We do not reason ourselves into it.
-- W. B. Yeats
~
-"You inside and the wind outside, tangled on the window blind, tell
-me why you treated me so unkind. Down where the sun don't shine I'm lonely
-and I call your name, no place to go ain't that a shame...."
- -- J. Garcia
+You inside and the wind outside, tangled on the window blind, tell me why you
+treated me so unkind. Down where the sun don't shine I'm lonely and I call
+your name, no place to go ain't that a shame....
+ -- Jerry Garcia
~
The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough
to believe the best is yet to come.
That's assault, not leadership.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
~
-When elephants fight, only the grass gets hurt.
- -- Swahili Saying
+When elephants fight, only the grass gets hurt. -- Swahili Saying
~
Men who know the same things are not long the best company for each other.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
recognize a mistake when you make it again.
-- Franklin P. Jones
~
-Nobody roots for Goliath.
- -- Wilt Chamberlain
+Nobody roots for Goliath. -- Wilt Chamberlain
~
(cat haiku)
Gentle pussy, bit
someone says, "my hand stinks because my butt stinks."
an inference you could draw:
that hand has probably been too close to that butt.
+~
+What Do We Mean by Bodhisattva?
+
+ Bodhi means enlightenment, the state devoid of all defects and endowed with
+all good qualities. Sattva refers to someone who has courage and confidence
+and who strives to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings. Those who
+have this spontaneous, sincere wish to attain enlightenment for the ultimate
+benefit of all beings are called bodhisattvas. Through wisdom, they direct
+their minds to enlightenment, and through their compassion, they have concern
+for beings. This wish for perfect enlightenment for the sake of others is
+what we call bodhichitta, and it is the starting point on the path.
+~
+The Notion of Self
+
+ When we talk about the notion of self in Buddhism, it is important to bear
+in mind that there are different degrees or types. There are some types of
+sense of self which are not only to be cultivated but also to be reinforced
+and enhanced. For instance, in order to have a strong determination to seek
+buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, one needs a very strong
+sense of confidence, which is based upon a sense of commitment and courage.
+This requires a strong sense of self. Unless one has that identity or sense
+of self, one will not be able to develop the confidence and courage to
+strongly seek this aim.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+Genuine peace of mind is rooted in affection and compassion. There is a very
+high level of sensitivity and feeling involved. So long as we lack inner
+discipline, an inner calmness of mind, then no matter what external facilities
+or conditions we may have, they will never give us the feeling of joy and
+happiness that we seek. On the other hand, if we possess this inner
+quality—that is, calmness of mind, a degree of stability within—then even
+if we lack various external facilities that are normally considered necessary
+for a happy and joyful life, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful
+life.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+COMPLICATED SIMPLICITY
+
+ Emptiness is the simplest and most unelaborated thing we could imagine, but
+then there is this whole literature about all these very discursive details
+with all their subpoints. There are five paths and ten bhumis, and each path
+is divided into a number of stages, with certain numbers of obscurations
+having to be relinquished on each one of those subpaths. Most people just
+think, "Who wants or needs to know all that? Don’t we have too many
+thoughts already? I thought this was about letting go of all reference
+points."
+ Of course nobody really wants to know all those details and in a sense we
+all know them already, because they are the details of the many reference
+points that we already have in our mind. The fact that these sutras and their
+commentaries talk about our obscurations is precisely the point why they seem
+so endless and complicated—because our minds are complicated. Emptiness is
+extremely simple, but our convoluted minds that do not get this simplicity are
+very complicated. It is not that the Buddha and the other speakers in the
+sutras and the commentaries really like to, but they need to address each one
+of those knots in our minds, which are like knots in space.
+~
+If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have
+to be a horrible warning.
+ -- Catherine Aird
+~
+THE MIND OF CLEAR LIGHT
+
+ Is spiritual practice really worthwhile? Is it really possible to eliminate
+from within ourselves the forces that give rise to suffering? As is said,
+“The ultimate nature of mind is clear light.” Consciousness has many
+levels, and although the coarser levels are affected by the defiling forces,
+the most subtle level remains free of gross negativities. In the Vajrayana
+this subtle level of consciousness is called the mind of clear light.
+ The delusions and emotional afflictions as well as the dualistic mind of
+right and wrong, love and hatred, etc., are associated only with the coarse
+levels of consciousness. At the moment, we are totally absorbed in the
+interplay of these coarse states, so we must begin our practice by working
+within them. This means consciously encouraging love over hate, patience in
+place of anger, emotional freedom rather than attachment, kindness over
+violence, and so forth. Doing this brings immediate peace and calm to the
+mind, thus making higher meditation possible.
+ Then, because grasping at a self and at phenomena as being truly existent is
+the cause of all the vast range of distorted states of mind, one cultivates
+the wisdom that eliminates this ego-grasping. To overcome ego-grasping is to
+overcome the entire host of mental distortions.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+It is the general Buddhist procedure that one’s own pleasure and pain are
+acheived by oneself and not from the outside, and that, therefore, sentient
+beings themselves must understand and implement practices to bring about their
+own happiness. Thus, the most efficacious way to help others is through
+teaching what should be adopted in practice and what should be discarded from
+among current behavior. There is no way to do this unless you come to know
+all of the topics involved in what should be adopted in practice and what
+should be discarded—you must become omniscient. As mentioned earlier, there
+is no way to accomplish this except by removing the obstructions to
+omniscience, and one who has overcome, utterly and forever, the obstructions
+to omniscience is a Buddha.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+ In meditation, imagine that in front of you are three persons—an enemy, a
+friend, and a neutral person. At that time, in our minds we have (1) a sense
+of closeness for one of them, thinking, “This is my friend”; (2) a sense
+of dislike even when imagining the enemy; and (3) a sense of ignoring the
+neutral person. Now, we have to think about the reasons why we generate these
+feelings—the reasons being that temporarily one of them helped us whereas
+the other temporarily harmed us, and the third did neither. However, when we
+think in terms of the long course of beginningless rebirth, none of us could
+decide that someone who has helped or harmed us in this life has been doing so
+for all lifetimes.
+ When you contemplate this way, eventually you arrive at a point where a
+strong generation of desire or hatred appears to you to be just senseless.
+Gradually, such a bias weakens, and you decide that one-sided classification
+of persons as friends and enemies has been a mistake.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+ Generally speaking, even if money brings us happiness, it tends to be the
+kind that money can buy: material things and sensory experiences. And these,
+we discover, become a source of suffering themselves. As far as actual
+possessions are concerned, we must admit that they often cause us more, not
+less, difficulty in life. The car breaks down, we lose our money, our most
+precious belongings are stolen, our house is damaged by fire. Or we worry
+about these things happening.
+ The problem is not materialism as such. Rather it is the underlying
+assumption that full satisfaction can arise from gratifying the senses alone.
+Unlike animals whose quest for happiness is restricted to survival and to the
+immediate gratification of sensory desires, we human beings have the capacity
+to experience happiness at a deeper level, which, when achieved, can overwhelm
+unhappy experiences.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of
+others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like
+it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives in which we do not benefit
+from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most
+of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Nor
+is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by
+concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic
+actions bring about happiness, but they also lessen our experience of
+suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are
+motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less
+misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort
+or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our
+internal peace—anxiety, doubt, disappointment—these are definitely less.
+ -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+
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