not afraid to forget who you are

morten brekkevold

 

When you are not

afraid to forget who you are,

life in the kitchen, or life in the office,

might contain huge and overwhelming happiness.

Everything you look at, the door, the walls meeting in the

corner of the room, the light shining on the cell phone, might be

so alive that it looks back. Other people might not be who you

thought they were. Family members might be as fresh

and surprising as strangers. And you, whom you

have only apparently known all your life,

might be fresh and surprising

to yourself too.

 

John Tarrant

bring me the rhinoceros

🦏

 

contact with good and bad

the most authentic master I ever encountered

 
Something in prolonged contact with rouge eventually becomes red, something in prolonged contact with soot eventually becomes black. What I realize as I observe this is the tao of habituation to good and bad.
 
When you live with good people, what you always hear are good words and what you always see are good actions. Hearing and seeing good words and actions over a long period of time plants good seeds in your mind, so that you spontanteously become accustomed to goodness.
 
When you live with bad people, what you always hear are bad words and what you always see are bad actions. Hearing and seeing bad words and bad actions over a long period of time plants bad seeds in your mind, so that you naturally become accustomed to badness.
 
Good and bad people are said to be so by nature, but most become so through habit. Therefore wise people choose their associates carefully.
 

Liu I-Ming

awakening to the tao

☯️

 

whenever something happens

the way of heaven

 

Can what happened to you

stop you from being fair, high-minded,

moderate, conscientious, unhasty, honest, moral,

self-reliant, and so on — from possessing all the qualities that,

when present, enable a man’s nature to be fulfilled? So then,

whenever something happens that might cause you

distress, remember to rely on this principle:

this is not bad luck, but bearing it

valiantly is good luck.

 

Marcus Aurelius

the annotated marcus