Even when you’re thinking about higher things.

 If your mind is going through all kinds of higher experiences, put a stop to it.

For the mind is merely playing games with you.

The mind is increasing it’s capacity.

 With new words, with new concepts, with new attitudes.

We want to empty the mind, to clear the mind and finally to annihilate the mind.

So if you’re thinking of good thoughts or bad thoughts, get rid of everything and have no thoughts.

- Robert Adams -

As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. 

 

You have to be whole and complete in yourself. 

 

No one can give you that.

 

 You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant.

 

- Nic Sheff -

There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once.

 

 But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. 

 

Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. 

 

These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. 

 

They are death’s pulses, death’s heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to.

 

- Rigpa - Glimpse of the day - 

 

 

At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.

Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter "written" by the doll saying "please don't cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures."
Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka's life.

During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (she bought one) that had returned to Berlin.
"It doesn't look like my doll at all," said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: "my travels have changed me." the little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happy home.

A year later Kafka died.

Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:

"Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way."

 Mind Core 

One reason people resist change 

 

is because they focus on what they have to give up, 

 

instead of what they have to gain.

- Rick Godwin -

En nu je niet meer perfect hoeft te zijn, 

 

kun je goed zijn.

 

- John Steinbeck - 

 

 

You are not just here to fill space or be a background character in someone else’s movie. 

 

Consider this: nothing would be the same if you did not exist.

 

 Every place you have ever been and everyone you have ever spoken to would be different without you.

 

 We are all connected, and we are all affected by the decisions and even the existence of those around us.

 

- David Niven -

Tom Dinneweth

@Dinneweth

 

Je kan alles oplossen met liefde, denk ik. 

 

Toegegeven, een kapotte computer of een wiskundige vergelijking is wat moeilijker.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes

 the Crisis 

Is the Healing.

- Pema Chödrön -

 

 

Moonlight (2016)

The best thing about telling the truth

 

 is that you don't have to remember what you said.

- Mark Twain -

Wie ben jij, zonder je gedachten?

Welke gedachten je ooit ook over jezelf hebt gehad

Hoe negatief of positief ze ook waren

Ze zeggen niets over wie je werkelijk bent

Het waren slechts gedachten, die je geloofde

Maar in je gedachten kun je jezelf niet vinden

Want wat je bent, gaat aan gedachten voorbij

Als je al je gedachten tijdelijk zou kunnen wissen

Wat blijft er dan over?…

Iets dat onuitwisbaar is

Het enige dat wis en waarachtig is…

- Erik van Zuydam -

We divide the world and our own selves into darkness and light, 'good' and 'bad,' and we stand eternally in judgment, siding first with one side, then with the other, but rarely undertaking the terrible task of integrating all this into a whole.

It is perhaps this human tendency to see everything as 'good' or 'bad' that creates the greatest obstacle to accepting and utilizing our varied inner personalities. 

We don't realize that our categories of 'good' and 'bad' are usually arbitrary and subjective. 

We derive most of these standards from family, culture, and childhood conditioning without questioning them.

 If we have the courage to look with open minds at some of the instincts and energy systems within that we have been so ashamed of, we almost always find that they can also be positive strengths - and that they are merely normal parts of a total human character. 

 As with all our inner contents, they need to be acknowledged, honoured, and lived on an appropriate and constructive level.'

- Robert A. Johnson -

Photography - still from movie Amalie 

www.teallach.com

Find meaning.

 

 Distinguish melancholy from sadness. 

 

Go out for a walk.

 

 It doesn't have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world.

 

 It doesn't have to be a walk during which you'll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. 

 

Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. 

 

Find meaning of don't find meaning but "steal" some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. 

 

Opt for privacy and solitude. 

 

That doesn't make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. 

 

But you need to breathe.
And you need to be.

- Albert Camus, from "Notebooks, 19511959 -

You are not special. 

 

You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

 

 You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. 

 

We're all part of the same compost heap. 

 

We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.

- Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club -

 

 

Monsters don't sleep under your bed 

they sleep inside your head.

Attitude is a choice.

Happiness is a choice.

Optimism is a choice.

Kindness is a choice.

Giving is a choice.

Respect is a choice.

Whatever choice you make makes you.

Choose wisely.

- Roy T. Bennett -

Give evil nothing to oppose

 

 and it will disappear by itself.

 

- Lao Tzu -

But darling,

 in the end you have to be your own hero 

because everyone else

 is too busy trying to save themselves.

- Unknown -

I see people allowing their lives to diminish, to become shallow, so they can’t enjoy the deep wells of experience... 

If only the heart shut down and there were no repercussions, it would be ok. 

But when the heart shuts down, the whole system goes into a kind of despair that is intolerable.

-  Leonard Cohen -

NITCH

 

What do we run away from more than silence? 

 

Many of us would rather cling to our ideas, our beliefs, and our opinions – the very things that distance us from truth and reality and life – than to experience this silence. 

 

We spend so much energy running away from silence, but silence is the ground from which awakening springs.

 

 It’s the ground from which we shift out of this egoic state of consciousness, out of this belief in separation. 

 

After all, separation is ultimately just a belief.

 

 It’s a story made up in our minds.
- Adyashanti -

Moment

Soms hoor ik onverwacht weer achter
gewone woorden die je uit
een zoveel zuiverder en zachter,
adembenemender geluid,
dat ik opnieuw naar je moet kijken
of ik je nooit tevoren zag.
Laat al die jaren maar verstrijken;
zolang ik dit bewaren mag
kan jou en mij de tijd niet deren:
weer voor het eerst met je alleen
hoor ik de harmonie der sferen
door alle alledaagsheid heen.

- Jean Pierre Rawie -

 

Moment, uit: Onmogelijk geluk (2001), uitgeverij Bert Bakker.

