Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
Time really is one big continuous cloth, no? We habitually cut out pieces of time to fit us, so we tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on.
I suspect that a greater and more insidious influence [than violence in movies] may lie in what they tell us about being in love, and how to conduct ourselves while in that condition.
Were we incapable of empathy – of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own – then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is blind, then reason without emotion is impotent...
Never had we ever kissed as lovers; if we touched lips it was as brother and sister. In one moment of emotion, our lips fell together by accident, but we quickly removed ourselves as though we were children touching glass with dirty hands.
An "attack on SeaWorld" might mean a bomb, or it might mean graffiti and glitter and a cream pie in the face. The government doesn't always seem to distinguish between the two.
Language does this to our memories— simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An oft -told story is like a photograph in a family album; eventually, it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.
So many problems, however infinitely varied they first appear, turn out to be matters of money. I can't tell you how much this offends me.
A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost...
...the best way to know who we are is often to find out how others see us. This doesn't mean that we should do what others expect us to do, but it helps us to understand ourselves better.
All we have to do is understand that we're all here for a reason and to commit ourselves to that. Then we can laugh at our sufferings, large and small and walk fearlessly, aware that each step has meaning
Wit smiled. "All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names.
Every 'problem' we face is only a problem because of the way our mind (ego) perceives it. It is, in fact, not a problem at all but rather a lesson we are providing to ourselves in order to evolve.
There are times in our lives when we have to realize our past is precisely what it is, and we cannot change it. But we can change the story we tell ourselves about it, and by doing that, we can change the future.
(Quoting :) "We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others.
When clouds will become heavier than the land in us led our entire life by the steps of our Destiny, we will understand that not their moments’ rain has darkened the sun of our life, but the failure to be ourselves.
We're here to get to know and study ourselves. The path, the way to do that, our main vehicle, is going to be meditation, and some sense of general wakefulness.
We don't have to be harsh with ourselves when we think, sitting here, that our meditation or our oryoki or the way we are in the world is in the category of worst horse.
Often as writers, we are surprised by what we learn about ourselves. It runs counter to what we’ve thought about who we are. But it is closer to the truth.
By writing, we partake in something greater than ourselves. Pick up pen and paper or take a seat at your computer today and create something of beauty.
Deep down in all of us there is a tendency to want to prove ourselves, to base our worth on what we do.
