Zen-a-day - Oct 4

Saturday 4 October 2008
I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through me whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, it brevity illusory - this new sensation has had on me the effect which love has on filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to fell mediocre, accidental, mortal.
- Marcel Proust

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Wednesday 20 August 2008
Monk: "What is the greatest obstacle to enlightenment?"
The Buddha: "Laziness!"

Thursday 21 August 2008
A newly arrived monk was anxious to learn the truth of Zen, and said to the Master: "I have been initiated into the brotherhood. Will you be so kind as to show me the way to Zen?"
The Master said: "Do you hear the murmuring sounds of the mountain stream?"
The monk said: "Yes, I do."
"There is the entrance," said the Master.
- Zen mondo