be still my heart - Tagore

Be still, my heart,
these great trees are prayers.

R. Tagore

a journey unto himself

Every person's life is a journey toward himself, the attempt at a journey, the intimation of a path. No person has ever been completely himself, but each one strives to become so, some gropingly, others more lucidly, according to his abilities. Each one carries with him to the end traces of his birth, the slime and eggshells of a primordial world. Many a one never becomes a human being, but remains a frog, lizard or ant. Many a one is a human being above and a fish below. But each one is a gamble of Nature, a hopeful attempt at forming a human being. We all have a common origin,the Mothers, we all come out of the same abyss; but each of us, a trial throw of the dice from the depths, strives toward his own goal. We can understand one another, but each of us can only interpret himself.

Demian, Hermmann Hesse

The philosophical underpinnings of David Foster Wallace's fiction. - By James Ryerson - Slate Magazine

The philosophical underpinnings of David Foster Wallace's fiction. - By James Ryerson - Slate Magazine

Mind and Life XXII - Session Two

"Foundations for Scientific Understanding of Contemplative Practices", the second session of the Mind and Life XXII Conference: Contemplative Science, held in New Delhi, India from November 21st to 23rd, 2010. Presenters include His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mattieu Ricard (comtemplative practitioner), and Richard Davidson (scientist). The moderator is Daniel Goldman and the interpreter is Thupten Jinpa. Discussants include Wolf Singer (scientist), John Dunne (contemplative scholar) and Rajesh Kasturirangan (scientist). (www.dalailama.com, www.mindandlife.org)

Other sessions found on youtube.

Angel

Angel
Originally uploaded by madsolitaire

Ten years to the day.

Buddhist ethics

From the Buddhist standpoint the comprehension of spiritual truth is not a matter of mere intellectual cogitation but of existential actualization. That is, it is a matter of grasping with our whole being the truth towards which we aspire, and of inwardly appropriating that truth in a manner so total and complete that our being becomes transformed into a very reflex and effusion of the truth upon which we stand. The understanding of truth in the context of the spiritual life, in other words, is no affair of accumulating bits and pieces of information publicly accessible and subjectively indifferent; it is, rather, a process of uncovering the deepest truths about ourselves and about the world, and of working the understanding that emerges into the entire complex of the inner life. Hence the use of the words "actualization" and "realization," which bring into the open the ontological backdrop underlying the noetic process.

Bhikkhu Bodhi
Nourishing the Roots: Essays on Buddhist Ethics

reminiscence

The moon. The moon.

Opening Up to Happiness | Psychology Today

Opening Up to Happiness | Psychology Today

Skill in questions: how the Buddha taught

New book by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Skill in questions: How the Buddha taught