Suddenly the Buddha's First Noble Truth which she had learnt when she first encountered Buddhism struck her with renewed force. 'I thought, "Why are you still looking for happiness in Samsara? and my mind just changed around.
“... there is no place whatever for hatred in the minds of the wise. Only an utter idiot would hate good men, and it is irrational to hate the wicked; for if vice is a species of mental disease comparable to illness in the body, since we regard those who are physically ill as wholly undeserving of hatred and deserving rather of pity, then men with minds oppressed by wickedness, a condition more dreadful than any sickness, should all the more be pitied rather than hounded.”
― The Consolation of Philosophy
― The Consolation of Philosophy
“The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.”
― Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
― Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
“Living life as an artist is a practice.
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.
The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.
The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
“It is no wonder then if the winds storm around us on the ocean of this life, since our greatest imperative is to displease the wicked. But we should despise the wicked even if they are a great multitude, for they are governed by no leader, but are blindly pulled in all directions by frantic error.”
― The Consolation of Philosophy
― The Consolation of Philosophy
“For the nature of man is such that he is better than other things only when he knows himself, and yet if he ceases to know himself he is made lower than the brutes. For it is natural for other animals not to have this self-knowledge; in man it is a fault. How far from your true state have you wandered when you think you can be at all improved by the addition of the beauties of other things!”
― Theological Tractates/The Consolation of Philosophy
― Theological Tractates/The Consolation of Philosophy
Colleen’s 2025 Year in Books
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