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In East Asia the practice of humilty is encoded in social behavior,
especially in the etiquette of bowing....Bowing is a very serious
practice. Even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-
centered desires, we have to do it....
Sometimes the student bows to the teacher, sometimes the teacher
bows to the student. A teacher who cannot bow to his student
cannot bow to the Buddha. Sometimes the teacher and the student
bow together to the Buddha. Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs.
"Cheshire-Puss," she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. "Come, it's pleased so far," thought Alice, and she went on. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where—" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"—so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of
animals....They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are
other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow
prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
The realms of good and evil are all the Pure Land. Outside of this, do not aspire, do not renounce. Among all living things — mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, even the sounds of blowing winds and rising waves — there is nothing that is not the Nembutsu. It is not human beings alone who share in the all-surpassing vow.
April 17
"Mountains are mountains, waters are waters." This expression does not
mean that we point to the mountains as the mountains, but that the moun-
tains are nothing but the mountains. Therefore, we should study mountains
penetratingly.
Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth's and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.
May all beings lead lives that are secure, may all beings have minds that are calmed and balanced.
Whatever living beings there are, without exception: weak or strong; tall, large or middle-sized; short, small or great; those that are seen and unseen, those living near or far; those born and those coming to birth — let all beings be happy.
from Metta Sutta, SN
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