...

Lao-tze said to cultivate
Tranquility and detachment.
To be natural means not to force things.
When you act natural,
You get what you need,
But to know what is natural,
You have to cultivate tranquility.

- Master Hsieh

Titus 2:11-15
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
YHWH

True study of the Way
Does not rely on
Knowledge and genius
Or cleverness and brilliance.
It is an easy thing,
Just cultivate a
Keen and sincere desire
To seek the Way.

- Dogen (1200-1253)

When most people hear
That the Buddhas transmit the
Teaching of the One Mind,
They suppose that there
Is something to be attained
Or realized apart from mind,
And they use mind to seek the teaching,
Not realizing that mind and
The object of their search are one.
Mind can’t be used to seek mind;
If it is, even after millions of eons
Have gone by, the search will still not be over.
- Huang-Po

"Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

When we talk about settling the world's problems, we are barking up the wrong tree.

The world is perfect. The world is a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it.

Our job is to straighten out our own lives."

Joseph Campbell


One caveat, however: We are changing the world; we are making it messier, less hospitable to ourselves. That is the fruit of human folly, of trying to make the world 'better.'

In reply to Freud:

I have, after years of wrong hypotheses and false starts, discovered what one woman in particular wants: she wants me to know what she wants without her having to tell me or my having to ask her what she wants. I emphasize "knowing" here, because "guessing" what she wants isn't good enough; guessing what she wants could just as well be what some other woman wants; she wants me to know what she, uniquely she, wants. Knowing someone that well is both scary and exhilarating; allowing someone else to know me that well is both scary and exhilarating.

Sometimes she's not sure what she wants. I have to know that, too. And then I have to show her that I'm not scared, just exhilarated--to go with her to find out what she wants. That's what it is to be in love with someone.

@moonbus said
In reply to Freud:

I have, after years of wrong hypotheses and false starts, discovered what one woman in particular wants: she wants me to know what she wants without her having to tell me or my having to ask her what she wants. I emphasize "knowing" here, because "guessing" what she wants isn't good enough; guessing what she wants could just as well ...[text shortened]... xhilarated--to go with her to find out what she wants. That's what it is to be in love with someone.

Not bad for an "uber-nerd". 🙂

@suzianne said
Not bad for an "uber-nerd". 🙂

It has taken me the greater part of 63 years to figure that out. Fortunately, I did not ruin a lot of marriages on the way; got it right the first time. She has been patient with me.

EDIT: double portions of humour and self-deprication help to get past the rough patches.

@moonbus said
It has taken me the greater part of 63 years to figure that out.

Half your life?!

😲

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Half your life?!

😲

Better late than never. (Freud, apparently, never figured it out.)

Some say things exist,
Others say not.
Which view is true?
It’s like the difference in
Names—water or ice.

- Japanese Folk Zen saying

Searching for Taoist Ch'ang

The way, crossed by many paths,
The moss, by sandal tracks.
White clouds lean,
At rest on the silent island.
Fragrant grasses bar the idle gate.
Rain past, observe the color of the pines.
Out along the mountain, to the source,
Flowers in the stream reveal Ch'an's meaning.
Face to face, and all words gone.

- Lui Ch'ang-ch'ing (709-785)

Have you ever felt that you really didn’t like being here very much and that you wanted some wonderful eternal experience? That’s what is often thought but not said when the teacher says, "Be here right now." Inside you are feeling, "I am here, and I don’t like being here. I want to be there, where enlightenment is." If you have a really true teacher, you will be told that you are mistaken, that you have never been here. You’ve always been in time, therefore, you have never actually shown up here. Your body was here, but the rest of you went somewhere else.


Your body has been going through this thing called "life," but your head has been going through this thing called "my fantasy about life" or "my big story about life." You have been caught in an interpretation about life, so you have never really been here.

Here is the Promised Land. The eternal is here. Have you ever noticed that you have never left here, except in your mind? When you remember the past, you are not actually in the past. Your remembering is happening here. When you think about the future, that future projection is completely here. And when you get to the future, it’s here. It’s no longer the future.


To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think you are. That’s all! And then you realize, "I’m here." Here is where thoughts aren’t believed. Every time you come here, you are nothing. Radiantly nothing. Absolutely and eternally zero. Emptiness that is awake. Emptiness that is full. Emptiness that is everything.

~Adyashanti

@moonbus said
It has taken me the greater part of 63 years to figure that out. Fortunately, I did not ruin a lot of marriages on the way; got it right the first time. She has been patient with me.

EDIT: double portions of humour and self-deprication help to get past the rough patches.

This is wisdom.

Patience coupled with courage.


I've been engaged twice. The first time, to a man with bipolar disorder who ended up blowing his brains out all over our bedroom wall, the second time, to a man I found in bed with another woman one week before the wedding. I am not confident I will ever find "the one". I know several couples with what seems to me to be ideal relationships, so it's not like I've never seen what it looks like.

My first yardstick was my parents' relationship. I may be setting the bar too high.

@moonbus said
In reply to Freud:

I have, after years of wrong hypotheses and false starts, discovered what one woman in particular wants: she wants me to know what she wants without her having to tell me or my having to ask her what she wants. I emphasize "knowing" here, because "guessing" what she wants isn't good enough; guessing what she wants could just as well ...[text shortened]... xhilarated--to go with her to find out what she wants. That's what it is to be in love with someone.

Wow!

Great post!