Steady Presence

 Overheard at an AA meeting: "There'a good news and bad news. The good news is there's a solution, the bad news is it's us.

  Overheard at an AA meeting: "I'm just grateful as hell I got sober before they invented the taser."

  If people you know are holding forth on the subject of race relations in this country, ask if they've read these five books.

 I accept that without television, I would have no new friends. Today I will give unsolicited advice to those who, in my opinion, need to better themselves. Regardless of what other people say, my tendency to overreact and lose all perspective makes me a theatrically interesting person. The world will someday realize the hidden genius of my work.                "  Today I Will Nourish My Inner Martyr "  by Ann Thornhill   

 Understanding emptiness is not a philosophers plaything but a vital tool to overcome suffering. Simply realizing emptiness as it is will liberate us from all suffering and pain. We don't need devotion, faith, or belief in the Buddha; we simply need to realize how things really exist.

  She had learned many things. After all was said and done she hadn't wanted to learn any of it; most of the time she simply had no other choice. But no matter how much mental rearrangement she experienced - and it was a lot - she never lost the picture she had hung in the corner of her mind. The picture of the plains. Even though she would make the trip, find her way slowly, painfully, and near the end of her journey arrive at a place better than she could have hoped for, she never cleaned her mental house completely; she always kept her picture of the plains. Much of her outside life was cosmopolitan, intellectually stimulating and rewarding. Not just educated; smart. She found herself in Boston, New York, Munich and Aruba; it was language and letters, opera and plays and she participated as well as observed. With her inside life she struggled. She faced psychologists,  psychiatrists, counselors and mental institutions, churches and assorted religious quests, child ...

 A horse and a cat once discussed the question: "What is happiness?" They couldn't reach an agreement.                                                                                     Kodo Sawaki