Inspiring Thoughts

[Nicholas Weeks]

"Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the Orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity
Under the smile of safety wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I . . . ."

Henry IV,part 2

[Nicholas Weeks]

It happens that many of us are able to believe political evils are simply structural, as if human nature itself were no obstacle.

Christopher DeGroot

[Virgo]

It happens that many of us are able to believe political evils are simply structural, as if human nature itself were no obstacle.

Christopher DeGroot

Virgo

[Lucas Oliveira]

Songs of Milarepa:

Milarepa composed many spiritual songs that revealed his realizations. This is one of his famous verses:

“Meditate in the unborn nature of the mind:
Like space, no center, no limit;
Like the sun and moon, bright and clear;
Like a mountain, unmoving, unshakeable;
Like the ocean, deep, unfathomable.”

https://neozen888.wordpress.com/tag/relics-of-milarepa/

[Nicholas Weeks]

The writer of vision may foresee and describe what he does not wholly understand himself.

Russell Kirk

[Nicholas Weeks]

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

—Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present

[A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha]

Enlightenment is to turn around and see my own mistake. Others mistake is also my mistake. Others are right even if they are wrong. I'm wrong, even if I'm right .

[ Venerable Master Chin Kung ]

Venerable Master Chin Kung.jpg

[Nicholas Weeks]

The conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and character—with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest.

Russell Kirk

[Nicholas Weeks]

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires,—and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.

Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.

From As A Man Thinketh by James Allen

[明安 Myoan]

We have been firmly fettered by the enemy of worldly passions such as greed and anger and have transmigrated in the cage of the delusive three realms. Upon seeing this, Amida Buddha, with deep sympathy like a compassionate mother, cuts our ties of transmigration with the sharp sword of his name, sets the cherished boat of the essential vow afloat on the waves of the ocean of anguish and leads us to the shore of the Pure Land. Upon reflection of this, our joy becomes too much for words; we can wring the tears of joy out of our sleeves, and our heart is overwhelmed in adoration of Amida Buddha.

[Lucas Oliveira]

“There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the light that shines in your heart.” —Chandogya Upanishad

[Nicholas Weeks]

The gods are immortal mortals and men are mortal immortals.

Heraclitus

[boundless]

Marcus Aurelius on contemplating impermanence:

Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time, the turning of a gimlet.

Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change

(Meditations Book X, Marcus Aurelius, George Long tranls. see: http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/medit ... 0.ten.html)

[Lucas Oliveira]

It is not the river, but the bridge that moves
(Koan Zen?)

Não é o rio, mas a ponte que se move
(Koan Zen)
http://www.saindodamatrix.com.br/archiv ... atori.html

[Nicholas Weeks]

What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.

Demosthenes

[Nicholas Weeks]

Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.

Dryden

[如傑優婆塞]

This and That

[Nicholas Weeks]

Virtuous, therefore, is the man who relieves the corporeal wants of others, who wipes away the tear of sorrow, and gives agony repose; but more virtuous he who, by disseminating wisdom, expels ignorance from the soul, and thus benefits the immortal part of man. For it may indeed be truly said, that he who has not even a knowledge of common things is a brute among men; that he who has an accurate knowledge of human concerns alone is a man among brutes; but that he who knows all that can be known by intellectual energy is a God among men.

Thomas Taylor, from his Introduction to Metaphysics of Aristotle.

[LoveFromColorado]

The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.

- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

I hesitate to share this quote given the nature of the book which I think is excellent but not for the gentle reader. That said, I'm on my second reading of this book and I keep re-reading this quote. I find it quite inspiring personally.

[Nicholas Weeks]

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life: “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.”It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”