94 Quotes About Asian-philosophy

Nothing stands still, even if it looks as though it does. Look at a light in the room you are in right now. It appears to be stationary, while the fact is that millions of rays are moving towards you at the speed of light (299,792,458 kilometres per second). Even in every “inanimate” object, particles are moving rapidly and constantly. Nothing within or outside of you remains completely still.

There exists a direct link, or harmony, between the past, the present and the future. This has been misinterpreted, or exaggerated in both directions, either by the assumption that everything is random, or that there is already a predetermined destiny. There is an actual link, and there is a lot of mystery or room to play and invent.

The essential war within, and the cause of suffering, begins with the presumption that yearning, impulse and curiosity, desire and question, exist so as to end them. To attain, to acquire, to answer.

The nature of yearning is urgent so as to guarantee evolution, change.

As we move through time, we age, with the general speed of everything and the chaos that that produces in us in the form of anxiety, fear, confusion and negotiating an already-existing war, there is little time and space left to adjust to our developing relationship to yearning. In other words, as our needs are met, the question answered, we don’t then move on to the next question.

The experience of frustration comes from the separation we impose between our yearning and our fear. Generally, we yearn for that which we fear, or at least fear the unknown (mystery, and therefore and paradoxically, truth) that will be caused through the pursuit of yearning. The more the separation between these two, yearning and fear, the more frustration if you are conscious, or the more neurosis if you are not (literally, “I can’t stand the frustration, I’m going crazy”).

Traditionally, true contemplation involves an act of devotion, wherein self-consciousness is removed by transferring consciousness onto the thing at hand. The better you perceive it, the less you observe yourself doing that. In other words, you could say that, at least for the extended moments of engaging it, you love it more than yourself.

On a psychological and physiological level, the habits of contraction are often caused by the desire to control or acquire, even to acquire generosity or devotion or emptiness. These are subtle and take time to identify and release. Under this is the desire for self-gain or improvement, to win something or better something. Those intentions are healthy enough up to a point, but to really see and engage what you have in front of you, you have to intend that it gains or wins.

There is an actual and palpable hierarchy of emotional, mental and physiological intensity that corresponds to the actual capacities and limitations of human beings. In other words, there does exist a real and definable scale of suffering, and of joy.