Words of Wisdom

[HeyDudesWassup]

Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

~~~Nisargadatta

[goony_singh]

"form is temporary, class is permanent"

- referring to Liverpool fc 1 - 0 win over ac milan in champions league final

[goony_singh]

If anything in this life is certain; if history has taught us anything, it's that you can kill anyone.

Michael Corleone, The Godfather

This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time!

Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Nothing is final until you are dead, and even then I'm sure god negotiates.

Anjelica Houston, Ever After

"Hey hey hey, what's for dinner?"

"Rimmer's dad just died!!"

"Well I'd prefer chicken..."

Red Dwarf

"Like a midget in a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes."

Naked Gun 33 1/3

"Orders? You're giving me orders? Amigo, the only thing in this world that gives orders is balls, you got that? Balls."

Al Pacino, "Scarface"

Somtimes, I wish I was a lesbian.

Chandler, Friends

If you want to be worshipped, go to India and moo.

"The Quiz Show"

[Pheena]

Those who have penetrated to the essential nature of religion

will regard all religions as being the same. Although they may say

there is Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, Islam, or whatever, they will also

say that all religions are inwardly the same. However, those who have

penetrated to the highest understanding of Dhamma will feel that the

thing called "religion" doesn't exist after all. There is no

Buddhism; there is no Christianity; there is no Islam. How can they

be the same or in conflict when they don't even exist? It just

isn't possible. Thus, the phrase "No religion!" is actually

Dhamma language of the highest level. Whether it will be understood

or not is something else, depending upon the listener, and has

nothing to do with the truth or with religion.

~Buddhadasa Bhikkhu~

[HeyDudesWassup]

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

- Albert Einstein

[HeyDudesWassup]

It's a rare human that ever uses your power of imagination today

-- and that's what you're here for.

The contrast helps you to decide.

Your imagination carries you beyond.

- Abraham

-- ---------------------------------------

You intended to come forth into the physical realm of contrast to define

what is wanted. To connect with the Energy that creates worlds, and to

flow it toward your objects of attention.

Not because the objects of attention are important, but because the act

of flowing is essential to life.

- Abraham

--------------------------------------------

"It is never about how good your voice is; it is only about feeling the

urge to sing, and then having the courage to do it with the voice you

are given."

-- Katie in 'True to Form' by Elizabeth Berg

---------------------------------------

"Be an all-out, not a hold-out."

-- Norman Vincent Peale

[desi baba]

PEOPLE OF GREAT CHARACTER CONDUCT THEM SELVES WITH DIGNITY

EVEN IN TIMES OF CRISIS OR DISPAIR

THEY DO NOT COMPLAIN, PANIC

OR EVEN LOSE HOPE IN THE MOST DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES

[desi baba]

what irritates us most about others is what we dislike most about our selves

[desi baba]

Here is a collection of quotes and passages on warriorship that I like. I hope you will gain some valuable wisdom from these.

My life is simple, my food is plain, and my quarters are uncluttered. In all things, I have sought clarity. I face the troubles and problems of life and death willingly. Virtue, integrity and courage are my priorities. I can be approached, but never pushed; befriended but never coerced; killed but never shamed.

- Yi Sunshin, Last letter to an old friend.

1. Do not think dishonestly.

2. The Way is in training.

3. Become acquainted with every art.

4. Know the Ways of all professions.

5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.

6. Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything

7. Percieve those things which cannot be seen.

8. Pay attention even to trifles.

9. Do nothing which is of no use.

- Musashi Miyamoto, A Book Of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho)

Focus on your one purpose

- Japanese motto

The Way of a Warrior is based on humanity, love, and sincerity; the heart of martial valor is true bravery, wisdom, love, and friendship. Emphasis on the physical aspects of warriorship is futile, for the power of the body is always limited.

- Ueshiba Morihei, The Art Of Peace

The path of the Warrior is lifelong, and mastery is often simply staying on the path.

