Shunryu Suzuki once said: “Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” On the other hand, Ernest Hemingway said: “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
Note to self: DO NOT TAKE THE BOAT!
“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” Isaac Asimov
“Regard this fleeting world like this: like stars fading and vanishing at dawn, like bubbles on a fast-moving stream, like morning dewdrops evaporating on blades of grass, like a candle flickering in a strong wind…echoes, mirages, and phantoms, hallucinations, and like a dream.” Buddha
French photographer Marc Riboud once said: “The idea of photography as evidence is pure bullshit. A photo is no more proof of any reality than what you may hear being said by someone in a bus. We only record details, small fragments of the world.”
“Watch the clouds. They will teach you about the world of form.” Eckhart Tolle
“For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” T.S. Eliot
“What is reality? An icicle forming in fire.” Dōgen
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called Without Hope which confused a lot of people, I hope this clears it up.
“Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.” Pema Chodron
And to simplify: “Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don’t see the self as self, what do we have to fear?” Lao Tzu
“In the mirror of your mind all kinds of pictures appear and disappear. Know that they are entirely your own creations, watch them silently come and go. Be alert, but not perturbed. You see the picture, but you are not the picture.” Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Everything in this world has a hidden meaning.” Nikos Kazantzakis
