A Proverb A Day

Death is just a peaceful vacation to that which is beyond.

~ Specialis Sapentia

"Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed."
--Corita Kent

~to be! :)

"Be as it may"- Upasni Maharaj

A little bit of evil goes a long, long way.
My babushka

YOU GET IN THERE AND KICK THAT FISH'S ASS! *gives gun*

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

I have searched again, I have multiple sources saying it originated as chinese/buddhist proverb.

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That's because it's a joke about them burning themselves as a form of silent, epic protest, they wouldn't have actually said it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ramos

Are you kidding me? Just be? That's what you are right now of every single second of your entire life. That is "Be". What a shitty answer, i hope you got your money back.

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When the old master Hiakajo was asked 'What is Zen?' he said 'When hungry, eat, when tired, sleep,' and they said, 'Well isn't that what everybody does? Aren't you just like ordinary people?' 'Oh no,' he said, 'they don't do anything of the kind. When they're hungry, they don't just eat, they think of all sorts of things. When they're tired, they don't just sleep, but dream all sorts of dreams.' - Hiakajo Roshi or Po-Chang

Spoiler for Full Paragraph:

So the reason why there is in the practice of Zen, what we did before this lecture began, to practice Za-zen, sitting Zen. Incidentally, there are three other kinds of Zen besides Za-zen. Standing Zen, walking Zen, and lying Zen. In Buddhism, they speak of hte three dignities of man. Walking, standing, sitting, and lying. And they say when you sit, just sit. When you walk, just walk. But whatever you do, don't wobble. In fact, of course, you can wobble, if you really wobble well. When the old master *Hiakajo was asked 'What is Zen?' he said 'When hungry, eat, when tired, sleep,' and they said, 'Well isn't that what everybody does? Aren't you just like ordinary people?' 'Oh no,' he said, 'they don't do anything of the kind. When they're hungry, they don't just eat, they think of all sorts of things. When they're tired, they don't just sleep, but dream all sorts of dreams.' I know the Jungians won't like that, but there comes a time when you just dream yourself out, and no more dreams. You sleep deeply and breathe from your heels. Now, therefore, Za-zen, or sitting Zen, is a very, very good thing in the Western world. We have been running around far too much. It's all right; we've been active, and our action has achieved a lot of good things. But as Aristotle pointed out long ago--and this is one of the good things about Aristotle. He said 'the goal of action is contemplation.' In other words, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, but what's it all about? Especially when people are busy because they think they're GOING somewhere, that they're going to get something and attain something. There's quite a good deal of point to action if you know you're not going anywhere. If you act like you dance, or like you sing or play music, then you're really not going anywhere, you're just doing pure action, but if you act with a thought in mind that as a result of action you are eventually going to arrive at someplace where everything will be alright. Then you are on a squirrel cage, hopelessly condemned to what the Buddhists call _samsara_, the round, or rat-race of birth and death, because you think you're going to go somewhere. You're already there. And it is only a person who has discovered that he is already there who is capable of action, because he doesn't act frantically with the thought that he's going to get somewhere. He acts like he can go into walking meditation at that point, you see, where we walk not because we are in a great, great hurry to get to a destination, but because the walking itself is great. The walking itself is the meditation. And when you watch Zen monks walk, it's very fascinating. They have a different kind of walk from everybody else in Japan. Most Japanese shuffle along, or if they wear Western clothes, they race and hurry like we do. Zen monks have a peculiar swing when they walk, and you have the feeling they walk rather the same way as a cat. There's something about it that isn't hesitant; they're going along all right, they're not sort of vagueing around, but they're walking just to walk. And that's walking meditation. But the point is that one cannot act creatively, except on the basis of stillness. Of having a mind that is capable from time to time of stopping thinking. And so this practice of sitting may seem very difficult at first, because if you sit in the Buddhist way, it makes your legs ache. Most Westerners start to fidget; they find it very boring to sit for a long time, but the reason they find it boring is that they're still thinking. If you weren't thinking, you wouldn't notice the passage of time, and as a matter of fact, far from being boring, the world when looked at without chatter becomes amazingly interesting. The most ordinary sights and sounds and smells, the texture of shadows on the floor in front of you. All these things, without being named, and saying 'that's a shadow, that's red, that's brown, that's somebody's foot.' When you don't name things anymore, you start seeing them. Because say when a person says 'I see a leaf,' immediately, one thinks of a spearhead-shaped thing outlined in black and filled in with flat green. No leaf looks like that. No leaves--leaves are not green. That's why Lao-Tzu said 'the five colors make a man blind, the five tones make a man deaf,' because if you can only see five colors, you're blind, and if you can only hear five tones in music, you're deaf. You see, if you force sound into five tones, you force color into five colors, you're blind and deaf. The world of color is infinite, as is the world of sound. And it is only by stopping fixing conceptions on the world of color and the world of sound that you really begin to hear it and see it. Full Page if you're interested http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tommo

That's because it's a joke about them burning themselves as a form of silent, epic protest, they wouldn't have actually said it.

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I was talking about "give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man how to fish, he eats for a life time" was a chinese/buddhist proverb.

Of course it's a joke (The fire one), I thought it was a fun one :)

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

~ Lao Tzu

Very simply and hard hitting.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots and tyrants"

Thomas Jefferson

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense."
--Gertrude Stein

"You see seniorita, mystery is important. To know everything, to know the whole truth is dull. There is no magic in that. Magic is not knowing, magic is wondering about what and how and where." - Ragnar Tørnquist, through his character "Cortez the Red".

"I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind."

"It is better to be silent and be thought of as a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." -A. Lincoln

"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."
--Linus Pauling,
American scientist

Here's an oldie: "A closed mouth gathers no foot."

"It's easier to build a boy than mend a man."

Both were on a local church sign :)

"Everything is simpler than you think and yet more complex than you imagine."

Insert: (can be simpler) imo :)

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."
--A.A. Milne


~ Digging out my camping gear I found some cool stuff today! :)

"Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you're exactly the same."

"dissent is the highest form of patriotism"
- Thomas Jefferson


here's a long one, but something I found very interesting:
"The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: "Is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we kill those people. "Shut him up, I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry! Look at my big bank account and my family this has to be real!" It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys that try and tell us that, you ever notice that? Then let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter. Cause it's just a ride, and we can change it whenever we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a choice right now. Between fear and love.
- Bill Hicks

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. ~ Joseph Conrad

cpl more good ones :thumbup:

For sure Supernova... the ego does have a lot invested in "the ride." - it's very survival.

Delphinus - Maybe we would like to believe it is from a supernatural source because we do not want to believe it resides in us??.




"A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."
--John le Carré,

My mom just bought me a t-shirt with a roller coaster on it and I've been thinking about writing It's Just A Ride on it. Strange you would post that.

"Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images" - Jean Cocteau
From Tim Leary's Mind Mirror game

yep a ride of ups and downs....just like a roller coaster :)

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her."
--David Brinkley

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. Max Beerbohm

tried really hard to find a widely accepted explaination of what Max B is on about there, lots of people quote this and say nothing else, even google doesnt know!!! :-)from his other stuff i can guess that its maybe to do with comparing humans behaviour to herd mentality and the standing on the hind legs may have something to do with sheep being used to get wool. I tried allsorts of search combo's of keywords in google with nothing but cleverdicks quoting but not discussing

He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear.