"They lightly talk of scars who never felt a wound." Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II
"False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutory pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward errors is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened." — Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Islamic prayer:
Dear God,
If I worship you out of fear of falling into Hell
Please cast me into it.
And if I worship you out of a desire for Paradise,
Please deny me it.
"Peace and happiness are not our birthright. Whoever has attained them, has done so by continual effort." Ramana Maharshi
"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars—mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?" Richard P. Feynman
"One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid." James D. Watson, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA
Albert Einstein in response to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: "God doesn't play dice!"
Niels Bohr: "Einstein, don't tell God what to do!"
“Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience. In this respect our task must be to account for such experience in a manner independent of individual subjective judgement and therefor objective in the sense that it can be unambiguously communicated in ordinary human language.” Niels Bohr
“What will you do, Mr. Russell, if after you die, you find out there is a God? What will you say to him?”
“I will tell Him He just did not give me enough evidence.”
~ Bernard Russell, mathematician
“Because we have defilements, we are always on the lookout for everybody else's pollutions. None of that matters, it's all totally unimportant. The only thing that is significant is to be mindful; totally attentive to each step on the way, to what one is doing, feeling, thinking. It's so easy to forget this.” Ayya Khema
“The striving for [inner] bliss is the motivational force that tips the scale of the inner battle between movement and stagnation, between reality and illusion, between fulfillment and despair...It must occur at one stage or another. However, you also seek shortcuts. You sometimes want to fulfill the longing without paying the price. The price is the labor of searching, of seeking and finding, of learning, of growing, of changing, of self-purification, of traversing all self-created pain and evil.” Eva Broch Pierrakos
“As evening draws near, you regret that you did not practice early in the morning. The worldly pleasure which you enjoy now becomes suffering in the future. Why then are you attached to this pleasure? One moment of practice becomes lasting pleasure. Why then do you not practice?” Won Hyo
Buddhist training...goes against the stream of ignorance and craving and teaches that it is very important to see just one's own weak spots so that they may be mended. There is little use in winnowing others' faults, and one cannot change others by pulling them to pieces, indeed as the following Dhammapada say:
"Who so sees others' faults,
Taking offence, censorious,
For one like this the taints increase,
One is far from destroying them."
(Dhp. 253)
What use is there for a well
If there is water everywhere?
When craving’s root is severed
What should one go about seeking?
UDANA 7.9
Tomorrows work do today,
today's work now.
If the moment is lost,
how will the work be done?
~ Kabir
"Think of yourself as totally surrounded by the breath, bathed in the breath, and then survey the whole body to see where there are still sections of the body that are tense or tight, that are preventing the breath from coming in and going out. Allow them to loosen up. This way you allow for the fullness of the breath to come in, go out, each time there’s an in-breath, each time there’s an out-breath.
Actually the fullness doesn’t go in and out. There’s just a quality of fullness that’s bathed by the breath coming in, bathed by the breath going out. It’s not squeezed out by the breath. It’s not forced out by the breath. Each nerve in the body is allowed to relax and have a sense of fullness, right here, right now. Then simply try to maintain that sense of fullness by the way you breathe. Your focus is on the breath, but you can’t help but notice the fullness."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu
“Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility. There is no question that a playfully light attitude is typical of creative individuals. But this playfulness doesn’t go very far without its antithesis, a quality of doggedness, endurance, perseverance.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"It is easy to fast, more difficult to eat little or in moderation, as in meditation. Instead of frequent fasting, learn to eat with mindfulness and sensitivity to your needs, learn to distinguish needs from desire." Ajahn Chah on "Moderation"
"We cannot care for people in a world with collapsing ecosystems. And we cannot care for Earth in a world with widespread poverty, injustice, and violent conflict."
Steven Rockefeller
"Lovingkindness—maitri—toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy, we can still be angry. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That's what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest." -Pema Chodron, "We Can Still Be Crazy"
