Countercultural

In light of the first of the Four Noble Truths (Life is suffering), shouldn’t birth be swaddled in sorrow and death elicit a sober joy?

Death is the opposite of birth, not Life. Life has no opposite.

Words to die by

“Forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

We act according to our level of consciousness, neither higher nor lower. The realization of this is forgiveness.

More suffering comes into the world by people who take offence than by people who give it.

A lean and hungry look

Many of our young men are dangerously dissatisfied. It’s not their fault. They’ve been trained to want what they don’t have—trained, you could say, to suffer.

Noble Truth, number one

It would appear that Life has a design flaw: Bad things happen. But what if this is not a flaw but simply how Life is set up to be?

Buddha: Life is hard.

Mini-mort

A loss, reversal, rejection or sudden diminishment—these experiences are mini-deaths, practice runs.