Monday, June 22, 2015

Dhammapada

How joyful to look upon the
awakened
And to keep company with the wise.
Follow then the shining ones,
The wise, the awakened, the loving,
For they know how to work and
forbear.
But if you cannot find
Friend or master to go with you,
Travel on alone -
Like a king who has given away his
kingdom,
Like an elephant in the forest.

If the traveler can find
A virtuous and wise companion
Let him go with him joyfully
And overcome the dangers of the way.
Follow them
As the moon follows the path of the
stars.
Dhammapada

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Love


Spiritual

Yes, it does depend on how one defines the term SPIRITUAL.
Certainly for me, I do not define the term in a new-age or junk science manner.

I prefer Sam Harris' definition of the term:
"We must reclaim good words and put them to good use—and this is what I intend to do with “spiritual.” I have no quarrel with Hitch and Sagan’s general use of the word to mean something like “beauty or significance that provokes awe,” but I believe that we can also use it in a narrower and, indeed, more personally transformative sense.
Of course, “spiritual” and its cognates have some unfortunate associations unrelated to their etymology—and I will do my best to cut those ties as well. But there seems to be no other term (apart from the even more problematic “mystical” or the more restrictive “contemplative”) with which to discuss the deliberate efforts some people make to overcome their feeling of separateness—through meditation, psychedelics, or other means of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness. And I find neologisms pretentious and annoying. Hence, I appear to have no choice: “Spiritual” it is."