Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment. This means that the longest life and the shortest life amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. For the sole thing of which any man can be deprived is the present; since this is all he owns.
...clinging is suffering. It's because of clinging that physical pain becomes mental pain. It's because of clinging that aging, illness, and death cause mental distress. The paradox here is that, in clinging to things, we don't trap them or get them under our control. Instead, we trap ourselves.
When you can neither speak nor talk of any event, when you neither indicate nor 'know' any thing, when you pass beyond both questions and answers, this is entering the gate of non-duality.
The Master begins by revealing the boundless temporal and spatial dimensions against which the quest for enlightenment unfolds. He then swiftly narrows down the focus of his attention to the prospective student’s own situation in the here and now. His concern is not with theory but with attitudes and actions. Repeatedly, he drives home the point that our purpose in studying the Dharma should not be the mere acquiring of information, however interesting, but the transformation and purification of our minds. Though he ultimately steers us towards the broad bodhisattva path aimed at benefiting all sentient beings, he does not let us escape the “narrow path” with its hard tasks of self-scrutiny, self-rectification, and self-cultivation. Alertness, heedfulness, conscientiousness, and integrity are the watchwords of this training. The path he guides us towards is never an easy one, but it is one that brings abundant rewards. It enables us to master the conditions of life instead of drifting along with them; it helps us ride over the high waves of good fortune without being dashed by the tidal waves of calamity. It teaches us how to dwell like a mountain, ever tall, strong, and steady, unswayed even by the roughest winds.
It's important to reflect on what true happiness is and where it can be found. A moment's reflection will show that you can't find it in the past or the future. The past is gone and your memory of it is undependable. The future is a blank uncertainty. So the only place we can really find happiness is in the present. But even here you have to know where to look. If you try to base your happiness on things that change — sights, sounds, sensations in general, people and things outside — you're setting yourself up for disappointment, like building your house on a cliff where there have been repeated landslides in the past. So true happiness has to be sought within. Meditation is thus like a treasure hunt: to find what has solid and unchanging worth in the mind, something that even death cannot touch.
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer - Thoughts on the nature of mass movements
"Writing itself, if not misunderstood and abused, becomes a way of empowering the writing self. It converts anger and disappointment into deliberate and durable aggression, the writer's main source of energy. It converts sorrow and self-pity into empathy, the writer's main means of relating to otherness. Similarly, his wounded innocence turns into irony, his silliness into wit, his guilt into judgment, his oddness into originality, his perverseness into his stinger."
I haven't ever really found a place that I call home I never stick around quite long enough to make it I apologize once again I'm not in love But it's not as if I mind that your heart ain't exactly breaking
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy Well I deserve nothing more than I get Cos nothing I have is truly mine
I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea To travel the world alone and live more simply I have no idea what's happened to that dream Cos there's really nothing left here to stop me
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy Well I deserve nothing more than I get Cos nothing I have is truly mine
If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy Well I deserve nothing more than I get Cos nothing I have is truly mine
While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try Well how can I say I'm alive
If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy Well I deserve nothing more than I get Cos nothing I have is truly mine
If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy Well I deserve nothing more than I get Cos nothing I have is truly mine Cos nothing I have is truly mine Cos nothing I have is truly mine Cos nothing I have is truly mine
