Great quotes: Psychology, Philosophy and Metaphysics

Zen meditation is not physical culture, nor is it a method to gain something material. It is peacefulness and blessedness itself. It is the actualization of truth and wisdom.

- The Practice of Meditation, Zen Master Dogen

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
Niels Bohr

Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us.

- Ayya Khema

WE need to talk. Send someone to pick me up.
R.S.O.

From Cormac MCCarthy's "The Road," describing a post-apolyptic and ruined world:

In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees shrouded up in their clothing. Wearing masks and goggles, sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators. Their barrows heaped with shoddy. Towing wagons or carts. Their eyes bright in their skulls. Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland. The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. "Ever" is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That "ever" is no time at all...

...Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was?...

...He thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime, but he took small comfort from it.

[edit on 10/23/09 by silent thunder]

reply to post by Aquarius1


"Poison mind or poise-zen mind?"
-Me

[edit on 10/23/09 by silent thunder]

"Wine is strong, the King is stronger, women are strongest, the TRUTH conquers all."
-Inscription, Rosslyn Chapel

"I have done that," says my memory. "I cannot have done that" - says my pride, and remains adamant. At last - memory yields.
-Nietzsche

One of my favourites:

"The light at the end of the tunnel, could be a #@%&^ train!"

And this gem:

"Only the dead fish go with the flow..."

And who could forget:

"If you love something, set it free. If it doesn't come back to you - HUNT IT DOWN AND $%#@! KILL IT!!!!"

Real Love is not based on attachment, but on altruism. In this case, your compassion will remain as a humane response to suffering as long as beings continue to suffer.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Your ability to learn is directly related to how much/often your mouth is open...

"You can't learn anything, if your mouth is open" My Grandfather

"Across the street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts. What was it Clarisse had said one afternoon? "No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs any more. They're too comfortable. Get people up and running around. "
-Ray Bradbury

Irrigators guide the water. Fletchers shape the arrow shaft. Carpenters shape the wood. The wise control themselves.

Dhammapada

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

- Dalai Lama

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
- Albert Einstein

and some of my own inspired moments....

I Am not the answer to the question but rather I Am the question to which the answer is I Am.

Music has the power to take your soul to a place of light or a place of darkness. Be ware the notes that seduce you...

It is what it is. It is what you do with it that matters.

- IAmD1

Originally posted by IAmD1
It is what it is.

Heh. I say that all the time when people ask me "how's it going?" or something similar. Drives my wife up a wall.

What is most essential to Buddhism is based on clarifying the mind. If you want your mind to be clear, it is important to put opinions to rest. If opinions are not stopped, then wrong and right are confused; if the mind is not clear, reality and illusion are mixed up. If you stop opinions and clear the mind, then reality and illusion are both empty, wrong and right do not stand.

- Hsueh-yen

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know that man is here for the sake of other men.

Albert Einstein

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth.

Carl Gustav Jung

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one`s ignorance.

Confucius

Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten

buddha