Tuesday, February 28, 2012

the infinite, the immeasurable

"We moderns, we half barbarians, we are in the midst of our bliss only when we are most in danger. The only stimulus that tickles us is the infinite, the immeasurable..."

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Ajahn Chah on the mind

"About this mind... In truth there is nothing really wrong with it. It is intrinsically pure. Within itself it's already peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it follows moods. The real mind doesn't have anything to it, it is simply (an aspect of) Nature. It becomes peaceful or agitated because moods deceive it. The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impressions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness and sorrow, but the mind's true nature is none of those things. That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us. The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things, it forgets itself. Then we think that it is we who are upset or at ease or whatever.
But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful... really peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still as long as no wind blows. If a wind comes up the leaf flutters. The fluttering is due to the wind -- the 'fluttering' is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn't follow them, it doesn't 'flutter.' If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions we will be unmoved.
Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. So we must train the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in them. To make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through."

Ajahn Chah

Read selected dhamma talks by Ajahn Chah A Taste of Freedom

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Lao Tzu - thirty spokes

Thirty spokes converge at the wheel's hub,
to a hole that allows it to turn.
Clay is shaped into a vessel,
to enclose an emptiness that can be filled.
Doors and windows are cut into walls,
to provide access to their protection.
Though we can only work with what is there,
use comes from what is not there.

Lao Tzu

Thursday, February 16, 2012

samsara

Samsara: entangled, ensnared, enamored.

(with apologies to Nietzsche)

Monday, February 13, 2012

who overcomes himself his freedom finds Goethe

All force strives forward to work far and wide
To live and grow and ever to expand;
Yet we are checked and thwarted on each side
By the world's flux and swept along like sand:
In this eternal storm and outward tide
We hear a promise, hard to understand:
From the compulsion that all creatures bind,
Who overcomes himself, his freedom finds.

Goethe