The Blue Bantha and Other Stories
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What is to give light
must endure burning.~Viktor Frankl
Mon, Jun. 18th, 2007, 08:30 am
On the shore..
On the shore
of the wide world
I stand alone
and think
till love and fame
to nothingness
do sink.~John Keats
Cease practice based
on intellectual understanding,
pursuing words and
following after speech.
Learn the backward
step that turns
your light inward
to illuminate within.
Body and mind of themselves
will drop away
and your original face
will be manifest.~Dogen (1200-1253)
Self-reverence,
self-knowledge,
self-control-
these three things alone
lead to sovereign power.~Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The high note
is not the
only thing.~Placido Domingo
Thu, Jan. 11th, 2007, 09:01 am
An adventure...
An adventure is only an
inconvenience
rightly understood;
and inconvenienc is only an
adventure
wrongly considered.~G.K. Chesterton
Thu, Jan. 4th, 2007, 09:22 pm
Exit God
OF old our father’s God was real,
Something they almost saw,
Which kept them to a stern ideal
And scourged them into awe.
They walked the narrow path of right
Most vigilantly well,
Because they feared eternal night
And boiling depths of Hell.
Now Hell has wholly boiled away
And God become a shade.
There is no place for him to stay
In all the world He made.
The followers of William James
Still let the Lord exist,
And call Him by imposing names,
A venerable list.
But nerve and muscle only count,
Gray matter of the brain,
And an astonishing amount
Of inconvenient pain.
I sometimes wish that God were back
In this dark world and wide;
For though sonic virtues He might lack,
He had his pleasant side.Gamaliel Bradford (1863–1932) "Exit God"
Better than a hundred years of mischief
is one day spent in contemplation.
Better than a hundred years of ignorance
is one day spent in reflection.
Better than a hundred years in idleness
is one day spent in determination.
Better to live one day wondering
how all things arise and pass away.~Buddha in the Dhammapada
There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
none goes his way alone:
all that we send into the lives of others
comes back onto our own.~Edwin Markham
Existence is no more
than the precarious attainment of relevance
in an intensely mobile flux
of past, present, and future.~Susan Sontag
For penetrating to the depths
of one’s own true self-nature,
and for attaining a vitality
valid on all occasions,
nothing can surpass
meditation in the midst of activity.~Hakuin (1686-1769)
Can it be a dream?
Surely it does seem
like a frightful dream!
How can this be true?
Won't her mother come?
Come, wake her up to play?
Won't her father say,
"Here's a rose for you?"
There's a girl who no one sees,
there's a girl who's left alone.
There's a heart that beats in silence
for the life she's never known,
for the life she's never known.~The Secret Garden
Better than a thousand hollow words
is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand hollow verses
is one verse that brings peace.
It is better to conquer yourself
than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.~Dhammapada
Change alone is
eternal,
perpetual,
immortal.~Arthur Schopenhauer
At last there’ll dawn the last of the long year,
of the long year that seemed to dream no end,
whose every dawn but turned the world more drear,
and slew some hope, or led away some friend.
Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind,
we care not, day, but leave not death behind.
The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted,
death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain.
Oh, we are sick to find that they who started
with glamour in their eyes came not again.
O day, be long and heavy if you will,
but on our hopes set not a bitter heel.
For tiny hopes like tiny flowers of Spring
will come, though death and ruin hold the land,
though storms may roar they may not break the wing
of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland.
fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn,
your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born. ~A. Victor Ratcliffe - "Optimism"
People who study Buddhism
Should seek real, true
Perception and understanding for now.
If you attain real, true
Perception and understanding,
Birth and death don’t affect you;
You are free to go or stay.
You needn’t seek wonders,
For wonders come of themselves.~Linji (d. 867?)
Truth is perfect and complete in itself.
It is not something newly discovered;
it has always existed.
Truth is not far away.
It is nearer than near.
There is no need to attain it,
since not one of your steps leads away from it.~Dogen
The present contains nothing more
than the past,
and what is found in the effect
was already in the cause.~Henri Bergson
During the moment of illumination,
when I see the original face of mind,
a limitless compassion arises.
The greater the illumination,
the greater is the compassion.
The greater my compassion,
the deeper is the wisdom I feel. ~Garmaba
Keep your heart clear and transparent
and you will never be bound.
A single disturbed thought, though,
creates ten thousand distractions.
Let myriad things captivate you
and you will go further and further astray.
How painful to see people
all wrapped up in themselves.~Ryokan
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