Inspiring Thoughts

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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Nicholas Weeks
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Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.
Emerson; "Society and Solitude". Art.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

The chief good Aristotle has defined to be the exercise of virtue in a perfect life.
Diogenes Laërtius Aristotle. xiii.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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Grigoris
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Grigoris »

I prefer Diogenes of Sinope:

Some one had been reading aloud from a scroll for for a very long time, and when he was nearing the end of the roll Diogenes pointed to a space with no writing on it and exclaimed to the listening crowd: "Cheer up, my men, there's land in sight!"
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Virgo
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Virgo »

Sherab Dorje wrote:I prefer Diogenes of Sinope:

Some one had been reading aloud from a scroll for for a very long time, and when he was nearing the end of the roll Diogenes pointed to a space with no writing on it and exclaimed to the listening crowd: "Cheer up, my men, there's land in sight!"
Good posting.

:anjali: Kevin
AlexMcLeod
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by AlexMcLeod »

Socrates wrote:I drank what?
Relax! Smile From The Heart!
There is a difference between the Mundane and the Transcendental. If you purposefully confuse them, I will ignore you, you nihilist.
There is no Emotion, there is Peace. There is no Ignorance, there is Knowledge. There is no Passion, there is Serenity. There is no Death, there is the Force.
Simon E.
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Simon E. »

'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well'

Dame Julian of Norwich. 14th-century mystic and hermit.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.

Herbert Agar 1897-1980 - A Time for Greatness (1942) ch. 7
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Nor ever once ashamed
So we be named
Press-men; Slaves of the Lamp; Servants of Light.

Sir Edwin Arnold 1832-1904 - ‘The Tenth Muse’ (1895) st. 18
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
AlexMcLeod
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by AlexMcLeod »

Zoom wrote:You can't lock up the Darkness.
Relax! Smile From The Heart!
There is a difference between the Mundane and the Transcendental. If you purposefully confuse them, I will ignore you, you nihilist.
There is no Emotion, there is Peace. There is no Ignorance, there is Knowledge. There is no Passion, there is Serenity. There is no Death, there is the Force.
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Wayfarer
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Wayfarer »

Sherab Dorje wrote:I prefer Diogenes of Sinope...
I also like this story:
It was in Corinth that a meeting between Alexander the Great and Diogenes is supposed to have taken place. The accounts of Plutarch and Diogenes Laërtius recount that they exchanged only a few words: while Diogenes was relaxing in the sunlight in the morning, Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him (bear in mind, Alexander was at this stage ruler of the known world). Diogenes replied, "Yes, stand out of my sunlight".
With respect to 'inspiring thoughts', there is a marveilous but little-commented book by John Fowles, called The Aristos, which at the end contains a compendium of quotes from Heraclitus. Among my favourites:
The many live in each in their own private world, whilst those who are awake have but one world in common.
The road up and the road down are the same road.
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
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Grigoris
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Grigoris »

Wayfarer wrote:With respect to 'inspiring thoughts', there is a marveilous but little-commented book by John Fowles, called The Aristos, which at the end contains a compendium of quotes from Heraclitus. Among my favourites:
The many live in each in their own private world, whilst those who are awake have but one world in common.
The road up and the road down are the same road.
One of my favorites from Heraclitus is: I neither wish to rule, nor to be ruled.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
Iconodule
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Iconodule »

There is but one world and it is not divided into parts. On the contrary, it encloses the differences of the parts arising from their natural properties by their relation to what is one and indivisible in itself. Moreover, it shows that both are the same thing with it and alternately with each other in an unconfused way and that the whole of one enters into the whole of the other, and both fill the same whole as parts fill a unit, and in this way the parts are uniformly and entirely filled as a whole. For the whole spiritual world seems mystically imprinted on the whole sensible world in symbolic forms, for those who are capable of seeing this, and conversely the whole sensible world is spiritually explained in the mind in the principles which it contains. In the spiritual world it is in principles; in the sensible world it is in figures. - St Maximus the Confessor
Enter eagerly into the treasure house that lies within you, and so you will see the treasure house of heaven. For the two are the same, and there is but on single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the Kingdom is hidden within you, and is found in your soul. Dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the rungs by which you are to ascend. - Saint Isaac of Syria
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Icondule, Try to give the source of a quote, if you know it.

St. Maximos q. is from The Church's Mystagogy.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.
Alcuin - Letter 164 in ‘Works’ (1863) vol. 1, p. 438
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

There is more to this , than meets the eye.........

( Houdini )

?
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Longfellow - ‘The Ladder of Saint Augustine’ (1850)
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
sattva
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by sattva »

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." Rabindranath Tagore

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." Rabindranath Tagore
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by Kim O'Hara »

sattva wrote:"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." Rabindranath Tagore
Here's an illustrated version you may like: http://zenpencils.com/comic/133-rabindr ... y-of-life/

:namaste:
Kim
sattva
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by sattva »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Here's an illustrated version you may like: http://zenpencils.com/comic/133-rabindr ... y-of-life/

:namaste:
Kim
Thanks, Kim! It's very nice :smile:
:namaste:
dreambow
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Re: Inspiring Thoughts

Post by dreambow »

'Somethings about life do not feel ok or right

but with my camera and fresh air I was able to seize many wonderful images today that allow peace in my own heart

I can't describe the beauty and maybe you can try visualizing it.

I was at a pond in a nearby shrine. It is one of my new routes because I needed to begin to create a hobby other than accomplishing brooding and depression.

Anyway-took many lovely photos today. buildings, frogs, lily pads, the flower of the lily pad. Not sure if it is considered a lotus.

but the one I savored the most is my last photo of the day.....it was a rolled up lily pad in the shape of a heart.

It could not get better than this.

then the rain came making it all the more beautiful'

Not sure who wrote this but its both beautiful and poignant
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