Choose the world you build

P. 42 Inconceivable Emancipation:

"We can create a world of the gods, a world of refined, sensuous, intellectual, aesthetic, but rather selfish, self-indulgent pleasure;  or a world of human beings, a world of ordinary domestic, civic, political, and cultural obligations and activities.  We can create a world of asuras or anti-gods, a world of jealousy, excessive sexual polarization, over-aggressiveness, ruthless competition, and overt or covert conflict; or a world of hungry ghosts, a world of neurotic craving, intense possessiveness, and relationships characterized by extreme emotional dependence.  We can create a world of tormented beings, a world of pain and suffering, of intense physical and mental distress; or a world of animals, a world of straightforward food, sex and sleep.

Or, turning our back on all these, we can devote ourselves to developing as individuals.  We can devote ourselves to the Budhisattva ideal.  We can devote ourselves, direcetly or indirectly, to building the Buddha-land."

Bhante quote on Buddha-land

P. 40 Inconceivable Emancipation:

"Zen is a well-known example of the application of spiritual meditation to various otherwise mundane activity in such a way as to bring them into harmony with that realization.  In this way, Zen is applied to architecture, to landscape gardening, to archery or swordsmanship, to flower arrangement, and to everyday manners and customs.  The Zen approach, in which the human subject is creative in relation to it's object, is akin to the building of a buddha-land, in that it transforms various aspects of the world."

And later,

"If you don't have the power to build a Zen temple, you can at least paint your room, or even just tidy up a bit."