Home is not a house; it’s the present moment.
If we are not present, we are not at home.
The prodigal son awakened in a pig barn. Stunning, to find oneself at home in a pig barn.
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Tag Archives: truth
Extend that moment
If it is unexpected and unpredicted, it is real; it is true. When we are taken by surprise, when we are seized and ravished by the experience of being stood upside down, the mind stops. In that moment, what “sleeps in our paper flesh like dynamite” explodes, and we are conscious of not knowing anything.
The dove’s cry
Envy is perhaps the least recognized and most operationally subtle of the seven deadly sins. (There are actually nine deadly sins, fear and deceit having been left off the list. The Sufis see them and include them. The West, in its profound state of denial and ignorance about itself, cannot admit what its drivers are.) Envy is the state of continually comparing oneself to others. It happens so continuously that the envious person is usually not conscious of being envious. She (because envy afflicts women disproportionately more than men) feels inflated when she sees herself as better than the other and deflated when she sees herself as worse. Because her powers of discrimination are so great, she sees herself in negative terms most of the time. She is liquid-eyed, emotional, prone to tears. People ask, “What’s wrong? You seem sad.” This question irritates envious people, who are typically unaware of how sad they are, of not measuring up, of feeling guilty, resentful and misunderstood. Envy is a snake; you can’t see it until you’re on top of it. Those who endure this passion (from passio for ‘suffering’) will suffer most of all from an idealized and unattainable version of themselves. Hence, anorexia nervosa, a weakly developed sense of self, deep feelings of insecurity. She cannot separate beauty from pain, from how she feels. (“If I feel it, it must be true!” No, not true.) She is masochism’s tent for a night. Her signature is a lung-emptying sigh. She perks to the sound of the mourning dove.
The beauty principle
To be liked, please other people. (People like us when we please them.)
To be loved, please yourself. For this, indifference is required. (Praise and criticism are two ends of the same pencil.)
Beauty is utterly indifferent.
In my opinion
Opinions are hazardous. Where opinions are, conflict also is. It is best not to engage with an opinion but rather to slightly turn one’s back on it.
Opinions are not facts. Facts are quiet. That two plus two equals four is a fact. Its factuality is not elevated by shouting it or by putting it on a flag and waving it.
Facts are necessary. Opinions are hats on rats.
As a mental object, an opinion is not a problem. Identification with the object is what creates the problem.
