Notes: Accidental Buddhist

by Dinty Moore.

• It is easier, more efficient, to chop onions when you are only chopping onions, not conversing, checking up on the rest of the kitchen, answering the phone, etc.
• Tibetan: the source of our problems is our human weakness, and that weakness is our tendency to become attached. 
• Ok to have xyz (house, car etc) but so long as we don't expect these things to make us happy. Happiness is internal, not external and chasing externals is a waste of time. 
• Buddhist realization of our lack of independence actually calls for greater responsibility. For ourselves and everyone else because we all rise and fall on the same wave. 
• Cars keep us isolated from our environment, whereas "self-propulsion" (biking, walking, canoeing) puts us in touch with the land below us and world around us. 
• We seek enlightenment for the benefit of others.
• We are not separate creatures, separate entities, the Buddha taught, we are all one interconnected reality. 
• Only a trick of the brain that creates this perception of individuality. 
• Turn off the faucet, stop all input. Second, you have to quit grabbing. The water settles, and the still water of the mind then becomes a mirror in which you can find yourself. 
• The more we insist on our preferences, the bigger our ball and chain, and the more it weighs us down. But if we don't prefer things ... we don't have to like a rainy day, we just have to take it, notice it, and pass through it, without dwelling on our preference that it be different. 

For further reading:

• Instructions to the Cook, Glassman
• Mindfulness in Plain English, H. Gunaratana
• Miracle of Mindfulness, T Nhat Hanh.
• Being Peace, T Nhat Hanh
• Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, S. Sahn.