Overcoming Ego

"Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation."

- Lao Tzu

"I hold three treasures close to my heart. The first is love; the next, simplicity; the third, overcoming ego."

- Lao Tzu

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self."

- Aldous Huxley

 

Submitted by Mike : )

Love Your Mother

Love your mother, because she will always love you
Submitted by Annuh!

Weariness

 "For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;"
- Passage from my favourite poem Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

 Submitted by Anna!

Think Differently

Requested by Mike :-)

Unacceptable

I'm shit scared of getting raped. I like to deal with my fear by externalizing it: if I don't want to get raped I have to change my environment so that no one else can get raped. It's my line of thinking that creates a political action from a purely selfish perspective.

Things I find unacceptable: (unacceptable as in, is not open to doubt, curiosity, speculation...only for me personally of course, I would limit curiosity for anyone else, even in profane matters)
1. Unhappiness/not doing one's passion in life is unacceptable.
2. Rape is unacceptable.

Would I be willing to give my life intervening in a life-threatening situation?
Not a car accident. I am sorry but I will vainly say the causes I live for and are a part of my net worth is higher than death-by-accident. I.e., I don't think dying by an accident is going to leave a worse impact on society than my absence. Mechanical negligence is not a cause I would die for.
I would, however easily die for a higher cause (other than possibly to save a family member, no matter what cause)
I would probably risk my life in a life-threatening bullying situation, any situation where the cause is human hatred. I think ending that cycle of hate is anytime a higher cause than my entire life; not taking away from the value of my life at all, merely stating that yes, there is something of higher value than my life.
I'm just realizing now the public fascination with the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. I always thought their story was a (stupid) waste of life out of passionate immaturity, but now I can see how it could have seemed noble, or at least see their mentality in a new light. Get the connection? (There are so many more)

I realize this is a controversial issue, which makes it even more important that we talk about it. Thoughts?

Subway

I was in the subway today coming home from a rather tiring day, and a old man started singing about our city, Toronto, in a bubbly Torontonian version of "This Land." He talked about how amazing our city was for its tolerance of so many cultures, how polite we were, how 6 bystanders rushed to aid a motorcyclist trapped under a burning car etc. and that he saw a trend in which other cities around the world would follow Toronto's example.

One thing is that it's interesting enough that I encounter people like him on the subway.
Another is that I think it's a viable prediction about our city; the world is heading towards globalism and Toronto seems to be the ideal place where people are building the skills and values that allow us to live alongside each other and I hope we're taking the next step to interact with each other, and really connect in newer and more meaningful ways.


 Angela

Vandalism & Money

Contributed by Val ;-)
The first one is a nice coincidence because I was just thinking today about the kind of vandalism that adds character to a community and the kind that doesn't.
I wouldn't personally endorse the second one, but I can appreciate the sense of unfairness that it comes from.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

A monologue clip from the movie:
Tthat's an interesting way of getting out of a life-threatening situation.

Craigslist Forums

I went on a craigslist forum today because I was bored, and I found this thread:

goodbye Jane and Happy Birhday < jesssj4 > 09/03 00:13:55

Today is my 24th Birthday. its like whole world including my family forgot about me. oh yes I forgot I don't have family, or boyfriend I'm realy-realy preety but every1 try just fuck me and no relationtip,or just friend,house-money, pet, I don't have reason to live anymore. Just wanted to say goodbye to anyone who read this. leave some words in honor of Jane to alsal38@yahoo.com
thank you!!!

And some responses:

to much life left to live < faithgone > 09/03 05:38:42

I am watching my beautifull wife die a little more every day. she has no choice but you do.life will get better for you just give it a few days life is to precious and short. you must respect yourself before oters will you deserve better give life a try

i'd love to have a relationship with u < hufflepuffrules > 09/03 14:35:47

if you are as pretty as you say. Besides I like chics who are a bit suicidal, it shows they are real and not spoiled biatches

My boy did that at 24. Everyday I see < mindless6182 > 09/04 08:50:07

another beautiful wondrous thing that makes me smile inside even if only for a minute. Stuff that he's not seeing now. Or maybe he's looking at even cooler things. I have no clue. But you do what you gotta do.

I actually went on the Paris craigslist to practice French in some forums, but I guess, just another interesting activity to do!

There's also this member:

handle:	rainbowmom
email:	anon-rainbowmom@craigslist.org
since:	10 Jun 2009 (819 days)
note:	Mission to try and help other grieving parents learn to cope with the loss of a child as I am right now.

So interesting...

Mother Teresa

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat...Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own...I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. 

It is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.
Mother Teresa

Joan Halifax: The True Meaning of Compassion

Great ideas: Compassion means (1) the ability to look clearly into the nature of suffering, (2) which activates the mordal cortex to aspire to transform suffering, and (3) to not be attached to the outcome, for being attached to the outcome distorts your ability to be present.

The Mirror

This story is a bit old, and probably retold quite often. However, it's something I've been thinking about alot lately, and I don't mind repeating myself out of appreciation; it's a classic!

Author Robert Fulghum tells this story of one of his professors, a wise man whose name was Alexander Papaderos:
At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on Greek culture, Dr. Papaderos turned and made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?"
Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now, there was only silence.
"No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes.
So, I asked.
"Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?"
The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.
Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was. "I will answer your question."
Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.
And what he said went something like this:
"When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
"I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone, I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
"I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light--truth, understanding, knowledge--is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
"I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places in the hearts of men--and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of life."
And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.

To a Common Prostitute

BE composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature,

Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to
rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.

My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you
make preparation to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.

Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not forget me.

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

You Felons on Trial in Courts

YOU felons on trial in courts,
You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins chain’d and
handcuff’d with iron,
Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?
Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain’d with iron, or my ankles with iron?
You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs or obscene in your rooms, Who am I that I should call you more obscene than myself?
O culpable! I acknowledge—I expose!
(O admirers, praise not me—compliment not me—you make me wince, I see what you do not—I know what you do not.)
Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch’d and choked,
Beneath this face that appears so impassive hell’s tides continually run,
Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,
I walk with delinquents with passionate love,
I feel I am of them—I belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself,
And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can I deny myself?

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

from Richard Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1st ed Mariner Books, 2000). Submitted by Anad: "It describes the improbable odds of our existence, and frames our ordinariness as remarkable. With Dawkins' kind of thinking, I can't see anyone ever disregarding other's lives' of suffering and tribulations when those lives themselves are miracles."

Thanks so much for submitting!