Signposts » being

Don’t you believe that there is…

CowPi — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 18:30:35 +0000

Don’t you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?

— St. Augustine, “The Trinity” <link>

A Momentary Taste of Being

CowPi — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:52:28 +0000

A Moment’s Halt—a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste—
And Lo!—the phantom Caravan has reach’d
The Nothing it set out from—Oh, make haste!

— Omar Khayyam, from The Rubaiyat, XLVIII, tr. Edward Fitzgerald <link>

The state of our whole life is…

CowPi — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:31:45 +0000

Thus, the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know where we have come from, or where we are going. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence.

We hear the voice of that depth: but our ears are closed. We feel that something radical, total, and unconditional is demanded of us: but we rebel against it, try to escape its urgency, or will not accept its promise.

— Paul Tillich, from â€œYou are acceptedâ€ in The Essential Tillich (via) <link>

No matter how sophisticated you may be…

CowPi — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:17:45 +0000

No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied—it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.

— Ansel Adams <link>

By virtue of the Creation…

CowPi — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:57:03 +0000

…by virtue of the Creation and, still more, of the Incarnation,
nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin <link>

If I want to get to know the butterflies…

CowPi — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:30:56 +0000

I need to put up with two or three caterpillars
if I want to get to know the butterflies.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince <link>

All my life false and real…

CowPi — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:27:34 +0000

All my life false and real, right and wrong tangled.
Playing with the moon, ridiculing the wind, listening to the birds…
Many years wasted seeing the mountain covered with snow.
This winter I suddenly realize snow makes a mountain.

— Dogen <link>

An injured lion…

CowPi — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:25:05 +0000

An injured lion still wants to know he can still roar.

— Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture <link>

Everyday Mind

CowPi — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:48:17 +0000

Everyday Mind

Everyday mind is getting out of bed, eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, going to bed. It is laughing and crying, being anxious and joyful. Everyday mind is walking and talking, sitting down and standing up. It is the mind of suffering, conflict, anger and hatred, love and devotion. How can everyday mind be the way? Everyday mind, we say, is too mundane, too ordinary, and so we want the opposite, we want the magical.

It is our very search, our lust for the miraculous and magical, that hides from us the truth that simply to be, simply to know I am, is already the miracle that we seek. Everything, as it is, is perfect, but you must stop seeing it as if in a mirror, as if in a dream.

— Albert Low [via] <link>

We are unknown…

CowPi — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:48:43 +0000

We are unknown, we knowners, to ourselves… Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in our selves we are bound to be mistaken, for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto, “Each is the farthest away from himself”—as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers.

— Friedrich Nietzsche <link>

Answers and Questions

CowPi — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:28:00 +0000

Answers and Questions

You can tell a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

— Naguib Mahfouz <link>

Reputation or Honor

CowPi — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:39:44 +0000

Reputation or honor — an empty vessel of other people’s good opinions of you.

— Fr. Corbett, O.P. [via] <link>