- Tao-chi
"Each man's life represents a road towards himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimidation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that - one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best as he can."
- Hermann Hesse
Demian
"At day's end, what honest effort do you look back upon? Did you express one thought that was not in defense? Did you look at your self from another person's perspective? Did you understand the why behind another person's actions? Did you laugh at your self? Did you remember you will die? How long till you experience one night utterly alone, where silence absorbs every hope, and boils you down to zero? How long till you remember these questions every day, then end them?"
- Shawn Nevins
"I'm frequently overwhelmed by the monotony of a typical day. Like most people, I pretend not to be excited by catastrophes. I prefer a life that won't cohere, that scrutiny might destroy, to a life the populace might approve of. To my fellow prisoners I say, Just because the escape tunnel goes on forever is no reason to stop digging. Because I've often felt what I've said, I know that nobody's problem was ever solved by feeling deeply about it. I've said the opposite of this, and stand by what I said. I am a pagan and enjoy a pagan's tragic optimism. I'll dance to almost anything, however awful, if the beat is good. I know several consolations for the letdowns and sorrows of experience, but intend to keep them to myself. Every secret I've ever told concealed another secret. I prefer relationships in which so little is asked of me I feel free enough to be generous."
- Stephen Dunn
Personal
Riffs & Reciprocities
"How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart in it. Interest, there must be, and steady remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered, is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.
When you are in dead earnest, you bend every incident, every second of your life to your purpose. You do not waste time and energy on other things. You are totally dedicated.
To know that you are a prisoner of your mind, that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation, is the dawn of wisdom. To want nothing of it, to be ready to abandon it entirely, is earnestness."
- Sri Nisargadatta
"The most expedient method for dislodging the id-entity is to confront it directly and ask tough questions. This is self-inquiry, self-interrogation. Don't be distracted by the flurry of decoys and red herrings it throws out - the personality quirks and tantalizing memories of past imperfections. This is where it wants to play, in the muck and mire of personal history. Here it has home field advantage. It will do everything in its power to keep you looking under those rocks for the duration. There's no end to it. Rather, look straight at it, at the heart of the matter, at the myth of personhood itself. Is there a self to study? If so, then by all means have at it. If not, why study something that doesn't exist? First things first.
A certain amount of persona-study is necessary to demystify the workings of one's particular vehicle. Beyond that it risks becoming a narcissistic indulgence. We need only be concerned with those aspects of persona that block truth. In actuality, very few of one's traits fall into this category. Focus on those and leave the rest to wither. How can we know which ones stand in the way? Move along a narrow path in the direction of your longest view and see what you hit. The direction of your movement will determine what stands in the way. Deal only with those things that block the path and keep moving. Do not look right or left at extraneous quirks that appear to need fixing - Sirens conjured by the identity to distract and delay you. Don't get sidetracked trying to become a better robot. Don't waste time polishing the turd. It doesn't hold truth and it won't take a shine.
The path is subtractive here as elsewhere. We love what we believe to be unique personal aspects of our individuality - memories, character traits, opinions . . . We like to think of ourselves as extremely complex, with burdens and challenges and destinies of mythic proportion. That's a lot to carry. Weed out as much of this as possible and focus available energy on actual obstacles, not seductive cul-de-sacs and dead ends. The danger is that psychological self-study becomes an ego game, a goal in itself - an endless tail-chasing device that locks one into the idea that the person can be fixed, that it needs to be fixed before moving forward. It becomes a reason for procrastination, a reason to refuse freedom, a reason to hold grace at bay. "I am not yet worthy," we protest, and fend off God with all our might.
Move in any direction, and the way you live and act will quite naturally come into alignment with that direction. This does not need to be taken on as a separate task. The key is direction. Choose wisely, set your sights on the furthest point in current view and move out smartly."
- Bart Marshall
Nothing Is Necessary
"To be or not to be" is not really a question. It's indecision."
- R. L. Wing
The I Ching Workbook
"How is it that we need all this prodding, all these warnings and earnest invitations and promises of infinite rewards, to persuade us to take a really close look at ourselves? Why don't all intelligent and serious people make it their chief business in life to find out whose life it is?"
- Douglas Harding
