Wise Quotes Collection

[Cahoot]

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

― Annie Dillard

[Cahoot]

The Art of Peace is a form of prayer that generates light and heat. Forget about your little self, detach yourself from objects, and you will radiate light and warmth. Light is wisdom; warmth is compassion.

- Morihei Ueshiba


en-light

[divine focus]

Lao Tzu
(at least attributed to him)

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”

“Act without expectation.”

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”

“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”

“Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.”

“If there is to be peace in the world, There must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, There must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, There must be peace between neighbors. If there is to be peace between neighbors, There must be peace in the home. If there is to be peace in the home, There must be peace in the heart.”

More here: http://self-realisation.com/auto-didact ... f-lao-tzu/

[Kunga]

Diamond Sutra

Chapter 21.

"Subhuti, do not maintain that the Buddha has this thought: 'I have spoken spiritual truths.' Do not think that way. Why? If someone says the Buddha has spoken spiritual truths, he slanders the Buddha due to his inability to understand what the Buddha teaches. Subhuti, as to speaking truth, no truth can be spoken. Therefore it is called 'speaking truth'."

At that time Subhuti, the wise elder, addressed the Buddha, "Most Honored One, will there be living beings in the future who believe in this Sutra when they hear it?"

The Buddha said:

"The living beings to whom you refer are neither living beings nor not living beings. Why? Subhuti, all the different kinds of living beings the Buddha speaks of are not living beings. But they are referred to as living beings."




http://www.diamond-sutra.com/diamond_su ... age21.html

[Tomas]

Also, when the only options at the ballot box are big spending Republicans versus big spending Democrats, it's hard to see things changing anytime soon.

[Cahoot]

The buildup is slow, like a balloon filling with water, drop by drop.
The change is quick, like a pinprick.

*

Do not stir the mind
with “yes” or “no.”
You are pure Consciousness.
Be still,
and abide
in the bliss of Self.

- Ashtavakra Gita

[Leyla Shen]

Blah blah fucken blah...

[Diebert van Rhijn]

As recent moderator (well now you know), I've moved this thread and the one about movies into the Help section. Just like the ones with the stories before. They appeared not to be really discussion topics on the nature of reality or at least they didn't appear to be yet/anymore when I moved them. That doesn't mean they are bad or that you are a failure for posting in them. It's just that I feel so powerful moving things around, I suppose :)

[Cahoot]

Of course. If it’s not too much a drain on the autonomy aspect of the power trip, by the same reasoning, since any thread holds the potential for discussion, while other threads with such potential are less specific, Science News to Briefly Consider was probably also initiated in the improper place, and should also be moved.

You may quote me.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Fair enough. Personally I find science news more stimulating to consider than any collection of dodgy quotes, movie trash or Zen riddles. But I do also realize it's better to keep the lines clear, as principle. This doesn't mean that all science topics will be moved in the future or any other thoughtful topic or link which might appear. There has to be some flexibility! I think it also depends on how members respond to the material or how a topic develops.

[Cahoot]

I find the genius of insight that rings true more stimulating than theoretical conjecture, speculation, or denigrating prejudice.

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.
- Henry Miller

[Cahoot]

"One passes imperceptibly from one scene, one age, one life, to another. Suddenly, walking down a street, be it real or be it a dream, one realizes for the first time that the years have flown, that all this has passed for ever and will live on only in memory, and then the memory turns inwards with a strange, clutching brilliance and one goes over these scenes and incidents perpetually, in dream and reverie, while walking a street, while lying with a woman, while reading a book, while talking to a stranger... Suddenly, but always with terrific insistence and always with terrific accuracy, these memories intrude, rise up like ghosts and permeate every fibre of one’s being. Henceforward everything moves on shifting levels – our thoughts, our dreams, our actions, our whole life. A parallelogram in which we drop from one platform of our scaffold to another. Henceforward we walk split into myriad fragments, like an insect with a hundred feet, a centipede with soft-stirring feet that drinks in the atmosphere; we walk with sensitive filaments that drink avidly of past and future, and all things melt into music and sorrow; we walk against a united world, asserting our dividedness. All things, as we walk, splitting with us into a myriad iridescent fragments. The fragmentation of maturity. The great change. In youth we were whole and the terror and pain of the world penetrated us through and through. There was no sharp separation between joy and sorrow: they fused into one, as our waking life fuses with dream and sleep. We rose one being in the morning, and at night we went down into an ocean, drowned out completely, clutching the stars and the fever of the day.

