M: The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing. Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain and creating an illusion of continuity. A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of ‘I’ and the person acquires an apparently independent existence. In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the ‘I’ and the ‘mine’. The teacher tells the watcher: you are not this, there is nothing of yours in this, except the little point of ‘I am’, which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream. ‘I am this, I am that’ is dream, while pure ‘I am’ has the stamp of reality on it. You have tasted so many things — all came to naught. Only the sense ‘I am’ persisted — unchanged. Stay with the changeless among the changeful, until you are able to go beyond.
Q: When will it happen?
M: It will happen as soon as you remove the obstacles.
Q: Which obstacles?
M Desire for the false and fear of the true. You, as the person, imagine that the Guru is interested in you as a person. Not at all. To him you are a nuisance and a hindrance to be done away with. He actually aims at your elimination as a factor in consciousness.
This fake-quote poster is on the wall of my room, for only me to see - a gift from the estate of a friend of mine, Patty, who passed away (cancer) several years ago. Patty was an embodiment of love & hospitality. Jovial, loud, extremely generous, she filled a room with her laughter. She fondly called me “my Lady-Monk”.
Patty had at best a superficial understanding of Buddhism. She once called me from a New Year’s party just after midnight, drunk, to wish me a happy new year. Once sober she promised not to do that again but didn’t quite get why it wasn’t a great idea. (So the next year instead of calling she added my # to a text thread to receive celebratory texts from her & her many friends, also sloshed, all night on New Year’s Eve and throughout the next day. )
I love the poster b/c it reminds me so much of Patty. Never met anyone else like her.
Confused idea attracts fools, like flame attracts insects.↓
Gomez Davila
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi, in Jeta’s Grove, Anathapindika’s monastery. Now on that occasion the Blessed One was sitting out in the open in the pitch black of the night, while oil lamps were burning. Many flying insects were meeting their downfall and misfortune in those oil lamps. The Blessed One saw those flying insects meeting their downfall and misfortune in those oil lamps.
Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:
Rushing headlong, missing what’s essential,
bringing on one new bond
after another,
like insects falling into the flame,
some are intent only on what’s seen & heard.
If the main business of mankind were merely to survive and endure, we are probably far less qualified to occupy a place on this planet than are rats or insects. Culture alone – in the deepest meaning of the word – can ultimately justify the human endeavour.
—An ethics that does not command us to renounce is a crime against the dignity to which we should aspire and against the happiness which we can obtain.
Man at the beck of passion is in many ways like a particle with no will of its own, since reason, especially morals, is the sole source of man’s ability to govern himself. Once gratification of passion becomes the definition of “liberty,” then “liberty” becomes synonymous with bondage because he who controls the passion controls the man.
But when the soul inquires alone by itself, it departs into the realm of the pure, the everlasting, the immortal and the changeless, and being akin to these it dwells always with them whenever it is by itself and is not hindered, and it has rest from its wanderings and remains always the same and unchanging with the changeless, since it is in communion therewith. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.
'And, in this modern world, seeking God in ordinary life may be as exacting, and indeed may be far more exacting, a task than seeking him in the cloister or the desert— Professor E. L. Mascall.
Carrying water in a sieve is known to be more exacting than carrying it in a bucket. This does not prove it is an equally efficient way of carrying water.
“The sweet, the vile, the tall, the small”
shows Cockburn is riffing off the Metta Sutta… not simply an instance of mature Christianity reflecting dhamma.
The just, the merciful, the cruel
The stumbling well-intentioned fool
The deft, the oaf, the witless pawn
The golden one life smiles upon
The squalling infant in mid-squall
The neighbors fighting down the hall
The list is long—as I recall
Our orders said to love them all
The cynic and the crooked priest
The woman wise, the sullen beast
The enemy outside the gatе
The friend who leavеs it all to fate
The drunk who tags the bathroom stall
The proud boy headed for his fall
The list is long—as I recall
Our orders said to love them all
The pastor preaching shades of hate
The self-inflating head of state
The black and blue, the starved for bread
The dread, the red, the better dead
The sweet, the vile, the tall, the small
The one who rises to the call
The list is long—as I recall
Our orders said to love them all
The one who lets his demons win
The one we think we’re better than
A challenge great—as I recall
Our orders said to love them all
“Words don’t have intrinsic meanings; the significance of an expression depends on how the interpretive community alive at the time of the text’s adoption under-stood those words. The older the text, the more distant that interpretive community from our own. At some point the difference becomes so great that the meaning is no longer recoverable reliably.”
Judge Frank H. Easterbrook in forward to Scalia and Garner’s “Reading Law”
… philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak; it exacts of every man that he should live according to his own standards, that his life should not be out of harmony with his words, and that, further, his inner life should be of one hue and not out of harmony with all his activities. This, I say, is the highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom, – that deed and word should be in accord, that a man should be equal to himself under all conditions, and always the same.
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