 

 

In je hoofd

kun je alles. 

Fietsen naar de maan,

boven op de wolken staan.

Strelen met je handen los,

lopen door een donker bos.

 

 

Vechten als een tijger,

dansen met een elf.

Afscheid nemen 

zonder tranen,

alles gaat vanzelf.

 

 

- Bert Schierbeek - 

 

 

Het is erger dan je denkt.

Als je denkt is het nog erger.

- Bert Schierbeek -

 

 

Medical shop, Netherlands, 1964. 

Photographed by Leonard Freed.

Als de ogen zich sluiten

en het zicht naar binnen keert,

 waar ben ik dan?

 en jij?

 en wij?


- Bert Schierbeek -

Slumber, Chicago, August 1956. Photographed by Vivian Maier.

I have come to believe over and over again

that what is most important to me 

must be spoken, made verbal and shared,

even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.

- Audre Lorde -

You can be completely free in a prison cell or you can be in prison in a five-star hotel.

It’s so nice to know that in any place, with any state of mind, you can always be free.

Understand that and you understand how wisdom can free you.

- Ajahn Brahm -

Modern life has made us people of attachment rather than people of commitment.

 Indeed, many people have found that it is difficult totell the difference between attachment and commitment in their own lives.

Yet attachment leads farther and farther into entrapment.

 Commitment, though it may sometimes feel constricting, will ultimately lead to greater degrees of freedom.

 Both involve in the moment an experience of holding, sometimes against the flow of events or against temptation.

One can distinguish between the two in most situations by noticing over time whether one has moved through this activity or this relationship closer to freedom or closer to bondage.

 Attachment is a reflex, an automatic response which often may not reflect our deepest good.

Commitment is a conscious choice, to align ourselves with our most genuine values and our sense of purpose.

 -Rachel Naomi Remen -

If there is beauty, there must be ugliness;
If there is right, there must be wrong.
Wisdom and ignorance are complementary,
And illusion and enlightenment cannot be separated.
This is an old truth, don’t think it was discovered recently.
“I want this, I want that”
Is nothing but foolishness.
I’ll tell you a secret -
All things are impermanent!

- Ryokan -

The loudest noise in the world

 

 is silence.

 

-  Thelonious Monk -

 

NITCH

 

 

Wat als we allebei 

niet verkeerd 

maar gewoon 

zoekende waren?

StephN

A zen koan says “not knowing is most intimate.” 

 

Sitting with uncertainty is hard. 

 

It requires compassion for our obsession with having the answer, trust that we are okay, tenderness in moments of intense fear. 

 

Through this we grow closer to ourselves, with life, with each other.

 

- Jason Garner - 

 

 

Everything is Going to be All Right

 

 

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

 

 

We need to trust

 

 that opening our hearts is worth the risk,

 

 and that even if someone leaves us,

 

we can fill the hole in our heart 

 

with our own self-love and compassion.

 

- Lynn Reilly -

 

 If you're afraid of being hurt or rejected, 

 

you'll relate to this: https://buff.ly/2qtOGTE

 

 

Never trust your tongue 

 

when your heart is bitter.

 

 Hush until you heal.

 

They say that hell is crowded, yet, when you’re in hell, you always seem to be alone.

 

 And you can’t tell anyone when you’re in hell or they’ll think you’re crazy and being crazy is being in hell and being sane is hellish too. 

 

Those who escape hell, however, never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that. 

 

I mean, things like missing a meal, going to jail, wrecking your car, or even the idea of death itself. 

 

When you ask them, 'How are things?' 

 

They’ll always answer, 'Fine, just fine…' 

 

Once you’ve been to hell and back, that’s enough, it’s the greatest satisfaction known to man. 

 

Once you’ve been to hell and back, you don’t look behind you when the floor creaks and the sun is always up at midnight and things like the eyes of mice or an abandoned tire in a vacant lot can make you smile, once you’ve been to hell and back.

 

-  Charles Bukowski -

 

NITCH

 

 

In de zoektocht naar zekerheid, veiligheid en 

geborgenheid zoeken we houvast in uiterlijke structuren; 

relaties, werk en bezittingen, maar ook  in onze sociale, 

politieke of religieuze identiteit. Al deze uiterlijke structuren

zijn echter wankel en tijdelijk van aard en dus 

gedoemd om je uiteindelijk teleur te stellen.

Je dient het vizier te richten op datgene in je 

wat wérkelijk zeker is, wat niet komt en gaat. 

datgene in je, dat voor rust, veiligheid en zekerheid 

niet afhankelijk is van een uiterlijke structuur.

- Erik van Zuydam -

G E W E L D 

I S 

N O O I T 

D E 

O P L O S S I N G 

Edward van de Vendel heeft de afgelopen week met ‘Wat je moet doen als je over een nijlpaard struikelt: gedichten waar je wat aan hebt’ (illustraties Martijn van der Linden) de Gouden Poëziemedaille 2020 gewonnen, de prijs voor de beste kinderpoëziebundel die om de twee jaar wordt uitgereikt door Poëziecentrum en CANON Cultuurcel.

Wat je moet doen als je over een nijlpaard struikelt

Allereerst:
sorry zeggen.
Daarna:
met jezelf overleggen
hoe je hem terug gaat laten struikelen.
Pfah.
Alsof dikhuiden de enigen zijn
die hun gewicht mogen gebruikelen!
Ik zou als ik jou was
alle zoetigheid in jullie huis
tevoorschijn proberen te ruikelen:
alle slagroom en snoep,
in alle kannen en kruikelen,
en dat opeten,
opeten
om dan met opbollende billen
en uitpuilende buikelen,
elk nijlpaard dat in de weg loopt
ondersteboven
te duikelen.

(beeld: Martijn van der Linden, detail cover-illustratie)