Laat het verleden verdorren en
maak je geen zorgen meer om de toekomst,
wanneer je je aan niets meer vastklampt,
zul je in vrede leven.
Sutta Nipata
zen, kunst en vrede
Zen Brush Mind is een portet van zenmeester, schilder, kalligraaf, schrijver, vertaler en vredesactivist Kazuaki Tanahashi. De film van Babeth M. VanLoo onderzoekt de drijfveren achter zijn internationale activisme en zijn dialoog tussen Oost en West.
what kind of mind are we living in?
we live in our mind
we take our mind with us everywhere
even in our sleep we cannot leave it behind
how we live in our mind is up to us
You have this country and you try to make it a pleasant place for you to live in, you grow trees and you keep it clean. And you have your homes, your rooms, which you keep clean, decorate, try to make it a pleasing environment. And we have our bodies, which we keep clean, we eat the right food, excercise and we try to make ourselves look attractive, keep healthy and fit. But the place we really live, is in our mind. And how much time and effort do we give to making our mind a pleasant place in which to dwell? To cleaning it, to opening up the windows to let some fresh air in, to decorate it beautifully, to make it a fit place to stay so that we live in our mind comfortably and we are at home in our mind, so that our mind is a friend to us.
This is very important because if we don’t have a peaceful friendly mind its very hard to be peaceful and friendly to our families, in our workplace, with our neighbours and in the country and from there to the world.
The kind of society we have reflects the mind of the people living in that society. So each one of us is culpable of the society we live in. Who made the rules? Who elected the politicians who made the rules? Who goes along with the rules that have been made? Each of us is responsible. We cannot just put the blame on other people, each one of us has the responsibility to develop our selves, our minds, to open up our heart.
So often people feel quite helpless and hopeless: what can I do, I am just one? But each of us is not sealed in a bubble, each one of us is constantly interacting with other beings; and even on that level how much time do we spend each day trying to make each other happy? Our colleages, our family, the peolpe we meet? Are we kind? Is our speech kind? Do we make people feel better for having matters or worse? If a society is full of people who are kind to each other, all other, then that is a very different society from one where people disregard each other, where people speak rudely to each other or despise each other.
op het schoolplein
verlicht huishouden
Happiness needs things, so she [Dhammā] wasn’t happy. At first she had thought being happy was what she’d heeded and could never have. But to her surprise, her slow and growing and then vast surprise, she found that she didn’t need to be happy. Enlightenment, which is tranquility itself, isn’t happiness. Her housework and chores became the rules by which she governed her life. Step by step, she turned ownership into austerity. She examined her mind carefully and slowly, slowly, turned complexity into unity, too many choices and decisions into discipline. Her life was often tedious, so she worked at turning boredom into concentration. When she secretly resented her husband, she tried to turn the anger into energy and strength. When she was envious of others, she worked at turning it into generosity. When Dhammā stopped trying to be happy, stopped needing to have nothing to need, she found herself relaxing into peace. She found herself not happy but completely at peace.
Sally Tisdale
laten wij toch gelukkig leven
Laten wij toch gelukkig leven,
niet hatend onder hen die haten,
laten wij niet hatend wonen,
onder mensen die haten.
…
Laten wij toch gelukkig leven,
rustig onder de rustelozen,
laten wij heel rustig wonen,
onder mensen die rusteloos zijn.
…
De overwinnaar roept haat op,
de verliezer is gedompeld in leed,
de vredige voelt zich gelukkig,
overwinning en nederlaag opgevend.
Dhammapada
meditatie
“Meditatie helpt de balans terug te brengen tussen zijn en doen. Mediteren houdt in dat we tijd nemen om niet te focussen op de materiële buitenwereld (van o.a. bezit en macht), maar juist om terug te keren naar onze binnenwereld. We kunnen ons dan realiseren wie we zijn en wat we hebben: onze eigen spirituele schoonheid, ons natuurlijk bewustzijn van de waarheid en onze oorspronkelijke vredige natuur. Daarnaast herontdekken we onze twee grootste behoeften: liefde en vreugde.
Door te mediteren worden we ons ervan bewust dat we geen fysieke wezens zijn die sporadisch spirituele ervaringen hebben, maar dat we in essentie spirituele wezens zijn die fysieke ervaringen hebben.
Meditatie schijnt licht op een van de grootste paradoxen in het leven: we hebben al wat we nodig hebben en wat we zoeken. In ons diepste wezen wacht ons vrede, liefde en vreugde.”
Mike George