All Is Well in the Great Mess

‘Walk With Me ’ is a meditative film about a community of Zen Buddhist monks and nuns who have dedicated their lives to mastering the art of mindfulness with their world-famous teacher Thích Nhât Hanh .

This clip from the documentary shows a young girl whose dog has died and who is telling him about it.

My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;
Every year the green ivy grows longer.
No news of the affairs of men,
Only the occasional song of a woodcutter.
The sun shines and I mend my robe;
When the moon comes out I read Buddhist poems.
I have nothing to report, my friends.
If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after
so many things.

– Ryokan

Wild beasts flee from the dangers they see -
and when they have fled they are calm.
– Seneca

Remember:
Matter.
How tiny your share of it.
Time.
How brief and fleeting your allotment of it.
Fate.
How small a role you play in it.
– Marcus Aurelius

Any person capable of angering you
becomes your master;
he can anger you only
when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
– Epictetus

The best way to learn is by teaching.
– Unknown

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on the fighting the old, but on building the new.
– Socrates

By: Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Marcus Aurelius

Leben wie ein Baum, einzeln und frei
doch brüderlich wie ein Wald,
das ist unsere Sehnsucht.

Nazım Hikmet

Einfache Lügen haben es schwerer als komplizierte Wahrheiten

Umwege erhöhen die Ortskenntnisse.
Manchmal muss man vom Weg abkommen um auf der Strecke zu bleiben.

Udo Jürgens
Mitten im Leben

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Hilary Cooper

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

Alan Watts

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit

Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow
You may succeed with another blow.

Interestingly, “The Book of Mu” cites the following as a waka poem written by an old Japanese Zen Master.

When your bow is broken and your arrows are exhausted,
There, shoot!
Shoot with your whole being!

– The Book of Mu

While an internet search has the following line written by Roger Zelazny, an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels.

When your bow is broken and your last arrow spent,
then shoot,
shoot with your whole heart.

The best revenge against your enemy is not to become like your enemy.

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.6