quotes

“Impermanence mocks us.”

/ Lou

A little something in honor of (sort of), the Day of the Dead.

“Impermanence mocks us. Our efforts — to learn, to acquire, to hold on to what we have — all eventually fail us and come to naught. This is the final and controlling paradox: Only by embracing our mortality can we be happy in the time we have. The intensity of our connections to those we love is a function of our own knowledge that everyone is evanescent. Our ability to experience any pleasure requires either a healthy denial or courageous acceptance of the weight of time and the prospect of ultimate defeat.” — Gordon Livingston, M.D.

Be the tree. 

/ Lou

“Be patient, do nothing, cease striving. We find this advice disheartening and therefore unfeasible because we forget it is our own inflexible activity that is structuring the reality. We think that if we do not hustle, nothing will happen and we will pine away. But the reality is probably in motion and after a while we might take part in that motion. But one can’t know.” — Paul Goodman

The Buddha and the butterfly

/ Lou

“I embrace emerging experience.
I participate in discovery.
I am a butterfly.
I am not a butterfly collector.
I want the experience of the butterfly.”
— William Stafford

Me, communing with the Buddha. Cambodia, December 2011.

Me, communing with the Buddha. Cambodia, December 2011.

(My intention for this year — and every year, every moment — in verse and in photo.)