While any individual’s ability to substantially change the world is minimal, one’s ability to change how one experiences the world is vast. Cultivate the dispassionate witness. #Sakshi Bhava
Also, how to swim, change a tire, and juggle while riding a unicycle.
What principles define how you live?
Before traveling, empty my cup. Before returning home, empty my cup.
Collect experiences, not geegaws.
Wishing for the world to be some other way is a grand waste of time.
If there is a river flowing toward where I want to be, surrender to it.
See humor everywhere, especially in myself.
Be content with who I am at the moment, while struggling to be a better version in future editions.
Strive to find the non-adversarial path.
Keep looking until I see what is beautiful in all things and creatures.
Don’t attempt to construct anyone else’s list of principles to live by.
Feel the sensations that arise without letting the mind amplify them out of proportion.
Seek only simple pleasures, enjoy them fully, and then move on.
Few things in life matter as much as they feel they do. Almost nothing is perilous, while many things feel as though they are. Don’t let illusory feelings keep one from living boldly.
Or, as the Epicureans liked to say, “What is painful is easy to endure.”
My ideal week would consist of seven days, each day of about twenty-four hours. You could fit four of them in a month with room to spare.
I read the space
Around the poem.
It has no meaning,
But says so much.
It betrays a little secret
That no reader ever learned
Who was too concerned
With what was written,
While wholly inattentive
To
What
Was
Not.
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
1.) Nothing is permanent.
2.) The world is not what it seems.
3.) One’s subjective experience is not determined by the state of the world.
4.) Nobody grasps enough truth to be intolerant.
5.) Uncertainty is the root of all fear.
6.) Fear is the root of all hatred.
7.) Hatred is a subjective experience (See #3.) Also, uncertainty is the root of all hatred (by the transitive property,) hence the benefit of travel.
8.) Any who: a.) has suffered a string of hardships; b.) allows themselves to believe that some “other” is wholly responsible for said hardships; and c.) who lacks a sufficient sense of self-empowerment to avoid surrendering entirely to a group identity can (and likely will) become a Nazi (or the equivalent of their day.)
9.) No one can predict the future. [Regardless of how much we all love to try. (See #5.)]
10.) Entropy increases (ultimately, in a closed system.)
NOTE: I remain ready to abandon any certainty in the face of better information.
What makes a teacher great?
If students choose the teacher, that is an excellent first indicator. In the typical top-down selection of teachers, it is easy to produce an abundance of shitty teachers. Of course, there is still the danger of charismatic bullshitters and easy people-pleasers, problems ever-present. But among students (as opposed to followers) they usually reveal themselves in time.
If “legacy” is defined as something left behind that serves to keep one’s memory alive, then I don’t. I think that goal is futile, illusory, and a bit narcissistic. Even those who are “remembered” long after their deaths are not truly remembered. For example, the Alexander the Great who is remembered to this day likely bears little resemblance to the one who was flesh and blood. What we remember are products of imagination. [Which is fine, but then why tie them to people who lived as opposed to purely fictional ones?]
If I could leave behind some configuration of knowledge of the art of human living that would be helpful to anyone (without it being tied to my identity or memory) that would be a fine thing.
Without desire everything is sufficient.
With seeking myriad things are impoverished.
Plain vegetables can soothe hunger.
A patched robe is enough to cover this bent old body.
Alone I hike with a deer.
Cheerfully I sing with village children.
The stream under the cliff cleanses my ears.
The pine on the mountain top fits my heart.
Translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Daniel Leighton in Essential Zen (1994) HarperSanFrancisco.
Essential Zen by Kazuaki Tanahashi
