Witness

 

Luminous Beings

 

“We are luminous beings. We are perceivers.

We are an awareness. We are not objects.

We have no solidity. We are boundless.

The world of objects and solidity

is a way of making our passage on earth convenient.

It is only a description that was created to help us.  

We or rather our reasons, forget

that the description is only a description

and thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle from which we rarely emerge in a lifetime.  

We are perceivers.  

The world that we perceive though is an illusion.  

It was created by a description

that was told to us since the moment we were born.”

~Don Juan speaking to Carlos Castaneda

Arvol and Grete

 

 

“Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this world.

Understand both the blessing and the burden of that.

You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this world. Did you think you were put here for something less?

In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending.”

~Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota,

Dakota, and Nakota Nations

Land we do not create

 

Good and evil have no self nature;

Holy and unholy are empty names;

In front of the door is the land of stillness and quiet;

Spring comes, grass grows by itself.

Master Seung Sahn

Past is past

 

The past is already past.

Don't try to regain it.

The present does not stay.

Don't try to touch it.

From moment to moment.

The future has not come;

Don't think about it

Beforehand.

Whatever comes to the eye,

Leave it be.

There are no commandments

To be kept;

There's no filth to be cleansed.

With empty mind really

Penetrated, the dharmas

Have no life.

When you can be like this,

You've completed

The ultimate attainment.

Layman P'ang (740-808)

Sway

 

Daikaku

 

 

 

Whether I are going or staying or sitting or lying down,

the whole world is my own self. I must find out

whether the mountains, rivers, grass, and forests exist in my own mind or exist outside it. I must analyze the ten thousand things, dissect them minutely, and when I take this to the limit I will come to the limitless, when I search into it I come to the end of search, where thinking goes no further and distinctions vanish. When I smash the citadel of doubt, then the Buddha is simply myself.

Daikaku

 

Foyan

 

 

 

It is as though we have an eye

That sees all forms

But does not see itself.

This is how our minds are.

Its light penetrates everywhere

And engulfs everything,

So why does it not know itself?

Foyan

Shunryu Suzuki

 

 

 

 

The most important thing is to find out
what is the most important thing. 
Shunryu Suzuki

 

Hell is not punishment,

it's training.

Shunryu Suzuki

Wendell Berry

 

Education

 

Alfred

 

Tom Paine

 

COGNITIVE BIASES

 

VALUE

 

Annie Dillard

 

 

 

Silence

 

"We Indians know about silence. We are not afraid of it. In fact, for us, silence is more powerful than words. Our elders were trained in the ways of silence, and they handed over this knowledge to us. Observe, listen, and then act, they would tell us. That was the manner of living.

With you, it is just the opposite. You learn by talking. You reward the children that talk the most at school. In your parties, you all try to talk at the same time. In your work, you are always having meetings in which everybody interrupts everybody and all talk five, ten or a hundred times. And you call that ‘solving a problem’. When you are in a room and there is silence, you get nervous. You must fill the space with sounds. So you talk compulsorily, even before you know what you are going to say.

White people love to discuss. They don’t even allow the other person to finish a sentence. They always interrupt. For us Indians, this looks like bad manners or even stupidity. If you start talking, I’m not going to interrupt you. I will listen. Maybe I’ll stop listening if I don’t like what you are saying, but I won’t interrupt you.

When you finish speaking, I’ll make up my mind about what you said, but I will not tell you I don’t agree unless it is important. Otherwise, I’ll just keep quiet and I’ll go away. You have told me all I need to know. There is no more to be said. But this is not enough for the majority of white people.

People should regard their words as seeds. They should sow them, and then allow them to grow in silence. Our elders taught us that the earth is always talking to us, but we should keep silent in order to hear her.

There are many voices besides ours. Many voices…”

-Ella Deloria