One City: A Buddhist Blog for Everyone

Buddhist Quote of the Day: Meditation in Everyday Life

Monday October 19, 2009

Categories: Buddhism, Meditation
baby-meditating.jpgby Ethan Nichtern

Greetings from the Shambhala Sangha Retreat in gorgeous Vermont, where I am acting as a meditation instructor under the awesome mind-heart training, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the coolest Buddhist teacher this side of the Himalayas, in my humble opinion. The quote below is about practicing meditation in everyday life. I am teaching a six week course of the same name beginning next week in New York City, and similar courses are offered at Shambhala Centers everywhere. (PS If anyone can tell me the source of this awesome photo, I'd love to know).

"Seated meditation is the arena in which the meditator practices his own fundamental skills. The game the meditator is playing is the experience of his own life, and the instrument upon which he plays is his own sensory apparatus. Even the most seasoned meditator continues to practice seated meditation, because it tunes and sharpens the basic mental skills he needs for his particular game. We must never forget, however, that seated meditation itself is not the game. It's the practice. The game in which those basic skills are to be applied is the rest of one's experiential existence. Meditation that is not applied to daily living is sterile and limited."

-From Mindfulness in Plain English
by Bhante Gunaratana


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Comments
Your Name
October 19, 2009 6:31 PM

Meditation produces all the necessary fruits. The daily work, over time, always pays off.

gassho

Celeste
October 20, 2009 10:32 AM

Wonderful, pithy quote. Very applicable to the MIEL class.

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Welcome to One City. You've lived here your whole life, whether you know it or not. One City blog is an outgrowth of The Interdependence Project, a Buddhist-inspired nonprofit organization led by Ethan Nichtern, dedicated to teaching the insights of Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness, and interconnectedness in the 21st century world.

If you're interested in how your mind works, are interested in meditation (but don't want to pretend you live in ancient Asia), care about the world, are into media, love contemporary culture, and above all, really dig the truth of interdependence-that nothing happens in a vacuum--then this blog is for you.

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Davee Evans
A Shambhala practitioner in San Francisco
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Evelyn Cash
Evelyn is a Soto Zen practitioner and engineer living in Wichita, Kansas.
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Ethan Nichtern
Author, founding director of the Interdependence Project, and the host of the I.D. Project’s popular weekly podcast
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Practices meditation and studies Buddhism
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A Doctoral Candidate in Social Psychology
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