Chamnongsri Hanchanlash

“A Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man's work.”
― Arthur Zajonc, Buddhist Technology: Bringing a New Consciousness to Our Technological Future

“Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand without having experienced. They can think themselves into other peoples’ places. Of course, this is a power like my brand of fictional magic that is morally neutral. One might use such a power to manipulate or control, just as much as to understand or sympathize. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or peer inside cages. They can close their hearts and minds to any suffering that does not touch them personally. They can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think that they have any fewer nightmares than I do.”
― JK Rowling, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

“For Ziurys, however, the ultimate key to understanding the origins and evolution of life on Earth isn't on Earth. To understand why all terrestrial life is carbon-based, why life uses only twenty of the possible dozens of potential amino acids, why iron is the metal atom around which the hemoglobin in our blood binds—to understand any of these life mysteries—we must look to the stars. For Ziurys, and a new era of scientists, our story doesn't begin on Earth; it begins with stardust.”
― Jacob Berkowitz, Stardust Revolution: The New Story of Our Origin in the Stars

“persistent practice and rare insights help shrink the once almighty I, the vulnerable Me, and the intrusive Mine. Not gone entirely. Just reduced to manageable proportions. Just i-me-mine. Something more considerate of the you, the we, the ours, and the rest of the biosphere. Being diminutive, this new i-me-mine carries a very low profile. Smaller and streamlined, it no longer sticks up high to trip the positive functions of the mature ego. Neither is it windblown by every shifting, hot or cold breeze from the old instinctual self. Nor will it be overloaded by distortions imposed by others’ guilt-ridden consciences.”
― James H. Austin, Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness