Web of Time

"This web of time,

the strands of which approach one another,

bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other

through the centuries,

embraces every possibility. 

We do not exist in most of them.

In some you exist and not I,

while in others I do,

and you do not."

- Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986)

Spark of Radiance

"The spiritual task we

are given is a simple one:

to attend to that inner spark of radiance,

to hold vigil over it until

we realize it to be our self,

and to dig up and cast off

all argument we have with its love."

- Adyashanti (1962 - )

A Mysterious Cocoon

"The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the offshore lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind."

- M. L. Stedman
The Light Between Oceans

The Content of Cognition

"In a sense it has been my way to transcendental experience: to the discovery that matter metaphorically speaking, is the creation of the spirit (the mode of existence of the observer in a domain of discourse), and that the spirit is the creation of the matter it creates. This is not a paradox, but it is the expression of our existence in a domain of cognition in which the content of cognition is cognition itself. Beyond that nothing can be said."

- Humberto R. Maturana (1928 - )

When the Mind is Quiet

"I hope that you will listen, but not with the memory of what you already know; and this is very difficult to do. You listen to something, and your mind immediately reacts with its knowledge, its conclusions, its opinions, its past memories. It listens, inquiring for a future understanding.

Just observe yourself, how you are listening, and you will see that this is what is taking place. Either you are listening with a conclusion, with knowledge, with certain memories, experiences, or you want an answer, and you are impatient. You want to know what it is all about, what life is all about, the extraordinary complexity of life. You are not actually listening at all.

You can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind doesn't react immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is being said. Then, in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding.

If there is a gap between what is said and your own reaction to what is said, in that interval, whether you prolong it indefinitely, for a long period or for a few seconds - in that interval, if you observe, there comes clarity. It is the interval that is the new brain. The immediate reaction is the old brain, and the old brain functions in its own traditional, accepted, reactionary, animalistic sense.

When there is an abeyance of that, when the reaction is suspended, when there is an interval, then you will find that the new brain acts, and it is only the new brain that can understand, not the old brain".

-  Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

The 'I' is Not Apparent

"Just as a man shudders with horror

when he thinks he has trodden on a serpent,

but laughs when he stoops and sees

that it is only a rope,

so I discovered one day that

what I was calling 'I' is not apparent,

and all fear and anxiety

vanished with my mistake"

- Gautama Buddha

Without Beginning

"It is without beginning,

unborn, and indestructible.

It is not green nor yellow,

and has neither form nor appearance.

It does not belong to the categories

of things that exist or do not exist,

nor can it be thought of in terms

of new or old. It is neither long nor short,

neither big nor small, for it transcends all limits,

measures, names, traces, and comparisons."

- Huang Po (? - 850)