“Do you think that anybody can damage your soul? Then why are you so embarrassed? I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even tough the things which are really mine and with which I live.”
Epictetus, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 147)
Archives
“Only the truth which was acquired by your own thinking, through the efforts of your intellect, becomes a member of your own body, and only this truth really belongs to us.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 146)
“Only the one who attains perfect sincerity under heaven may discover one’s ‘true nature.'”
Confucius, via Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXXVII)
“Abide by rules, then throw them out!—only then may you achieve true freedom.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXIII)
“Despite his ability to attract students, he seems to have spent much of his time in a state of perpetual despondency, loneliness everywhere crowding in on him. No doubt this state of mind was compounded by chronically poor health, but Bashō was also engaging true sabishi, a spiritual loneliness that served haikai culture in much the same way mu or ‘nothingness’ served Zen.”
Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXXI)
“Life is the constant approach to death; therefore, life can be bliss only when death does not seem to be an evil.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 145)
“His journey is a pilgrimage; it is a journey into the interior of the self as much as a travelogue, a vision quest that concludes in insight. But there is no conclusion. The journey itself is home. The means is the end, just as it is the beginning. Each step is the first step, each step the last.”
Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXIII)
“Ignore the front that people display, the myth that surrounds them, and instead plumb their depths for signs of their character. This can be seen in the patterns they reveal from their past, the quality of their decisions, how they delegate authority and work with others, and countless other signs.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 170)
“Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.”
Unknown, via Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXI)
“The attitude is paradoxical: the Zen poet believes the real experience of poetry lies somewhere beyond the words themselves but, like a good Confucian, believes simultaneously that only the perfect word perfectly placed has the power to reveal the authentic experience of the poem.”
Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XVIII)
