Nicholas Andriani > Recent Status Updates

“It means, in my humble opinion, we got to cubism hundreds of years before Braque or Picasso or any European. That maybe we’ve been training for a long time in sitting in the complicated multiplicities of ourselves, of our natures. At least for a time. No monolithically good Siegfried hero versus monolithically bad dragon.”

Excerpt From
Martyr!: A novel
Kaveh Akbar
This material may be protected by copyright.

“We all started from zero. From less than zero, actually. We started whiny, without grace. Obsessed only with our own needing. And the dead couldn’t teach us anything about that. No facts or tables or proofs. You just had to live and suffer and then teach your kids to do the same. From a distance, habit passing for happiness.”

Best quote

Excerpt From
Martyr!: A novel
Kaveh Akbar

Within the sky-like empty mind, habitual tendencies and disturbing emotions are just like clouds and mist. When they appear, they appear within the expanse of empty mind. When they remain, they remain within the expanse of empty mind. And when they dissolve, they dissolve in that same expanse of empty mind.
Padmasambhava, Treasures from Juniper Ridge
Tags: awakening, buddhism, enlightenment, padmasambhava

“I mean, death is death. It’s all a waste and none of it’s good. Immortal soul sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal, whatever. But you’re not wasting your dying, you know? You’re here doing this thing, and so your dying actually means something.”

Lovely!

Excerpt From
Martyr!: A novel
Kaveh Akbar
This material may be protected by copyright.

“Whatever pretensions and high purpose he’d once held for his future gave way to the delicious primacy of the present”

Excerpt From
Martyr!: A novel
Kaveh Akbar
This material may be protected by copyright.

“It’s not hoarding if it’s research.”