"..Savor the warmth and joy..

..that result from a calmer mind. After a while your thoughts will become like a peaceful river. If you practice regularly, eventually your mind will easily become serene, like a calm ocean. Whenever new thoughts arise, like waves raised by the winds, do not be bothered by them. They will soon dissolve back into the ocean.." - Matthieu Ricard

Dregnaughts

Dregnaught
\Dre*gnor*gt\, n. An popular Vignette** encapsulating key element(s) of a larger piece of contemporary media, where propagated exclusively via computer and networks (see Internet). Often showing cruel and unusual pain and feats of cunning trickery in cars, and both.
**(Vignette: (n.) A short scene or incident, as from a movie.)

Where do words come from?

I assert that a word is the formalisation of a concept; a handle on a mental construct, propogated by common use, then perhaps formal acceptance into language. A perception of reality based language and layers of conceptual understanding is wholly limited by these concepts. That they should form the foundation for what seems to be a popular perception of reality seems to me to be wholly lacking.

Consider a bookshop with ten thousand titles from gardening to philosophy through car mechanics and ancient translations.. then perhaps consider all the books in all the world which have ever been, maybe billions of tomes stacked so high as to block out the sun.. consider every single attemt to ever encapsulate even the most minute fragment of the most subjective element of our reality in words and ask; has that task actually ever been achieved?

..then consider what it is to be "knowledgable". Perhaps it is simply the biggest, most ego-centric, self-rightious myth ever known..

Peace in the Peace Movement

"...Contributions to peace are built upon innate goodness. Deep inside we must recognize that while we are different from those who go to and support war, different from those who let HIV/AIDS and hunger continue unchecked and who commit the genocide of African and other peoples of color, we are complicit in that arrogance by couching our expressions of protest in a language of fear and hatred, a language that lets our opposition point to our hypocrisy and makes some people of peace feel unable to participate in a movement that cultivates as much aggression as the events and policies we are striving to oppose..." - boona cheema

What for is a koan, sir?

Yesterday afternoon, a gentleman paid a visit to the deluded old man. After saluting to each other and just before sipping the first cup of green tea, the gentleman asked a question like this:
- What is a koan** and what for is it, sir?
- It is like a candy handed out to make a baby who is crying to stop it.
- Then what for is it after the baby aready stops crying?
- Just put it aside.
- And what would you tell the baby when he is no longer crying?
- Just tell him do not get hurt and cry again.
- That's wonderful, sir!
- You are a crying baby, aren't you?

(** koan - A puzzling, often paradoxical statement or story, used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining spiritual awakening.)

Hakuin and the Samurai

A soldier came to Hakuin and asked "Is there really a paradise and a hell?"
"Who are you?" inquired Hakuin.
"I am a samurai," the warrior replied.
"You, a samurai!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar!"
The soldier became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued. "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably as dull as your head!"
As the soldier drew his sword Hakuin remarked "Here open the gates of hell!"
At these words, the samurai, perceiving the discipline of the master, sheathed his sword and bowed.
"Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin.