quotes¶
The problem is that what drives the tale will not survive the tale.
As the room dims and the sound of voices fades you understand that the world and all in it will soon cease to be.
cormacc mccarthy
fearless¶
Ultimately there is nothing to know and no one to know it.
Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger
no aging or death¶
brian's dad
growing old is not for sissies
denial¶
THE SPIRITUAL PATH IS NOT EASY - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
The problem is that we tend to seek... easy and painless answers. But this kind of solution does not apply to the spiritual path. ... Once we commit ourselves to the spiritual path, it is very painful and we are in for it. We have committed ourselves to the pain of exposing ourselves, of taking off our clothes, our skin, nerves, heart, brains, until we are exposed to the universe. Nothing will be left. It will be terrible, excruciating, but that is the way it is.
fly the ego into the sun¶
DESTRUCTIVE ENLIGHTENMENT ADYASHANTI
Make no mistake about it — enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the façade of pretense. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true."
burn the ego to the ground¶
DISAPPOINTMENT - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
We must surrender our hopes and expectations, as well as our fears, and march directly into disappointment, work with disappointment, go into it and make it our way of life.... If we can open, then we suddenly begin to see that our expectations are irrelevant compared with the reality of the situations we are facing. This automatically brings disappointment. Disappointment is the best chariot to use on the path of the dharma. It does not confirm the existence of our ego and its dreams.
no refuge in material things¶
OUR WORLD IS RELENTLESSLY IMPERMANENT - Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
Change is continuous. Day by day, one season slips into the next. Day turns into night and night to day. Buildings don't suddenly grow old; rather, second by second, from the moment they're constructed, they begin to deteriorate... Think of beings inhabiting this universe. How many people born a hundred years ago are still alive? ... We see the play of impermanence in our relationships as well. How many of our family members, friends, people in our hometown, have died? How many have moved away, disappearing from our lives forever?.. At one time we felt happy just being near a person we loved. Just to hold that person's hand made us feel wonderful. Now maybe we can't stand him, we don't want to know anything about him. Whatever comes together must fall apart, whatever once fathered must separate, whatever was born must die. Continual change, relentless change, is constant in our world.
empty of independence¶
WHAT ARE PHENOMENA EMPTY OF? — His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
When we speak of a phenomenon as being empty, we are referring to its being empty of its own inherent existence. • Further, it is not that the object of the negation [inherent existence] formerly existed and is later eliminated, like the forest that existed yesterday and is burned by fire today, with the result that the area is now empty of the forest. Rather, this is an emptiness of an object of negation [inherent existence], which from beginningless time has never been known validly to exist.