one world at a time
"Imagination in its fundamental meaning, as defined by Shakespeare or Blake, and known to all great creative artists, is the making and the responding to images of all kinds in the outer and the inner worlds. We don't have to be great artists to do this; every one of us has the ability to respond by at least beginning to say yes or no to the strangers who knock on the doors of our souls."
- Helen M. Luke
"A person may be very learned in all things, and his philosophical knowledge may be very profound. He has studied all the ancient lore of wisdom, and has even formulated his own system of metaphysics in which he has incorporated all the results of his erudition and speculation. But from the religious point of view he is yet far from enlightenment, for his study is like that of the artist who has painted a dragon and forgot to put the eyes in. His elaborate delineation and coloring in various hues of this huge mystic animal have miserably failed to produce the effect desired and attempted, for the eyes are blank and show no trace of the fiery animation which is possessed by the monster. The scholar has neglected the most important factor that is absolutely necessary in making up the complete knowledge of the universe. He thought that he knew everything under the sun when he exercised his intellectual power to its full extent and considered existence from all the possible standpoints which his understanding could grasp. But, as I stated before, the knowledge of an object is not complete unless its inner life or reason is felt; in other words, unless the duality of a knowing mind and a known object vanishes, and life is comprehended as it is and not in its intellectual mutilation."
- Soyen Shaku
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
- David Whyte
Sweet Darkness
The House of Belonging
Poetry
And it was at that age . . . Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
- Pablo Neruda
translated by Alastair Reid
"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."
- Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
"To be what you are is in itself very arduous without trying to become something, which is not difficult. You can always pretend, put on a mask, but to be what you are is an extremely complex affair; because you are always changing; you are never the same and each moment reveals a new facet, a new depth, a new surface. You can't be all this at one moment for each moment brings its own change. So if you are intelligent, you give up being anything."
- J. Krishnamurti
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
The Man Watching
Things to Think
Think in ways you've never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you've ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.
Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.
When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.
- Robert Bly
- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
"At that time the Sal trees completely burst forth in bloom out of season. The fragrant sal flowers scattered all over the body of the Buddha. Celestial flowers and sandalwood powder fell from the sky over the sacred body. Celestial musical sounds filled the air as a token of reverence to the Buddha. Many devas and brahmas from the ten thousand worlds gathered around the Buddha to pay their last homage to him."
"Oh Bhikkhus! These are my last words now. All conditioned and compounded things have the nature of decay and disintegration. With steadfast mindfulness, endeavour diligently for your own liberation."
Buddha's last words
The Teachings of the Buddha
we stroll along the roof of hell
gawking at flowers
- Issa
The Resemblance Between Your Life And A Dog
I never intended to have this life, believe me -
It just happened. You know how dogs turn up
At a farm, and they wag but can't explain.
It's good if you can accept your life - you'll notice
Your face has become deranged trying to adjust
To it. Your face thought your life would look
Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.
That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.
Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed.
Sparrows in winter, if you've ever held one, all feathers,
Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.
You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,
But you can't quite get back to the winter sparrow.
Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles,
Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.
- Robert Bly
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing . . . Silence . . . Waves . . .
- Nothing happens? Or has everything
happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
- Juan Ramon Jimenez
"Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
Individuality
"You are undergoing by accident and by your own fault a spiritual journey which many would consciously purchase at great price, but cannot buy. Your picture of yourself, your self-illusion, is in the process of being broken. This places you in an unusual position, very close to the truth, and that proximity is part of your pain.
You describe your grief as a system. Indeed it is, a defensive system of mutually supporting falsehoods instinctively produced to defend your old egoistic self-image which you cannot bear to lose, you cannot bear its death which seems so like your own. Your endless talk of dying is a substitute for the real needful death, the death of your illusions. Your "death" is a pretend death, simply the false notion that somehow, without effort, all your troubles could vanish. This is where you are, and here a religious believer would pray; you must try to find your own equivalent of prayer. The word "will" rarely describes anything perceptible, but an act of will is needed here, an act of well-intentioned concentration.
