It’s the most important game on
our schedule because we’re playing
it. And everything we do is important.
-Mike Krzyzewski
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
Each practice is an opportunity. It is
an opportunity to get better, an
opportunity to make a breakthrough
and reach a new level.
-Jay Bilas
(excerpts from Toughness: Developing
True Strength On and Off the Court)
After a recent work-related ‘bother,’
the following passage found my light:
Though we think of ourselves as
always the same, we are remaking
ourselves every moment by what
we think, just as every tissue in the
body is in a constant state of repair
and change.
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
Usually, because of our samskaras,
we go on repairing the same old
shaky structures. But actually, just
as a samskara is built up through
repeated thought and word and
action, it can be unbuilt through
repeated thought and word and
action of the opposite kind.
Now see what this means in
practice. If someone provokes you
and you respond with anger, you
are actually making that samskara
stronger. It will then be that much
more disruptive in your future, and
that much more difficult to
overcome.
But look at the mystic’s attitude:
when you feel anger, that’s all the
more reason to be kind. It’s not
simply being kind to any particular
person. You’re being kinder to
yourself, because you’re undoing a
compulsion, taking one more step
toward being free.
-Eknath Easwaran
(from Like a Thousand Suns: the
Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living,
vol. 2”)
Ten pounds and a head of hair
Came into without a care
What they thought were cries
Were little laughs.
And i was happy to be alive
In a magic world.
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
Long days and dreaming nights
Wide eyes takin’n all the sights
A little wonder goes a long, long way.
Every moment’s built to last
In a magic world.
-Eels
(lyrics, “From Which I Came/Magic World”)
I am really, really tired.
-Jackie Chan
News:
a) The fitness center is closed
Monday for Memorial Day.
b) Brian will be out of town on Wed;
Erica will guest teach.
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Wed 7:00 PM – All levels – Erica
———————————————
. . . the eastern sea’s so blue . . .
-Alphaville
(lyrics, “Big In Japan”)
Ice water, flyswatter
Gonna get you through
The day.
-Eels
(lyrics, “Flyswatter”)
Zuikan was a Zen master who always
used to address himself.
“Zuikan?” he would call.
And then he would answer, “Yes!”
“Zuikan?”
“Yes!”
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
Of course he was living all alone in
his own zendo, and of course he
knew who he was, but sometimes
he ‘lost himself.’ And whenever that
was, he would address himself:
“Zuikan?” “Yes!”
-Shunryu Suzuki
(from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind)
Every kōan calls out to the essence
of mind. Know that under the mask,
you have a real and true face of your
own.
-Nyogen Senzaki
(in Eloquent Silence: Nyogen Senzaki’s
Gateless Gate and Other Previously
Unpublished Teachings and Letters)
Half of the poetry of life would be
gone, if we did not feel that life was
either a dream, or a voyage with
transient travelers, or merely a
stage in which the actors seldom
realized that they were playing parts.
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
Chuang-tzu said that he once
dreamed of being a butterfly, and
while he was in the dream, he felt
he could flutter his wings and
everything was real, but that on
waking up, he realized that he was
Chuang-tzu and Chuang-tzu was real.
Then he thought and wondered
which was really real, whether he
was really Chuang-tzu dreaming of
being a butterfly, or really a butterfly
dreaming of being Chuang-tzu.
The Chinese philosopher is one who
dreams with one eye open, who
views life with love and sweet irony.
Without extravagant assumptions,
he is seldom disappointed. In this
his spirit is emancipated.
-Lin Yutang
(in The Importance of Living)
The function of the overwhelming
majority of your artwork is simply to
teach you how to make the small
fraction of your artwork that soars.
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
. .
Each new piece of art enlarges
our reality. The world is not yet done.
-David Bayles and Ted Orland
(in Art & Fear: Observations On
the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking)
I have no particular talent. I am
merely inquisitive.
-Albert Einstein
We all try our best
in our busy, busy lives
to write poetry.
-motto of the Akita International
Haiku Network
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
As if they were stars,
enkianthus* has blossoms—
twinkling.
-Hidenori Hiruta
*enkianthus perulatus,
a.k.a. 満天星躑躅 (dōdantsutsuji)
Pics: http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/dodantsutsuji/Interesting
Congratulations!
Today is your [Earth] day.
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
And when things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.
-Dr. Seuss
(from Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
We are all worms, but I do believe
I am a glowworm.
-Winston Churchill
George Bernard Shaw once sent two
tickets to the opening night of one
of his plays to Winston Churchill—
with the following note:
Bring a friend, if you have one.
Churchill wrote back, returning the
two tickets and excusing himself as
he had a previous engagement.
He also attached the following:
Please send me two tickets for
the next night, if there is one.
One day Elder Monks Shen and
Ming visited the river Huai, and saw
a fisherman pulling in a net—from
which a carp escaped.
Shen said, “Brother Ming, look how
splendid the fish is! It’s just like a
skilled practitioner.”
Ming joined, “It is indeed. But how
come the fish didn’t avoid being
trapped in the net in the first place?
That would’ve been much better.”
Shen replied, “Brother Ming, there
is something keeping you from
enlightenment.”
At midnight Ming understood the
meaning of his conversation with
Shen.
-Dōgen Zenji
(from “Shen’s Fish and Net,”
kōan 124 in the Shinji Shōbōgenzō)
——–The Week’s Schedule——–
Mon 7:00 PM – All levels – Daniela
Wed 7:00 PM – Level 1/2 – Brian
——————————————–
If you know its music the moment
the violin strings begin to vibrate,
then you’ll navigate through life’s
forest of brambles with the freedom
of ease. If on the other hand, you
think that with practice the forest of
brambles will altogether disappear,
then right away from the beginning
you are hopelessly entangled.
The forest of brambles and en-
tanglements is itself the marvelous
mind of nirvana.
-John Daido Loori
(from The True Dharma Eye:
Zen Master Dōgen’s 300 Kōans)