Week of December 25

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

Kurt Vonnegut

 

Week of December 18

I wasn't worried about a perfect game going into the ninth. It was like a dream. I was going on like I was in a daze. I never thought about it the whole time. If I'd thought about it I wouldn't have thrown a perfect game - I know I wouldn't.

Catfish Hunter

 

Week of December 11

Studying about Zen should never be confused with practicing Zen, just as studying aesthetics should not be confused with being an artist.

T. P. Kasulis

 

Week of December 4

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself.

Robert Pirsig

 

Week of November 27

There is no cure for birth and death, save to enjoy the interval.

Santayana

 

Week of November 20

I don't know. I don't care. And it doesn't make any difference.

Jack Kerouac

 

Week of November 13

All the masters tell us that the reality of life - which our noisy waking consciousness prevents us from hearing - speaks to us chiefly in silence.

Karlfried Graf Durckheim

 

Week of November 6

Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.

Taisen Deshimaru

 

Week of October 30

Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them - never become even conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?

C. S. Lewis

 

Week of October 23

Zen functions in non-duality. The process of thought, of reasoning, takes place in the field of duality. It follows that no thinking will achieve Zen.

Christmas Humphreys

 

That's it!  You've reached the end of our quotes!!!  (Or is it the beginning?!)

 

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