- Richard Strozzi Heckler, In Search of the Warrior Spirit

The man who would be a warrior considers it his most basic intention to keep death always in mind, day and night, from the time he first picks up his chopsticks in celebrating his morning meal on New Year's Day to the evening of the last day of the year. When one constantly keeps death in mind, both loyalty and filial piety are realized, myriad evils and disasters are avoided, one is without illness and mishap, and lives out a long life. In addition, even his character is improved. Such are the many benifits of this act.

-Daidoji Yuzan, Budoshoshinshu: The Warrior's Primer (William Scott Wilson translation)

Whenever you meet difficult situations dash forward bravely and joyfully.

- Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure

Take arrows in your forehead, but never in your back.

- Samurai maxim

You can prevent your opponent from defeating you through defense, but you cannot defeat him without taking the offensive.

- Sun Tzu

The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view: to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To go straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him.

- Daisetz Suzuki

If you walk, just walk. If you sit, just sit. But whatever you do, don't wobble.

- Master Ummon

Go to the battlefield firmly confident of victory and you will come home with no wounds whatsoever.

- Samurai general Kenshin Uesugi (1530-78)

The warrior's intention should be simply to grasp his sword and to die.

- Kiyomasa Kato (1562-1611)

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

First see to it that you, yourself, are all right, then think of defeating an opponent.

- The Way of the Spear

If you know the art of breathing you have the strength, wisdom and courage of ten tigers.

- Chinese adage

The focused mind can pierce through stone.

- Japanese maxim

When attacking, don't be careless.

- The Way of the Spear

Tomorrow's battle is won during today's practice.

- Samurai maxim

The end of our Way of the sword is to be fearless when confronting our inner enemies and our outer enemies.

- Tesshu Yamaoka, 19th century Kendo master

To fight and conquer in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy with no fight at all, that's the highest skill.

- Sun Tsu

It's a difficult thing to truly know your own limits and points of weakness.

- Hagakure

If the enemy stays spirited it is difficult to crush him.

- Musashi Miyamoto

A warrior must only take care that his spirit is never broken.

- Shissai

Don't always think in a straight line.

- The Way of the Spear

Katte, kabuto no o o shime yo!

After victory, tighten you helmet cords!

- Samurai battle cry

I am a Shawnee. My forefathers were warriors. Their son is a warrior...From my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own fortune.

- Tecumseh

[desi baba]

I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have

nothing to defend.

I have no thoughts, so I will see.

I fear nothing, so I will remember myself.

Detached and at ease, I will dart past the Eagle to be free.

Warriors have an ulterior purpose for their acts which has

nothing to do with personal gain. The average man acts only if

there is a chance for profit. Warriors act not for profit, but for

the spirit.

For the average man, the world is weird because if he's not

bored with it, he's at odds with it. For a warrior, the world is

weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable.

A warrior must assume responsibility for being here, in this

marvelous world, in this marvelous time.

Impeccability begins with a single act that has to be

deliberate, precise and sustained. If that act is repeated long

enough, one acquires a sense of unbending intent which can be

applied to anything else. If that is accomplished the road is

clear. One thing will lead to another until the warrior realizes

his full potential.

Any movement of the assemblage point means a movement away

from an excessive concern with the individual self. Shamans believe

it is the position of the assemblage point which makes modern man a

homicidal egoist, a being totally involved with his self-image.

Having lost hope of ever returning to the source of everything, the

average man seeks solace in his selfishness.

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything

needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts

for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient,

self-explanatory and complete.

Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the

experience of experiences is being alive.

A warrior must focus his attention on the link between

himself and his death. Without remorse or sadness or worrying, he

must focus his attention on the fact that he does not have time and

let his acts flow accordingly. He must let each of his acts be his

last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts

have their rightful power. Otherwise they will be, for as long as

he lives, the acts of a fool.

NoteAlthough the quotes use the default masculine pronoun "he," it is not assumed that warriors must be males. Many of the most powerful warriors in the Casteneda books are female.

Warriors compress time; this is the sixth principle of the

art of stalking. Even an instant counts. In a battle for your

life, a second is an eternity, an eternity that may decide the

outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time.

Warriors don't waste an instant.

A warrior acknowledges his pain but he doesn't indulge in it.

