From Parabola:
Wim Wenders, "Ganjin Statue At The Toshodaiji Temple," Nara, Japan
"Heartfelt wishes for your own future spiritual development and for the progress of others is itself a form of meditation."
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama
***
What surprises you so much about humanity?
Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eliot Furness Porter, "Wildness Portfolio," 1953-1968.
“Samsara literally means “wandering-on.” Many people think of it as the Buddhist name for the place where we currently live. But in the early Buddhist texts, it’s the answer, not to the question, “Where are we?” but to the question, “What are we doing?” Instead of a place, it’s a process: the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them. As one world falls apart, you create another one and go there. At the same time, you bump into other people who are creating their own worlds, too.
The process can sometimes be enjoyable. In fact, it would be perfectly innocuous if it didn’t entail so much suffering. The worlds we create keep caving in and killing us. Moving into a new world requires effort: not only the pains and risks of taking birth, but also the hard knocks - mental and physical - that come from going through childhood into adulthood, over and over again.”
—Geoffrey DeGraff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine Ellis "Caravanserai," Central Turkey from "Where Light Dwells."
“Do not brace yourself against suffering. Try to close your eyes and surrender yourself, as if to a great loving energy. This attitude is neither weak nor absurd, it is the only one that cannot lead us astray - unless life itself is inherently a contradictory and stupid thing, which it’s very existence belies.”
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin rom "Letters to Two Friends” 1926-1952.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isaac Levitan: "The Twilight. Moon." 1899. Oil on canvas, 20" x 24." The Russian Museum collection, St. Petersburg, Russia.
An Autumn Evening
In the brightness of autumn evenings
there is a touching, mysterious charm:
an ominous glitter, motley trees,
a light, languorous rustle of scarlet leaves,
a hazy, quiet blueness
across the sadly orphaned world
and, presaging gathering storms,
at times a gusty snap of wind.
Loss. Exhaustion. And on it all
there is that gentle smile of fading
which, in a thinking creature, we should call
the divine shame of suffering.
—Fyodor Tyutchev, Translated by F. Jude. Courtesy of Memory Green
Wim Wenders, "Ganjin Statue At The Toshodaiji Temple," Nara, Japan
"Heartfelt wishes for your own future spiritual development and for the progress of others is itself a form of meditation."
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama
***
What surprises you so much about humanity?
Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eliot Furness Porter, "Wildness Portfolio," 1953-1968.
“Samsara literally means “wandering-on.” Many people think of it as the Buddhist name for the place where we currently live. But in the early Buddhist texts, it’s the answer, not to the question, “Where are we?” but to the question, “What are we doing?” Instead of a place, it’s a process: the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them. As one world falls apart, you create another one and go there. At the same time, you bump into other people who are creating their own worlds, too.
The process can sometimes be enjoyable. In fact, it would be perfectly innocuous if it didn’t entail so much suffering. The worlds we create keep caving in and killing us. Moving into a new world requires effort: not only the pains and risks of taking birth, but also the hard knocks - mental and physical - that come from going through childhood into adulthood, over and over again.”
—Geoffrey DeGraff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine Ellis "Caravanserai," Central Turkey from "Where Light Dwells."
“Do not brace yourself against suffering. Try to close your eyes and surrender yourself, as if to a great loving energy. This attitude is neither weak nor absurd, it is the only one that cannot lead us astray - unless life itself is inherently a contradictory and stupid thing, which it’s very existence belies.”
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin rom "Letters to Two Friends” 1926-1952.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isaac Levitan: "The Twilight. Moon." 1899. Oil on canvas, 20" x 24." The Russian Museum collection, St. Petersburg, Russia.
An Autumn Evening
In the brightness of autumn evenings
there is a touching, mysterious charm:
an ominous glitter, motley trees,
a light, languorous rustle of scarlet leaves,
a hazy, quiet blueness
across the sadly orphaned world
and, presaging gathering storms,
at times a gusty snap of wind.
Loss. Exhaustion. And on it all
there is that gentle smile of fading
which, in a thinking creature, we should call
the divine shame of suffering.
—Fyodor Tyutchev, Translated by F. Jude. Courtesy of Memory Green
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