, because our culture has given
us no idea of what we will find. We may even think that if we
do, we will be in danger of madness. This is one of the last
and most resourceful ploys of ego to prevent us from discovering
our real nature.
So we make our lives so hectic that we eliminate the slightest
risk of looking into ourselves. Even the idea of meditation
can scare people. When they hear the words egoless or emptiness,
they think that experiencing those states will be like being
thrown out the door of a spaceship to float forever in a dark,
chilling void. Nothing could be further from the truth. But
in a world dedicated to distraction, silence and stillness terrify
us; we protect ourselves from them with noise and frantic busyness.
Looking into the nature of our mind is the last thing we would
dare to do." |
Last
updated:
May 30, 2009
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