The joys (Cold Mountain)

once you see through transience and illusion
the joys of roaming free are wonderful indeed

Cold Mountain, from "207"

On religion

Everyone invents their own religion, even the most devout, the most reverent, the most sectarian. They choose who to listen to, what to read, what to believe, what they need. Thus, no two people share exactly the same religion.

Whatever it is (Pollitt)

...at the last possible moment
we still want to love
whatever it is we've spent our lives loving...

Katha Pollitt, from "Evening in the Mugello"

On freedom

Freedom enslaves us to opportunity.

Self or not (Cold Mountain)

Is there a self or not
is this me or not
this is what I contemplate
sitting in a trance above a cliff

Cold Mountain, from "197"

Illusions

The illusion of plenty doesn't feed the hungry.

The illusion of scarcity doesn't fool the savvy.

The final vanity (Pollitt)

The final vanity, to think
you're not your life, that even today
at the last possible moment
you can walk away...

Katha Pollitt, from "From a Notebook"

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So far away (Pollitt)

How did
I move so far away
just living day by day,
that now all rooms seem strange,
the years all error?

Katha Pollitt, from "A Chinese Bowl"

Audition

Life's an audition for a no-show.

Capacity to feel (Skutch)

If my experience is typical, as children of six or seven we feel joy and sorrow, we love and even hate, as intensely as we ever can. From this age onward, mental growth increases our ability to reason and plan but hardly our capacity to feel. Perhaps, indeed, our emotional responses are attenuated as we form the habit of reacting practically to the crises in our lives, of trying to understand their causes or foresee their consequences.

Alexander F. Skutch, The Imperative Call

The willing

Seeing what people are willing to do to survive a day, a year, can we even begin to conceive of what they would do to survive a thousand, a million years?

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Most disputes

Most disputes are born at boundaries.

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On Buddhism

Half of Buddhism is brilliant observation.
The other half is rationalization and obfuscation (which still puts it far ahead of all other "religions").

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Times (Blofeld)

However much a hermit may on the whole prefer solitude, there must surely be times when memories of worldly joys, either experienced or once longed for, temporarily disturb his serenity.

John Blofeld

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On belief

The worst reason to believe is because you have to.

Daring

Ignorance dares more than courage.