A tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself. By sinking its roots deeply into the earth, by accepting the rain that flows towards it, by reaching out to the sun, the tree perfects its character and becomes great. … Absorb, absorb, absorb. That is the secret of the tree.— Deng Ming-Dao
Psychosocial reality—the reality we create by what we think, what we choose, what we agree to do with others, what values we support—is what is missing in scientific studies. It is possible to study this reality and identify its structures, regularities and principles. But first you have to recognize its existence!!
Man need only divert his attention from searching for the solution to external questions and pose the one, true inner question of how he should lead his life, and all the external questions will be resolved in the best possible way.
~ Leo Tolstoy
”…the last thing we like is our own impermanence. Who hasn’t noticed the first gray hair and thought, ‘Uh-oh.’ So a battle rages in human existence. We refuse to see the truth that’s all around us. We don’t really see life at all. Our attention is elsewhere. We are engaged in an unending battle with our fears about ourselves and our existence. If we want to see life we must be attentive to it. But we’re not interested in doing that; we’re only interested in the battle to preserve ourselves forever. And of course it’s an anxious and futile battle, a battle that can’t be won. The one who always wins is death, the ‘right hand man’ of impermanence….
Yet we wage the battle ceaselessly. We are frantically busy. When our personal attempts to win the battle fail, we may try to find peace in a false form of religion. And people who offer that carrot get rich. We are desperate for someone who will tell us, ‘It’s all right. Everything can be wonderful for you.’ Even in Zen practice we try to find a way around what practice really is, so that we can gain a personal victory.
“People often say to me, ‘Why do you make practice so hard? Why don’t you hold out any cookies at all?’ But from the point of view of the small self, practice can only be hard. Practice annihilates the small self, and the small self isn’t interested in that one bit. It can’t be expected to greet this annihilation with joy….
…As our small self dies—our angry, demanding, complaining, maneuvering, manipulative self—a real cookie appears: joy and genuine self-confidence.
The orange carnelian is so rich.
(via Stunning Natural Stone Necklaces Carnelian by WhimsicalStones)
(via consciouscynic)
Adyashanti - True Meditation 1of3 (by Peace)
(Source: thoughtfulcynic, via sugarmagnolia38)
The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there.
Robert M. Pirsig
(Source: lazyyogi, via liliezencoach)
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
The team was able to teach the dolphins simple and complex sentences involving nouns and verbs, revealing that dolphins comprehend elements of human language, as well as having a complex visual language of their own. Kassewitz commented, (via The Discovery of Dolphin Language | Wake Up World)
(via neusdadt)
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