The Way is arrived at by enlightenment.
The first priority is to establish resolve.
It is no small matter to step directly
from the bondage of the ordinary person
into transcendent experience of the realm of sages.
It requires that your mind be firm as steel
to cut off the flow of birth and death,
accept your original real nature,
not see anything at all as existing inside or outside yourself,
so all actions and endeavors emerge from the fundamental.
~ Yuan wu (1063-1135)
@rookie54 saidOne doesn't need to defend oneself when accused by a jealous idiot.
https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching-index.htm
https://www.dailyzen.com/
https://wahiduddin.net/saki/saki_date.php
https://www.aa.org/daily-reflections
"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it." -- Elwood Blues, The Blues Brothers, 1980
i have changed the gender of the Cosmic Entity
and It is amused
https://www.aa.org/daily-reflections
February 25
In Goddess's economy, nothing is wasted. Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 31
How thankful I am today, to know that all my past failures were necessary for me to be where I am now. Through much pain came experience and, in suffering, I became obedient. When I sought Goddess, as I understand Her, She shared Her treasured gifts. Through experience and obedience, growth started, followed by gratitude. Yes, then came peace of mind—living in and sharing sobriety.
Meditation Hall
Clear the land, thatch the rush for roof,
All around cherish the empty, the pure.
Mountain blossoms fall by a secluded door,
Within, one who has forgotten the world’s schemings.
Concern with existence needs no possession,
Comprehending the void does not wait upon reason.
All things are of conditions born,
Profound is the silence in the midst of clamor.
A person’s mind is very much the same;
A bird in flight, leaving no tracks behinds.
~ Liu Tsung-yuan (773-819)
“The East reveres Buddha, the West reveres Christ. Both taught love as the secret of wisdom. The earthly life of Christ was contemporary with that of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who spent his life in cruelty and disgusting debauchery and perversion. Tiberius had pomp and power; in his day millions trembled at his nod. But he is forgotten.
Those who live nobly, even if in their day they live obscurely, need not fear that they will have lived in vain. Something radiates from their lives, some light that shows the way to their friends, their neighbours perhaps to long future ages. I find many people nowadays oppressed with a sense of impotence, with the feeling that in the vastness of modern societies there is nothing of importance that the individual can do. This is a mistake.
The individual, if he is filled with love of mankind, with breadth of vision, with courage and with endurance, can do a great deal. Every one of us can enlarge our mind, release our imagination, and spread wide our affection and benevolence. And it is those who do this whom ultimately humankind reveres.”
— Bertrand Russell