This choice, in other words, is to crawl into a comfortable cave with nice people and become a church, a culture, a society within a society.
“I want a whole continent to breathe in, and a good deal of solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street cannot buy, — nor Broadway with its wooden pavement. I must live along the beach, on the southern shore, which looks directly out to sea, — and see what that great parade of water means, that dashes and roars, and has not yet wet me, as long as I have lived.”
― The Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau: Canoeing in the Wilderness, Walden, Walking, Civil Disobedience and More
― The Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau: Canoeing in the Wilderness, Walden, Walking, Civil Disobedience and More
“The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything.”
― The Midnight Library
― The Midnight Library
“I mean, it would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunise you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness for ever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.”
― The Midnight Library
― The Midnight Library
“In solitude, the mind and body Are not troubled by distraction. Therefore, leave this worldly life And totally abandon mental wandering. With this verse, Shantideva begins a discussion on the need for solitude. In contemplating this section, it is helpful to remember three topics: dunzi, or wasting our lives with useless distractions; shenpa, the experience of being hooked; and heartbreak or nausea with samsara. When Shantideva tells us to leave this worldly life, he’s addressing how hooked we become by the things of this world, and how we need to find time to be free of distractions. After a while, nausea with getting hooked becomes like an ache in the heart that never goes away. Shantideva is not making an ultimate statement about how to live one’s life. He’s just saying that in order for the mind to become steady, we’ll need to remove ourselves from dunzi, at least for short periods of time. Outer solitude is a support for inner solitude. This is his point. We can’t kid ourselves: if we never take a break from our busy lives, it’s going to be extremely difficult to tame our minds.”
― No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva
― No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva
“As the smallest drop of water detached from the ocean contains all the qualities of the ocean, so man, detached in consciousness from the Infinite, contains within him its likeness; and as the drop of water must, by the law of its nature, ultimately find its way back to the ocean and lose itself in its silent depths, so must man, by the unfailing law of his nature, at last return to his source, and lose himself in the great ocean of the Infinite.”
― 21 Books: Complete Premium Collection
― 21 Books: Complete Premium Collection
Reading Peace
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— last activity Aug 15, 2023 08:57AM
Reading Peace is a book club exploring topics in mindfulness and Buddhism in daily life in a way that is accessible and relevant to today. We meet o ...more
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