I'm not telling you not to feel remorse and guilt, only to feel it truthfully. Truthful remorse leads to the fruitful death of the self, not to its survival as a successful liar. Recognize lies and reject them at every point. You want to unhappen what has happened, you feel anger and hate at what prevents this, and which you see as the cause of your "loss of honor." These old deep "natural" desires appear to you to be irresistible. Check them, see them to be illusions and lies. Move beyond them into an open and quiet area which you will find to be an entirely new place.
You say you live in pain. Let it be the pain of the death of the old false self, and the life-movement of the new real truthful self. We are all wrapped in silky layers of illusion which we instinctively feel to be necessary to our existence. Often these illusions are harmless, in the sense that we can still go on being reasonably good and reasonably happy. Sometimes, because of a catastrophe, a bereavement or some total loss of self-esteem, our falsehoods become pernicious, and we are forced to choose between some painful recognition of truth and an ever more frenzied manufacturing of lies.
Live at peace with despair. Live quietly with your sense of guilt. Sit beside it, as it were, and regard the frightful wound to your self-esteem as the removal of deep illusions which existed before and which this chance has torn. If you keep checking any lie and resisting the anger which deforms the world, you will gradually realize that the poor old wounded self, with its furious whining and its hatred of itself and everything else, is not you at all. That self is dying, but another self is watching it die."
- Iris Murdoch
The Good Apprentice
"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it . . . . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more. Life doesn't leave that many choices."
- Erica Jong
"The root of the matter is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it for fear of the derisive smile with which cynics will greet my words. The thing I mean - please forgive me for mentioning it - is love, compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a reason for courage, a guide in action, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty. If you feel this, you have all that anybody should need in the way of religion."
- Bertrand Russell
"The hardest state to be in is one in which you keep your heart open to the suffering that exists around you, and simultaneously keep your discriminative wisdom. It's far easier to do one or the other; to keep your heart open and get lost in pity, empathetic suffering, righteous indignation, etc.; or remain remotely detached as a witness to it all. Once you understand that true compassion is the blending of the open heart and the quiet mind, it is still difficult to find the balance. Most often we start out doing these things sequentially. We open our hearts and get lost in the melodramas, then we meditate and regain our quiet center by pulling back in from so much openness. Then we once again open and get sucked back into the dance. So it goes cycle after cycle. It takes a good while to get the balance. For at first the discriminative awareness part of the cycle makes you feel rather like a cold fish. You feel as if you have lost your tenderness and caring. And yet each time you open again to the tender emotions, you get lost in the drama and see your predicament: if you really want to help others who are suffering, you just have to develop the balance between heart and mind such that you remain soft and flowing yet simultaneously clear and spacious. You have to stay right on the edge of that balance. It seems impossible, but you do it. At first, when you achieve this balance, it is self-consciously maintained. Ultimately, however, you merely become the statement of the amalgam of the open heart and quiet mind. Then there is no more struggle; it's just the way you are."
- Ram Dass
over 100 worthwhile dilemmas
random haiku machine based on oblique strategies
"Can one know one's self? Is one ever somebody? I don't know anything about it any more. It now seems to me that one changes from day to day and that every few years one becomes a new being."
- George Sand
The Intimate Journal of George Sand
September 1868 entry
"Have you made your peace with your God?"
Thoreau, still alert, replied, "I never quarreled with my God."
Thoreau's aunt pursued the matter, asking, "But aren't you concerned about the next world?"
Thoreau, impatient now, said, "One world at a time."
This is an entire sermon, an entire religion, an entire philosophy condensed into one short sentence. This world, this life. It is enough. It is of cosmic relevance."
- W. Edward Harris
A Garage Sale of the Mind
"If you're in a hole don't keep digging - look around. Then get the bits and pieces into some kind of order, so as to point up the problem. Sometimes it comes easy, other times it's like confining jelly with a rubber band. Anyway, once achieved, the next move is to head off along the most promising route. The solution may become evident or you can end up in an exasperating period of hiatus when, despite trying this and that, the answer remains elusive. Hopefully the germ of an idea eventually peeps through, but before leaping on it with relief let it incubate for a while. Here the mind works on the idea in some mysterious way. Either the potential evaporates, in which case you have to start all over again, or it emerges [said Henry James] with 'a firm iridescent surface, and a notable increase in weight'."
