If given ten minutes, how would you manage your mind?

Momentary liberation may be a matter of purifying ourselves of greed or anger by rolling around a single thought when greed and anger arise to harm the purity of our minds. Daily liberation is a matter of setting aside time during the day for Zen meditation—be it ten minutes, thirty minutes, or sixty or more minutes—so that the sense of self disappears. Liberation should also be discussed in terms of its different dimensions, but the most primary form of liberation is the light “no-self” feeling that one senses when the feeling of the self disappears.

Contents

Preface 6

Chapter 1

The “Special Forces” of Happiness Life Is Cultivation 11

Declaring Yourself a Living Buddha 16

The Three Aspects of the Living Buddha 23

The View of Great Aspiration: “When We Emanate Great Hope and Love, Our Greed, Anger, and Delusion Vanish” 29

The Beauty of “But” 35

The Seeds of Tomorrow Lie in Dreams Today 40

Living Here and Now 45

Awakened as We Are 51

Establishing a Path of Practice 57

The “Special Forces” of Happiness 63

A Pebble Preaches the Dharma: The Dharma Preached by the Dharmakaya 69

Conversation Topics 75

Ten Minutes of Meditation, Ten Minutes to Liberation 80

The 110 Idea: Life and Values 86

The Three Beats: The Basic Faith of “Confronting Spaces” 90

Meditating on Death 95

Chapter 2

Tending the Garden of the Mind The Conditions of Happiness 105

Jeukbi 1: “A Cup Is Not a Cup, but What We Have Named ‘Cup’” 111

Jeukbi 2: A Secret Plan for Hope 117

Your Share, My Share 123

Lift Up the Consciousness: The Ten Levels of Contentment 129

Gratitude Meditation 135

Tending the Garden of the Mind 140

The Five Main Forms of “Bad Talking” 145

Riding on the Infinite 151

Buddhism’s Dual Truths 157

A Dedication to Humankind 163

Have You Been Happy Lately? 169

Packaging Is Also a Gift 175

Mind Practice for Accepting the Pains of Disease 180

Chapter 3

Gaining the Ember of Awakening The Not-the-Self View 1: Siddhartha’s Puzzle 189

The Not-the-Self View 2: The Self Is the Root of Suffering and Warfare 194

The Not-the-Self View 3: When We Dismantle a Cart, It Is No Longer a Cart 199

The Not-the-Self View 4: The Mind Is Drawn by Thoughts 205 Gaining the Ember of Awakening 211