The mood of the warrior who enters into the unknown is not one of

sadness; on the contrary, he's joyful because he feels humbled by

his great fortune, confident that his spirit is impeccable, and

above all, fully aware of his efficiency. A warrior's joyfulness

comes from having accepted his fate, and from having truthfully

assessed what lies ahead of him.

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is

that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary

man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse.

The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence

of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of

the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks

impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The

average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked

only to infinity.

It is much easier for warriors to fare well under conditions of

maximum stress than to be impeccable under normal circumstances.

What seems natural is to think that a warrior who can hold his

own in the face of the unknown can certainly face petty tyrants with

impunity. But that's not necessarily so. What destroyed the superb

warriors of ancient times was to rely on that assumption. Nothing

can temper the spirit of a warrior as much as the challenge of

dealing with impossible people in positions of power. Only under

those conditions can warriors acquire the sobriety and serenity to

withstand the pressure of the unknowable.

Knowledge comes to a warrior, floating, like specks of gold

dust, the same dust that covers the wings of moths. So for a

warrior, knowledge is like taking a shower, or being rained on b

specks of dark gold dust.

A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's

control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go.

That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind.

No one can push him, no one can make him do things against himself

or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive and

he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

Acts have power. Especially when the warrior acting knows that

those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming

happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever he is

doing may very well be his last act on earth.

If a warrior is to succeed in anything, the success must come

gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.

Our fellow men are black magicians. And whoever is with them

is a black magician on the spot. Think for a moment, can you

deviate from the path that your fellow men have lined up for you?

And if you remain with them, your thoughts and your actions are

fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. The warrior, on the

other hand, is free from all that. Freedom is expensive, but the

price is not impossible to pay. So, fear your captors, your

masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing freedom.

A warrior is never under siege. To be under siege implies that

one has personal possessions that could be blockaded. A warrior has

nothing in the world except his impeccability, and impeccability

cannot be threatened.

To discard everything that is unnecessary is the second

principle of the art of stalking. A warrior doesn't complicate

things. He aims at being simple. He applies all the concentration

he has to decide whether or not to enter into battle, for any battle

is a battle for his life. This is the third principle of the art of

stalking. A warrior must be willing and ready to make his last

stand here and now. But not in a helter-skelter way.

The flaw with words is that they always make us feel

enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always

fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without

enlightenment. For this reason, a warrior seeks to act rather than

to talk, and to this effect, he gets a new description of the

worlda new description where talking is not that important, and

where new acts have new reflections.

Applying these principles brings about three results. The

first is that stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously;

they learn to laugh at themselves. If they are not afraid of being

a fool, they can fool anyone. The second is that stalkers learn to

have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never

fret. And the third is that stalkers learn to have an endless

capacity to improvise.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A

warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless

challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad.

Challenges are simple challenges.

The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material

things on which to focus their power, but to focus it on the spirit,

on the true flight into the unknown, not on trivialities.

Everyone who wants to follow the warrior's path has to rid

himself of the compulsion to possess and hold onto things.

Self-importance is man's greatest enemy. What weakens him is

feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of his fellow men.

Self-importance requires that one spend most of one's life offended

by something or someone.

The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a

warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified

in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us.

Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.

A warrior takes his lot, whatever it amy be, and accepts it in

ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as

grounds for regret but as a living challenge.

By the way, Casteneda, just before he died, published an entire book of Don Juan quotations entitled The Arrow of Time.

When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our

toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is

hiding behind than to behave as though we knew everything.

As long as a man feels that he is the most important thing in

the world, he cannot really appreciate the world around him. He is

like a horse with blinders; all he sees is himself, apart from

everything else.

There is no completeness without sadness and longing, for

without them there is no sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without

kindness and knowledge without sobriety are useless.

Everything that warriors do is done as a consequence of a

movement of their assemblage points, and such movements are ruled by

the amount of energy warriors have at their command.

Power always makes a cubic centimeter of chance available to a

warrior. The warrior's art is to be perennially fluid in order to

pluck it.

The worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and

since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who

have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.

What we need to do to allow magic to get hold of us is to

banish doubts from our minds. Once doubts are banished anything is

possible.

A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going

to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short

for witnessing all the marvels of it.

Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.

Dwelling upon the self too much produces a terrible fatigue. A man in that position is deaf and blind to everything else. The fatigue itself makes him cease to see the marvels all around him.

When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when there is something we can still cling to.

For a seer, the truth is that all living beings are struggling to die. What stops death is awareness.

The only freedom warriors have is to behave impeccably. Not only is impeccability freedom; it is the only way to straighten out

the human form.

[Pheena]

Search for a discipline within freedom! Don't let yourself be governed by formulae drawn from decadent philosophies: they are for the feeble-minded.

Listen to no one's advice except that of the wind in the trees. That can recount the whole history of mankind...

~ Claude Debussy

[Bruce Lung]

desi, care to explain:

"Warriors compress time; this is the sixth principle of the

art of stalking . Even an instant counts. In a battle for your

life, a second is an eternity, an eternity that may decide the

outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time.

Warriors don't waste an instant."

and

"What we need to do to allow magic to get hold of us is to

banish doubts from our minds. Once doubts are banished anything is

possible. "

and

"Applying these principles brings about three results. The

first is that stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously;

they learn to laugh at themselves. If they are not afraid of being

a fool, they can fool anyone. The second is that stalkers learn to

have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never

fret. And the third is that stalkers learn to have an endless

capacity to improvise."

???

is a warrior a stalker?

[HeyDudesWassup]

Who is the hero in your own life? If your hero is someone outside of

yourself, then you have given your power away to someone else. If you

are waiting for someone else to make a difference in your life (to

rescue you, to save you, to make your life better, to make you whole),

then you are wasting your time. No one but you can make your dreams

come true.

~Marie T. Russell

Instead of worrying about the worst that could happen, allow yourself

to hope for the best that can happen. In your mind, make the most positive outcome real.Hope for the best, with passion, conviction and faith. For when you do, you'll begin to see real, workable ways to get there.

~Ralph Marston

When the soul wishes to experience something she throws an image of the

experience out before her and enters into her own image.

~Meister Eckhart

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new

landscapes but in having new eyes.

~Marcel Proust

"Know thyself!' and trust that knowledge. If you find a negative

subject, you should talk about it until you feel better, rather than

just blow the subject off. The idea is that the subject gains

momentum as of the last place you left it. Well-being is your natural

state."

~ Abraham-Hicks

[HeyDudesWassup]

Is suffering really necessary?

Yes and no.

If you had not suffered as you have,

there would be no depth to you as a human being,

no humility, no compassion.

You would not be reading this now.

Suffering cracks open the shell of ego,

and then comes a point when it has served its purpose.

Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.

~ Eckhart Tolle

Stillness Speaks

A disciple, in his reverence for the Master,

looked upon him as God incarnate.

"Tell me, O Master," he said, "why you have

come to this world."

"To teach fools like you to stop wasting their

time worshiping Masters," was the answer

he got.

- Anthony de Mello, S.J.

"All religion is true one way or another when understood metaphorically, but when taken literally then your in trouble."

- Joseph Campbell

It's *inspired action*... if it feels like the idea thinks you instead of you thinking the idea. - Abraham-Hicks, Chicago 9/20/03

[HeyDudesWassup]

Excerpt from The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot:

------------------------------

"As with so many of the "discoveries we have looked at, the idea

that

some deeply unconscious and even spiritual part of us can reach

across

the boundaries of time and is responsible for our destiny can also

be

found in many shamanic traditions and other sources...

The kahunas [Hawaiian shamans] call this invisible aspect the

aumakua,

or 'high self'...It is...the part of us that is responsible for

creating our destiny, but it is not alone in this process. Like

many

of the researchers mentioned in this book, the kahunas believed that

thoughts are things and are composed of a subtle energetic

substance...

