Earth Blog

I just went for a walk and ended up picking up a bunch of books about zen buddhism at the library. No, nothing to do with the Dalai Lama because anyone who refers to himself as His Holiness or HHDL can’t possibly have a great deal of wisdom, if you ask me, but maybe that’s just arrogance on my part. (In fact, isn’t it just my personal judgment that I attach to the use of titles in certain conditions? I also don’t like it when a self-employed person with no staff calls herself or himself director or CEO. I tend to refrain from the use of academic titles too – they don’t mean much – but have learned that it often makes people make the wrong assumptions about me, so maybe academic titles do mean something after all.)

One book I picked up contains Reflections for Every Day. I sat down and decided I wanted to see what it said for today. I flipped it open. July 6. What’s today? Sunday was the 4th, so… Oh!

It said the following for today.

In former times men’s minds were sharp. Upon hearing a single sentence, they abandoned study and so came to be called ‘the sages who, abandoning learning, rest in spontaneity’. In these days, people only seek to stuff themselves with knowledge and deductions, placing great reliance on written explanations and calling all this the practice.

That goes a long way.

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Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

~ Steve Jobs

“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”

— Howard Thurman

“No matter how small and unimportant what we are doing may seem, if we do it well, it may soon become the step that will lead us to better things.”

– Channing Pollock

“The creative process is nothing but a series of crises.”

- – Isaac Bashevis Singer, writer and Nobel Prize winner

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

– Marcel Proust

“We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.”

– Buddha