Ratnaguna

“He who binds to himself a joy Does the wingèd life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sunrise.”
― Ratnaguna, Great Faith, Great Wisdom: Practice and Awakening in the Pure Land Sutras of Mahayana Buddhism

“In the repertoire of Buddhist practices that are available to us, reflection is one of the most neglected by contemporary writers on Buddhist practice. In fact, reading some books, you’d think that Buddhists aren’t supposed to think at all, as if thinking somehow contaminates the mind. Of course, if we’re honest, we have to admit that a lot of what we think about does contaminate our minds, but that doesn’t mean that all thinking is bad. Someone who eats only junk food will become ill, but they shouldn’t stop eating altogether; they need to eat nutritious food, and similarly, we shouldn’t stop thinking, we just need to be careful what we think and how we think about it. It’s also possible to think too much, to over-conceptualize, to be ‘too much in our head’ as we say, and when we do that we lose touch with our actual lived experience. The remedy for this is not to stop thinking altogether, but to learn to think more consciously and when it’s appropriate.”
― Ratnaguna, The Art of Reflection