Most people are not in charge of their own thoughts, said the

kahunas

and constantly bombard their high self with an uncontrolled and

contradictory mixture of plans, wishes and fears. This confuses the

high self and is why most people's lives appear to be equally

haphazard and uncontrolled. Powerful kahunas who were in open

communication with their high selves were said to be able to help a

person remake his or her future. Similarly, it was considered

extremely important that people take time out at frequent intervals

to

think about their lives and visualize in concrete terms what they

wished to happen to themselves. By doing this the kahunas asserted

that people can more consciouly control the events that befall them

and make their own future...

The tantric mystics of Tibet referred to the 'stuff ' of thoughts as

tsal and held that every mental action produced waves of this

mysterious energy. They believed the entire universe is a product

of

the mind and is created and animated by the collective tsal of all

beings...Only great yogis skilled at contacting the deeper levels of

the mind were said to be able consciously to utilize such forces and

one of the things they did to achieve this goal was to visualize

REPEATEDLY (caps mine) the desired creation...

The twelve-century Persian Sufis also stressed the importance of

visualization in altering and reshaping one's destiny, and called

the

subtle matter of thought alam almithal...They...held that reality is

divided into a series of ...planes of being...and that the plane of

being directly adjacent to this one was a kind fo template reality

in

which the alam almithal of one's thoughts formed into idea-images,

which in turn eventually determined the course of one's life...

Edgar Cayce also spoke of thoughts as tangible things, a finer form

of

matter and, when he was in trance, repeatedly told his clients that

their thoughts created their destiny and that 'thought is the

builder'. In his view, the thinking process is like a spider

constantly spinning, constantly adding to its web. Every moment of

our lives we are creating the images and patterns that give our

future

energy and shape, said Cayce.

Paramahans Yogananda advised poeple to visualize the future they

desired for themselves and charge it with the 'energy of

concentration'. As he put it, 'Proper visualization by the exercise

of contentration and willpower enables us to materialize thoughts,

not

only as dreams or vsions in the mental realm, but also experiences

in

the material realm.

Indeed, such ideas can be found in a wide range of disparate

sources. 'We are what we think', said the Buddha. 'All that we are

arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the

world.' 'As

a man acts, so does he become. As a man's desire is, so is his

destiny', states the Hindu pre-Christian Brihadaranyaka

Upanishad. 'All things in the world of Nature are not controlled by

Fate for the soul has a principle of its own', said the fourth-

century

Greek philosopher Iamblichus. 'Ask and it will be given you...If

you

have faith, nothing shall be impossible unto you', states the Bible."

--------------

[Pheena]

In dwelling, live close to the ground.

In thinking, keep to the simple.

In conflict, be fair and generous.

In governing, don't try to control.

In work, do what you enjoy.

In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself, And don't compare or compete, Everybody will respect you.

[HeyDudesWassup]

Do not meditate - be!

Do not think that you are - be!

Don't think about being - you are!

Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Pheena]

The whole idea of meditation is to develop an entirely different way of dealing with things, where you have no purpose at all. In fact, meditation is dealing with the question of whether or not there is such a thing as purpose. One is not on the way somewhere. Or rather, one is on the way and is also at the destination, at the same time.

~ Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche

[Pheena]

A man walking across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little began to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

Zen Parable

[Pheena]

What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, actions, the evil and good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong into one single koan.

~Hakuin

koan = a paradoxical annecdote or a riddle that has no solution; used in Zen Buddhism to show the inadequacy of logical reasoning

[Pheena]

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

~Basho

[Pheena]

To set up what you like against what you dislike--this is the disease of the mind.

~Seng-T'San

[Pheena]

If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water.

~Bulgarian Proverb

[Pheena]

"In Germany, they first came for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist," said the Rev. Martin Niemöller. "Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics. I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up."

[Pheena]

Nearly everyone is aware of dramatic changes in the world. Yet we continue to live in the assumption that we can ride out the changes without changing ourselves, coasting, as we have always coasted, on the historic wave of human development. What it will take to wake us up is a wave of equal size traveling in the opposite direction. That wave is already on its way.

~ Verlyn Klinkenborg, NY Times