- Alan Fletcher
"If you were to take negative emotions away from people, they would simply collapse and go up in smoke. What would happen to what we call art, theater, drama, to most novels? In the emotional center there is no natural negative part, the greater part of negative emotions are artificial, they are based on instinctive emotions which are transformed by petty imagination and identification (losing self in an object). Positive emotions are emotions which cannot become negative. But all our pleasant emotions such as joy, affection, can, at any moment, turn to boredom, irritation, envy at the slightest provocation, or even without provocation. So we can say that we can have no positive emotions. At the same time we can say that we have no negative emotions without identification and imagination."
- Peter Ouspensky
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution
"How can the cortex observe and control the cortex? Perhaps there will come a day when the human brain will fold back on itself again and develop a higher cortex, but until then the only feedback which the cortex has about its own states comes through other people. (I am speaking here of the cortex as a whole. One can of course remember remembering.) Thus the ego which observes and controls the cortex is a complex of social information relayed back into the cortex - Mead's 'generalized other.' But this is social misinformation when it is made to appear that the information of which the ego consists is something other than states of the cortex itself, and therefore ought to be controlling the cortex. The ego is the unconscious pretense that the organism contains a higher system than the cortex; it is the confusion of a system of interpersonal information with a new, imaginary, fold in the brain - or with something quite other than a neural pattern, a mind, soul, self. When, therefore, I feel that 'I' am knowing or controlling myself - my cortex - I should recognize that I am actually being controlled by other people's words and gestures masquerading as my inner or better self. Not to see this brings about utter confusion, as when I try to force myself to stop feeling in ways that are socially unacceptable.
If all this is true, it becomes obvious that the ego feeling is pure hypnosis. Society is persuading the individual to do what it wants by making it appear that its commands are the individual's inmost self. What we want is what you want. And this is a double-bind, as when a mother says to her child, who is longing to slush around in a mud puddle, 'Now darling, you don't want to get into that mud!' This is misinformation, and this - if anything - is the 'Great Social Lie.'
Let us suppose, then, that the false reflex of 'I seeing my sights' or 'I feeling my feelings' is stopped .... It is hardly too much to say that such a change of perception would give far better ground for social solidarity than the normal trick of misinformation and hypnosis."
- Alan Watts
Psychotherapy East and West
"All the limitative Theorems of metamathematics and the theory of computation suggest that once the ability to represent your own structure has reached a certain critical point, that is the kiss of death: it guarantees that you can never represent yourself totally. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, Church's Undecidability Theorem, Turing's Halting Problem, Turski's Truth Theorem - all have the flavour of some ancient fairy tale which warns you that 'To seek self-knowledge is to embark on a journey which ... will always be incomplete, cannot be charted on a map, will never halt, cannot be described.'"
- Douglas Richard Hofstadter
We live our lives of human passions,
cruelties, dreams, concepts,
crimes and the exercise of virtue
in and beside a world devoid
of our preoccupations, free
from apprehension - though affected,
certainly, by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping.
We call it Nature; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be Nature too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life:
cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
animal voices, mineral hum, wind
conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
of fire to coal - then something tethered
in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
No one discovers
just where we've been, when we're caught up again
into our own sphere (where we must
return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
- but we have changed, a little.
- Denise Levertov
The Promise
In the dream I had when he came back not sick
but whole, and wearing his winter coat,
he looked at me as though he couldn't speak, as if
there were a law against it, a membrane he couldn't break.
His silence was what he could not
not do, like our breathing in this world, like our living,
as we do, in time.
And I told him: I'm reading all this Buddhist stuff,
and listen, we don't die when we die. Death is an event,
a threshold we pass through. We go on and on
and into light forever.