"And then comes a time when suddenly all seems to be reversed. We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets – we remember only. Like a monomaniac that picks up the thread over and over and spews it out according to some obsessive, logarithmic pattern. If we are stirred by a fat bust, it is the fat bust of a whore who bent over on a rainy night and showed us for the first time the wonder of the great milky globes; if we are stirred by the reflections on a wet pavement, it is because at the age of seven we were suddenly speared by a premonition of the life to come as we stared unthinkingly into that bright, liquid mirror of the street. If the sight of a swinging door intrigues, it is the memory of a summer’s evening when all the doors were swinging softly and, where the light bent down to caress the shadow, there were golden calves and lace and glittering parasols, and through the chinks in the swinging door, like fine sand sifting through a bed of rubies, there drifted the music and the incense of gorgeous unknown bodies. Perhaps when that door parted to give us a choking glimpse of the world, perhaps then we had the first intimation of the great impact of sin, the first intimation that here, over little round tables spinning in the light, our feet idly scraping the sawdust, our hands touching the cold stem of a glass, that here, over these little round tables, which later we are to look at with such yearning and reverence, that here, I say, we are to feel in the years to come the first iron of love, the first stains of rust, the first black, clawing hands of the pit, the bright circular pieces of tin in the streets, the gaunt soot-coloured chimneys, the bare elm tree that lashes out in the summer’s lightning and screams and shrieks as the rain beats down, while out of the hot earth the snails scoot away miraculously and all the air turns blue and sulphurous. Here, over these tables, at the first call, the first touch of a hand, there is to come the bitter, gnawing pain that gripes at the bowels; the wine turns sour in our bellies and a pain rises from the soles of the feet, and the round table tops whirl with the anguish and the fever in our bones at the soft, burning touch of a hand. Here there is buried legend after legend of youth and melancholy, of savage nights and mysterious bosoms dancing on the wet mirror of the pavement, of women chuckling softly as they scratch themselves, of wild sailors’ shouts, of long queues standing in front of the lobby, of boats brushing each other in the fog, and tugs snorting furiously against the rush of tide, while up on the Brooklyn Bridge a man is standing in agony, waiting to jump, or waiting to write a poem, or waiting for the blood to leave his vessels, because if he advances another foot the pain of his love will kill him."

Henry Miller
Black Spring

[Cahoot]

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

1 Corinthians 13:11 (KJV)

[Tomas]

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

1 Corinthians 13:11 (KJV)

Sounds too roman catholic for my liking.

[Tomas]

1. -- As recent moderator (well now you know

2. -- It's just that I feel so powerful moving things around, I suppose :)

1. -- Congratulations. What I've always admired about you is your blunt honesty.

2. -- Yup, I've that Leo power.

[Cahoot]

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

1 Corinthians 13:11 (KJV)

Sounds too roman catholic for my liking.

For meanings it does require two defined sets of qualities and characteristics: 1. Childish things. 2. Becoming a man.

[Kunga]

Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.
Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, un-namable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.
Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.
~ Laozi

[Kunga]

"We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren.
The real nature of things we shall never know."

- Albert Einstein

[Kunga]

Knowledge wandered north looking for Tao, over the Dark Sea and up the Invisible Mountain. There on the mountain he met Non-Doing, the Speechless One. He inquired, “Please inform me, Sir, by what system of thought and what technique of meditation I can apprehend Tao? By what renunciation or what solitary retirement may I rest in Tao? Where must I start, what road must I follow to reach Tao?”
Such were his three questions. Non-Doing, the Speechless One, made no reply. Not only did he not reply, he did not even know how to reply!
Knowledge swung south to the Bright Sea and climbed Luminous Mountain, sometimes called “Doubt’s End”. There he met Act-On-Impulse, the Inspired Prophet, and asked the same questions.
“Ah,” cried the Inspired One, “I have the answers, and I will reveal them!” But just as he was about to tell everything, he forgot all he had in mind. Knowledge got no reply.
So Knowledge went at last to the palace of the Emperor Ti, and asked his questions. The Emperor replied, “To exercise no thought and follow no way of meditation is the first step toward understanding Tao. To dwell nowhere and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.”
Knowledge replied, “You know this and now I know it. But the other two, they did not know it. What about that? Who is right?”
The Emperor replied, “Only Non-Doing, the Speechless One, was perfectly right. He did not know, or at least, could not reveal what he knew. Act-On-Impulse, the Inspired Prophet, only seemed right because he had forgotten. As for us, we come nowhere near being right, since we have the answers. As the ancients expressed it, ‘For he who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know.’ and, ‘The Wise Man gives instruction without the use of speech.’

Thomas Merton: The Way of Chuang Tzu

[Cahoot]

"I had to grow foul with knowledge, realize the futility of everything; smash everything, grow desperate, then humble, then sponge myself off the slate, as it were, in order to recover my authenticity. I had to arrive at the brink and then take a leap in the dark."

- Henry Miller
The Wisdom of the Heart

[Cahoot]

“Each new infant begins with a bright, innocent expression, the strong purity of the race moistening the large, dark eyes. They stand like that for several years and then suddenly, around puberty often, the expression changes. Suddenly they get up on their hind legs and they walk the treadmill. The hair falls out, the teeth rot, the spine twists. Corns, bunions, calluses. The hand always sweating, the lips twitching. The head down, almost in the plate, and the food sucked in with big, whishing gulps. To think that they all started clean, with fresh diapers every day...”

H.M.

[Cahoot]

‘For he who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know.’

This is true only if the silence of knowing is somehow different from the silence of not knowing, or if every knowing person is actually an expressionless mute, and if this is the case then how to distinguish mutes who know from mutes who don’t … perhaps by the wise crinkles around the knowing eyes?

[Kunga]

You mistake sweetness for Truth.
You are drawn to the gentle smile
The reassuring gaze.
The soft voice
And kind word.
If it makes you feel good enough
You assume the hand of God
Has touched your heart.
It is the cruelest trap of all
And you keep falling into it
Lured by the promise
Of goodness
Of progress
Of attainment.
You pass the Sage
So crude and ordinary
Without a glance
His common words
Mere animal grunts
In your ears.

Ram Tzu knows this:

The path to Salvation
Is in the dirt you step on.

[Ram Tzu]

[Cahoot]

“Here I have elucidated for the sake of future generations the meaning of the supreme way of life.”

Quite a statement.

[Cahoot]

“Situations are the voice of my guru, the presence of my guru.”

- Trungpa Rinpoche