Tag: impermanence

Our astonished emotions

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It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living.

Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing.

That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its inner most chamber and is no longer even there, is already in our bloodstream.

Rilke, Letters to a Yong Poet

Your echo depends on you

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This world is like a mountain. Your echo depends on you. If you scream good things, the world will give it back. If you scream bad things, the world will give it back. Even if someone says badly about you, speak well about him.

Change your heart to change the world

Shams-i Tabrīzī, 1185 – 1248 Shams-i Tabrīzī, Persian Shafi’ite poet, credited as the spiritual instructor of Rumi 

Taking the step

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The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes

because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it

Simone Weil, 1909 -1943, French Philosopher

The Three times

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The past is already past — Don’t try to regain it.

The present doesn’t stay — Don’t try to hold onto it over and over.


The future isn’t here yet — Don’t ponder it beforehand.

When we can see the three times as non-existent,
the mind is the same as awakened nature.

Layman P’ang, c740 – 808, Chinese Zen

We preoccupy ourselves

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The thing that blinds us and deafens us is the ceaselessly moving mind, the preoccupation we have with our thoughts. It is the incessant internal dialogue that shuts out everything else. ….All day long we talk to ourselves. We preoccupy ourselves with the past, or we preoccupy ourselves with the future, and while we preoccupy ourselves, we miss the moment and miss our lives. Looking, we do not see. It is as if we were blind. Listening, we do not hear. It is as if we were deaf. Loving, we do not feel. It is as if we were dead. Preoccupied, we do not notice the reality around us. How can we be present? How can we taste and touch our lives?


The answer to these questions is not outside yourself. To see this truth requires the backward step, going very deep into yourself to find the foundation of reality and of your life. To see it is not the same as understanding it or believing it. To see it means to realize it with the whole body and mind.… Know that deep within each and every one of us, under layers of conditioning, there is an enlightened being, alive and well. In order to function, it needs to be discovered.

John Daido Loori, 4, 1931 – 2009, Zen Buddhist rōshi

Different forms

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Souls never die, but always on quitting one abode pass to another.

All things change, nothing perishes.

The soul passes hither and thither, occupying now this body, now that . . . As a wax is stamped with certain figures, then melted, then stamped anew with others, yet it is always the same wax. So, the Soul being always the same, yet wears at different times different forms.

Pythagoras, Greek Philosopher, 570 – c. 495 BC