And he looked down, and then back up at me. It was the
look we'd pass
across the kitchen table when Dad was drunk again and
dangerous
the level look that wants to tell you something,
in a crowded room, something important, and can't.
- Marie Howe
"I want to arrive at a direct apprehension of reality without the intermediary of a concept. I often end up in darkness and failure because of the impossibility but I prefer it all to all of the other so-called marvels of the visionary world. Good art is not what it looks like but what it does to us. Its value lies in its power to modify and not merely to modify but reorganize our sensibility. For to submit to a new mode of seeing, to enter a world where we can be liberated from our stereotyped ways of seeing and feeling - now that is more important to aim for all of one's life and perhaps never achieve than to aim for less and know that in the end you've made a bad investment with your life."
- Roy Adzak
"When I was at Eiheiji monastery in Japan, everyone was just doing what he should do. That is all. It is the same as waking up in the morning; we have to get up. At Eiheiji monastery, when we had to sit, we sat; when we had to bow to Buddha, we bowed to Buddha. That is all. And when we were practicing, we did not feel anything special. We did not even feel that we were leading a monastic life. For us, the monastic life was the usual life. But once I had left Eiheiji and been away for some time, coming back was different. I heard the various sounds of practice - the bells and the monks reciting the sutra - and I had a deep feeling. There were tears flowing out of my eyes.
It is the people who are outside of the monastery who feel its atmosphere. Those who are practicing actually do not feel anything. I think this is true for everything. When we hear the sound of the pine trees on a windy day, perhaps the wind is just blowing, and the pine tree is just standing in the wind. That is all that they are doing. But the people who listen to the wind in the tree will write a poem, or will feel something unusual. That is, I think, the way everything is."
- Shunryu Suzuki
could look through if you wanted to.
An architect who saw this thing
stood there one summer evening.
Took out the spaces with great care.
And built a castle in the air.
The fence was utterly dumbfounded -
Each post stood there with nothing round it.
- Christian Morgenstern
"There's a theory, one I find persuasive, that the quest for knowledge is, at bottom, the search for the answer to the question: "Where was I before I was born?" In the beginning was ... what? Perhaps, in the beginning, there was a curious room, a room like this one, crammed with wonders; and now the room and all it contains are forbidden you, although it was made just for you, had been prepared for you since time began, and you will spend all your life trying to remember it."
- Angela Carter
The Curious Room, unpublished;
quoted in New Writing, 1992
by Malcolm Bradbury and Judy Cooke
"All visual appearances, everything that you see, are the spontaneous manifestation of mind. The chalice, the inert phenomena of the world that form a receptacle , is mind; the elixir, the animate existence of the six types of sentient beings that inhabit the world, is also mind, the blissful phenomena of gods and men of the upper realms are mind; the painful phenomena of the three lower realms are mind; the loss of awareness and the passion that manifests as the five poisons are mind; the naumena of total presence and primal awareness, self-existent and spontaneously arisen, are mind; the manifestations of negative thought processes created by cyclical mental habit patterns that potentiate transmigratory tendencies are mind; the manifestation of positive thought patterns, buddhafields, are mind; the phenomena of obstacles erected by hostile forces, spirits, and demons are mind; fully manifest divinity and spiritual powers are mind; the manifest diversity of discursive thought is mind; the phenomenon of one-pointed thoughtless trance is mind; the phenomena of apparent concrete entities with colour and shape and other attributes are mind; that which is indeterminate and without specific characteristics is mind; phenomena in which there is no duality of unity and multiplicity are mind; phenomena that cannot be established in any way as either existent or nonexistent are mind."
- Shabkar Lama
"I don't believe, in the strict metaphysical sense, that there are any completely innocent victims. In the totality of an infinite perception, the victim and the aggressor are one and the same energy. If you have done something wrong to somebody, yes, you could have chosen a more righteous way of acting. But on the other hand, they put out negative energy and as a result pulled you into their life. You messed them up at your own time and expense. They can say, "Thank you, God, for sending me a teacher."
- Stuart Wilde
Infinite Self
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