Moments.

[johnofgwent]

13

Look around you and consider all the things and preoccupations you've acquired in life. What is all this stuff on your shelves, in your closets, and on your computer? Think of all the books you have bought hoping you'd one day find the time to read them. Think of all the things you compulsively pay attention to online. All of these things are on loan to you. You will leave them behind, and it will be the job of others to empty your shelves, and clean up your files. Why not hold onto this far more lightly than you tend to, like you would an object in a dream.

What you really have is the quality of your mind in each moment, and the freedom of attention.
Sam Harris.

The contents of my kindle are there to occupy my mind while consuming the all inclusive pool side beer on holiday. The daughters and grand daughter know the password they can help themselves or dump it as they please. Once upon a time I suppose the suitcase would have held three or four paperbacks on the way put, and the hotel bin would have them on our departure.

[cromwell]

13

Look around you and consider all the things and preoccupations you've acquired in life. What is all this stuff on your shelves, in your closets, and on your computer? Think of all the books you have bought hoping you'd one day find the time to read them. Think of all the things you compulsively pay attention to online. All of these things are on loan to you. You will leave them behind, and it will be the job of others to empty your shelves, and clean up your files. Why not hold onto this far more lightly than you tend to, like you would an object in a dream.

What you really have is the quality of your mind in each moment, and the freedom of attention.
Sam Harris.

14
The mountain is not made of rock, it is rock.
Alan Watts

You mean all our ramblings and time on here are a waste? 

[Nalaar]

13

Look around you and consider all the things and preoccupations you've acquired in life. What is all this stuff on your shelves, in your closets, and on your computer? Think of all the books you have bought hoping you'd one day find the time to read them. Think of all the things you compulsively pay attention to online. All of these things are on loan to you. You will leave them behind, and it will be the job of others to empty your shelves, and clean up your files. Why not hold onto this far more lightly than you tend to, like you would an object in a dream.

What you really have is the quality of your mind in each moment, and the freedom of attention.
Sam Harris.

14
The mountain is not made of rock, it is rock.
Alan Watts

[T00ts]

12
"It's difficult to have relationships, It's difficult to have relationships with people you like, and people that you want to be in a relationship with, even that's difficult. And on a societal level, we've all been thrust together and expected to figure out how to do this. There's no support, no conversation, nothing to help us figure this out.

You have huge populations of people thrust into rural towns and told to integrate - Why don't you figure it out? If you're a brown person you're not being English enough, you're not learning the language enough or doing this or that enough. If you're a white working class person omg you're just a racist, you don't like these refugees.

But the reality is that no one's articulated the fact that we are in this relationship together, and we're going to have to commit to each other because that's the difference in relationships that you have in your personal life. You've made a commitment to make it work, even when it's hard, even when it's inconvenient and unpleasant, you've made a commitment to make it work. And on a larger scale we haven't made that commitment to each other between different communities to make it work."
Deeyah Khan

The only thing that makes it work is to remember that no matter what colour or religion, we are all equal children of God in His eyes with one just purpose.

[Nalaar]

12
"It's difficult to have relationships, It's difficult to have relationships with people you like, and people that you want to be in a relationship with, even that's difficult. And on a societal level, we've all been thrust together and expected to figure out how to do this. There's no support, no conversation, nothing to help us figure this out.

You have huge populations of people thrust into rural towns and told to integrate - Why don't you figure it out? If you're a brown person you're not being English enough, you're not learning the language enough or doing this or that enough. If you're a white working class person omg you're just a racist, you don't like these refugees.

But the reality is that no one's articulated the fact that we are in this relationship together, and we're going to have to commit to each other because that's the difference in relationships that you have in your personal life. You've made a commitment to make it work, even when it's hard, even when it's inconvenient and unpleasant, you've made a commitment to make it work. And on a larger scale we haven't made that commitment to each other between different communities to make it work."
Deeyah Khan

[Barry]

11
A short exercise in Metta.

Take a moment to think of someone, anyone, a person you like or dislike, a family member or stranger that works in the local shop. Imagine you can make their life better, what do you want for them?

Visualize that person as you read and think  'May you have strength. May you find peace. May you be free from suffering. May you feel love. May you be happy. May you feel connected. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you accept yourself. May you accept others as they are. May you be free.'

I see your Buddha and raise it to praying to one true God for those people.

[Nalaar]

11
A short exercise in Metta.

Take a moment to think of someone, anyone, a person you like or dislike, a family member or stranger that works in the local shop. Imagine you can make their life better, what do you want for them?

Visualize that person as you read and think  'May you have strength. May you find peace. May you be free from suffering. May you feel love. May you be happy. May you feel connected. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you accept yourself. May you accept others as they are. May you be free.'

Re-read and re-think as many times as you need.

[Streetwalker]

[Nalaar]

10
There existed only the Now, that present moment and what was clearly given in it. To look was enough. And what I found was khaki trouser-legs terminating downwards in a pair of brown shoes, khaki sleeves terminating sideways in a pair of pink hands, and a khaki shirt-front terminating upwards in—absolutely nothing whatever! Certainly not in a head.

It took me no time at all to notice that this nothing, this hole where a head should have been was no ordinary vacancy, no mere nothing. On the contrary, it was very much occupied. It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everything—room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snow peaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky.


I had lost a head and gained a world."

Douglas Harding

[papasmurf]

In other words, people can sometimes do the wrong thing for the right reasons, and the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Which when you are in the deep poo, you don't care as long as someone extracts you from it.

[srb7677]

He that gets you into trouble if not necessarily your enemy and he that gets you out of trouble is not necessarily your friend.

In other words, people can sometimes do the wrong thing for the right reasons, and the right thing for the wrong reasons.

[papasmurf]

He that gets you into trouble if not necessarily your enemy and he that gets you out of trouble is not necessarily your friend.

[Nalaar]

9
I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow did not breed or perfect the seeds.
I do not make any of my own clothing.
I speak a language I did not invent or refine.
I did not discover the mathematics I use.
I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.
I am moved by music I did not create myself.
When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.
I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object-oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.
I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well-being.
Steve Jobs.

[Nalaar]

8

90 years, represented in weeks.

[Nalaar]

6
Many of us have a course grained view of our experience, for instance you might think you've been in a bad mood all day, but that is not true. Your state of mind is continually changing. The next time you're in a bad mood, notice how it gets continually interrupted. Perhaps you'll notice something funny on the internet, get absorbed in a practical task, or you'll receive a phone call that requires you to shift into a different attitude. Notice these breaks in the clouds, they show you something about your mind.
Sam Harris.

-------

7
Consider daylight saving time - Everybody could simply get up an hour earlier, but instead of doing that, we alter the clock. Because the clock has a kind of authority, and so we say that the clock says that it's time to get up. And the Indians laugh at the pale-faces because they say 'pale-face doesn't know if he's hungry until he looks at his watch'. So in this way be become clock dominated, and the abstract system takes over from the physical organic situation.
This is my big pitch...we've run into a cultural situation where we have confused the symbol with the physical reality, the money with the wealth, and the menu with the dinner, and we are starving by eating menus.
Alan Watts.