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Can we find Wisdom in Words?

“You are prisoners of your own neural architecture"

Leonard Susskind (on trying to visualize spatial dimensions other than three)

“For most of us, thinking is like being kidnapped by the most boring person on earth and being told the same story over and over again.”

Sam Harris

In the search for truth, there are certain questions that are not important. Of what material is the universe constructed? Is the universe eternal? Are there limits or not to the universe? If a man were to postpone his search for Enlightenment until such questions were solved, he would die before he found the path.

Gautama Shakyamuni

How did something come from nothing? Isn't that the biggest mystery of all! But it did. Absolute zero is the foundation of everything that is. The evolving universe and all of manifestation emerged and continues to arise from infinite emptiness. That is a mystery that I believe we will never fully be able to grasp with the mind.

Andrew Cohen

I study physics so I can understand "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" (what the Universe is made of), and the nature of the Expanding universe (whether there are any limits). In the vacuum there is constantly 'something' coming from 'nothing' due to Quantum Fluctuations. These fluctuations make 'Absolute Zero' an unattainable ideal.

Meru the Fool


Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists in putting too high a value on time. In eternity there is no time. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

Herman Hesse


It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course—for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him.

Carl Jung from Phenomenology of the Self


All paths lead up the mountain - the only one lost is the man running around the base of the mountain telling everyone they are on the wrong path.

Unknown Wise Guy


Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

Douglas Adams speech at Digital Biota 2


Creations are numberless, I vow to count them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, as if you hadn't noticed.
Reality is boundless, and so are parts of Long Island.
The OD way is unavoidable, what were we chanting about?

Bernie Glassman


Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away.

Goethe


To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

Emily Dickinson


Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.

William James (1842–1910)


In silence, words are forgotten.
In utter clarity, things appear.

Master Hung-chi Chen-chueh (1091-1157)


Sometimes practicing within a community is like being in a restaraunt. The menu has been developed, the table has been set, the lighting has been taken care of, the servers are polished and attentive, the critics have chimed in and made their case. Now all one has to do is take in feast and nourishment...but they show up with their own menu and are bewildered when their dish can't be served.

Michael Grady


The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)



© 2007-2015 Still Point Zen Center, Random Lake, WI, USA

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