Philosophy 03 (May 24 - Dec 25)

[winston]

My philosophy is: Life is hard, but God is good.

Try not to confuse the two.

- Anne F. Beiler

[winston]

The Value of Contemplation

There is no change without contemplation.

The whole image of Buddha under the Bodhi tree, says here is an action taking place that may not appear to be a meaningful action.

- Agent of Change

[winston]

Spiritual Decluttering

On the spiritual path, there’s nothing to get and everything to get rid of.

- Ayya Khema, “What Love Is”

[winston]

Transforming the Present Moment

The present moment is never simply to be accepted as it is.

Because part of it is constructed in the present, it can always be improved; it can even be turned into the path to the end of suffering.

- Thānissaro, “The Karma of Now”

[winston]

Understanding Thought


Most of our suffering comes from habitual thinking.

If we try to stop it out of aversion to thinking, we can’t; we just go on and on and on.

So the important thing is not to get rid of thought but to understand it.

- Ajahn Sumedho, “Noticing Space”

[winston]

Appreciating Life

It is precisely our recognition of life’s inevitable hardships, along with our uprooting of the attachment that exacerbates them, that allows us to appreciate the mere fact of being.

- Patti Nakai, “Someone Is Jealous of You”

[winston]

Grieving Is Not Clinging

As practitioners, we aim to let go of our attachments.

At first, grieving for something or someone we’ve lost, may look like clinging but it’s actually a process of acknowledging our loss, which allows us to heal from the pain and loosen our grip on the past.

- Bradley Donaldson, “One Thing for Sure”

[winston]

The Light Behind Everything

We aren’t in control in the way we think we are.

Things happen, even terrible things but they are not what they seem to be.

And we aren’t alone. There is a light, a luminosity behind the appearances of this world.

- Tracy Cochran, “The Night I Died”