NICE ARTICLE I HAVE EVER JUST READ
"Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see . Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere . But if you can listen to the sound of your own voice , you can rise above doubt and judgment . And you can see forever.” ~ Nancy Lopez ~
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- " What we think about ourselves is challenged by change .
Many people say , “I shouldn’t have to give up who I am in order to be in a relationship . " -
I say, if you do not give up who you are, then you are not in relationship .
In fact , if you do not have to give up who you are every moment of every day ,
then you are not alive .
* To be alive is to be in a constant state of revolution . *
Changing situations should affect our behavior .
That is sanity; allowing new information to inform my point of view .
My point of view—the man in Heraclitus’ example—must remain open or fluid .
- “Everything changes.” -
That is the basic point , according to Shunryu Suzuki .
Everything—the economy , politics , the weather , relationships , our beliefs , our very sense of identity—is in state of fluctuation .
When we are open to change , the transition is relatively smooth .
* We are going with the flow . On the other hand ,when we try to save all of our vouchers we drown . *
- We cannot swim with our hands full -
[ An open mind is a sane mind . ]
[ An open mind is not a mind that gives due consideration to any idea , regardless of how ridiculous it is . ]
~ An open mind is a swinging door .
It is a mind that does not resist change. An open mind allows thought to be a reflection of change . ~
From this point of view , thought is always fresh , { because life is always changing . }
This is original thought , imagination .
- In basic awareness , the man and the river pour into one another . -
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We have to accept the fact that we cannot wrestle happiness out of this world simply by putting life in a head-lock and forcing it to play with us .
We have to see that life is change , change is life ; that they are one in the same thing .
Trying to organize impermanent phenomena into permanent categories of thought is like trying to herd cats . Furthermore , we are not somehow other than this change .
WE ARE LIFE .
WE ARE CHANGE .
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Confusion and discontentment arise from the mistaken belief that we are a noun .
Contentment is realized when we stop swimming against the stream and settle into the fact that we are a current in the stream.
The current is not other than the stream. It is the movement of the stream.
We are not a co-dependent noun standing on the bank watching life flow by , but a verb emerging out of the stream of life .
