When rivers enter the ocean, the waters lose their names.
—Chih-i (Cleary 1997c, 486)
Author: gnox
Duty
Our duty is to strive for self-realization and we should lose ourselves in that aim.
— Gandhi (1926, 86)
One can do one’s duty only if one banishes all impatience and anxiety in regard to it.
— Gandhi (1926, 73)
Free Will
Advice
If you want to know the meaning of buddha-nature, observe the conditions of the time.
— Blue Cliff Record (Cleary 2002, 126)
Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.
— J. A. Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam (2000), p. 235.
When you come to a fork in the road— take it.
— Yogi Berra
Always think twice before taking advice.
— gnox
Do you read me?
This inert sentence is my body, but my soul is alive, dancing in the sparks of your brain.
— Hofstadter (1985, 11)
Becoming
Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.
— anon
Everything is always becoming something other than what it was becoming.
— Floyd Merrell (2003, 70)
The past will never look like the future did.
— gnox
Wounderworkers
The wise are they that speak not unless they obtain a hearing.
— Bahá’u’lláh, Hidden Words (Persian) #36
Perfect activity leaves no track behind it; perfect speech is like a jade-worker whose tool leaves no mark.
— Tao Te Ching 27 (Waley)
Time heals all wounds as silence heals all words.
— gnox
Economy of attention
… a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
— Herbert Simon (1971)
More words count less.
— Tao Te Ching 5 (Feng/English)
Love this
Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love.
— Simone Weil (as quoted by Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 233)
Palintrope
Pai Chang said, “All sayings and writings return to one’s self.”
— Blue Cliff Record (Cleary and Cleary 1977, 490)
What do you mean by that?