Everyone post some favorite quotes!

[CloudHands]

5 hours ago, neti neti said:

"The dog of doubt barks in vain."

 

~Shri Siddha Rameshwar Maharaj

 

Biggest mistakes are done with conviction.

[neti neti]

"The biggest ego trip going is getting rid of the ego."

 

"A fool who persists in his folly will become wise."

 

~Alan Watts

Edited June 6, 2019 by neti neti

[moment]

On 6/2/2019 at 7:02 PM, silent thunder said:

Perception perceives perception, not reality.   ~ me to my son last week.

 

It is what they believe they’ve experienced and how they believe they understand it.

 

True enlightenment shatters belief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

Just now, moment said:

It is what they believe they’ve experienced and how they believe they understand it.

 

True enlightenment shatters belief.

YES!  This!

 

reworded here very eloquently:

Quote

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.  ~ Robert McCloskey

 

[moment]

Shiny Light asked Non-existence: "Sir, do you exist or do you not exist?" 

(Attributed to Zhuang Zhou 莊周 c.369–c.286 BCE

Edited June 7, 2019 by moment

[moment]

Many of us here, can grasp enough energy in one step, to force us half a step back to recover.  But the discipline and perception to grasp just enough,to advance just a little, without the need for that much recovery, is part of the way.

Edited June 10, 2019 by moment

[silent thunder]

"Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?"

-- D.T. Suzuki

 

"Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water."

-- D.T. Suzuki

 

"The basic idea of Zen is to come in touch with the inner workings of our being, and to do this in the most direct way possible, without resorting to anything external or superadded. Therefore, anything that has the semblance of an external authority is rejected by Zen. Absolute faith is placed in a man's own inner being. For whatever authority there is in Zen, all comes from within."

-- D.T. Suzuki

 

indeed... what greater authority exists but awareness?

[moment]

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
― Marcus Aurelius

[moment]

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man without trials.”
―Seneca

[moment]

If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: ‘He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned’.”
― Epictetus

[moment]

The best phrase I have ever heard for the middle road was conceived by the Stoics 2400 years ago. It was "Grateful Indifference".

[moment]

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.

Pema Chodron

Edited July 3, 2019 by moment

[moment]

Instead of making others right or wrong, or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there's a middle way, a very powerful middle way...... Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way..... true communication can happen only in that open space.

Pema Chodron

[silent thunder]

Quote

"So you are hungry not for wisdom but for knowledge!  What a pity!  Wisdom is almost as satisfying as good millet-gruel, whereas knowledge has less body to it than tepid water poured over old tea-leaves;  but if that is the fare you have come for, I can give you as much as your mistreated belly will hold.  What sort of old tea-leaves do Buddhists use, I wonder!  We Taoists use all sorts.  Some swallow medicine-balls as big as pigeon's eggs or drink tonics by the jugful, live upon unappetizing diets, take baths at intervals goverened by esoteric numbers, breathe in and out like asthmatic dragons, or jump about like Manchu bannermen hardening themselves for battle -- all this discomfort just for a few extra decades of life! 

 

And why?  To gain more time to find what has never been lost!  And what of those pious recluses who rattle mattets against wooden-fish drums from dusk to dawn, groaning out liturgies like cholera-patients excreting watery dung?  They are penitents longing to rid themselves of a burden they never had.  These people do everything imaginable, including swallowing pills made from the vital fluids secreted by the opposide sex and lighting fires in their bellies to make the alchemic cauldrons boil -- everything, everything except -- sit still and look within. 

 

I shall have to talk of such follies for hours, if you really want a full list of Taoist methods.  These method-users resemble mountain streams a thousand leagues from the sea.  Ah, how they chatter and gurgle, bubble and boil, rush and eddy, plunging over precipices in spectacular fashion!  How angrily they pound against the boulders and suck down their prey in treacherous whirl-pools!  But, as the streams broaden, they grow quieter and more purposeful.  They become rivers -- ah, how calm, how silent!  How majestically they sweep towards their goal, giving no impression of swiftness and, as they near the ocean, seeming not to move at all!  While noisy mountain streams are reminiscent of people chattering about the Tao and showing-off spectacular methods, rivers remind one of experienced men, taciturn, doing little, but doing it decisively; outwardly still, yet sweeping forward faster than you know. 

 

Your teachers have offered you wisdom; then why waste time acquiring knowledge?  Methods!  Approaches!  Need the junk-master steering towards the sea, with the sails of his vessel billowing in the wind, bother his head about alternative modes of propulsion -- oars, paddles, punt-poles, tow-ropes, engines and all the rest?  Any sort of vessel, unless it founders or pitches you overboard, is good enough to take you to the one and only sea.  Now do you understand?"

Tseng Lao-weng to John Blofeld as described by John in his book, The Secret and Sublime

[moment]

9 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Tseng Lao-weng to John Blofeld as described by John in his book, The Secret and Sublime

 

I have always loved rivers.

[moment]

.

Edited July 5, 2019 by moment

[moment]

Belief is not knowledge and you may believe far more than you know.--Anon

Edited July 6, 2019 by moment

[moment]

Emptiness has a way- Anon
 

Edited July 5, 2019 by moment

[neti neti]

"The more I try to explain myself, the less I understand myself."

 

"Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible."

 

~Eugene Ionesco

[neti neti]

10 hours ago, moment said:

Emptiness has a way- Anon
 

 

"The window is the absence of the wall, and it gives air and light because it is empty. Be empty of all mental content, of all imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles will cause reality to rush in."

 

~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[OldDog]

Cut out doors and windows in the house (-wall),

From their not-being (empty space) arises the utility of the house.
Therefore by the existence of things we profit.

And by the non-existence of things we are served.

 

- Laotse Ch11

[Sebastian]

I really loved this quote from Master Ni's Mother, from the book Entering the Tao.... page 92.

 

"If love is true, the experience of love and deep joy occur in the same moment. It is not joyful to reminisce about a particular moment of love in the past. The enlightenment of love exists in each moment. There is no search that can find love, nor any occasion that can create love. You know love when your heart is open. The music is silent, but its harmony pervades your entire being. In that moment, there is no separation.

 

Love is the golden light of the sun rising within your being. It is the rose which has just opened its eyes. It is the freshness of the dew or the caress of a wave on the shore - all within you.

 

In our tradition, we can enjoy the sunrise within us every moment. Our love is as free as the blowing wind and as enduring as a flowing river. Since we continually renew ourselves, we do not fear losing love. Our cultivation becomes our lover, for our love is Tao. Thus, love never withers, for it is continually refreshed."

[Toni]

"the world is nothing but change. our life is only perception" (Marcus Aurelius)

 

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil" (Marcus Aurelius)

[moment]

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate: 
I am the captain of my soul.”

― William Ernest Henley

[moment]

3 hours ago, Toni said:

"the world is nothing but change. our life is only perception" (Marcus Aurelius)

 

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil" (Marcus Aurelius)

 

I very rarely disagree with Marcus (the greatest leader of all time) but some people that can tell good from evil are nasty anyway.

Edited July 7, 2019 by moment