Category: Wisdom Traditions

Invitations and Incitements

I think it’s best to see Walt, and virtually every other imaginative writer of consequence, as issuing not edicts but invitations. Walt asks us to make his words ours, his vision our own….you can respond…

Today’s One-Liner (#13)

To have the courage for whatever comes in life—everything lies in that. –Saint Theresa of Avila, quoted in Eknath Easwaran, Love Never Faileth: The Inspiration of Saint Francis, Saint Augustine, Saint Paul, Mother Teresa, 133

Containing Multitudes

Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.) –Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 53 [Soen Nakagawa] had many faces: he was a simple monk, a “crazy wisdom” Zen master,…

Found in the Notes of Chapter 9

Pirkei Avot 4:1–“Ben Zoma states, ‘Who is wise? He who learns from all people. Who is strong? He who controls his passions. Who is rich? He who rejoices in his own lot. Who is honorable?…

Gratitude/3

For Jim Grote, who introduced me  in my late twenties to the work of Rene Girard, whom I am still reading, especially through three recent works by Cynthia L. Haven.  Girard’s ideas inspire, humble, energize,…

Today’s One-Liner (#11)

Method of investigation— as soon as one has arrived at any position, try to find in what sense the contrary is true. –Simone Weil, Waiting for God

Today’s One-Liner (#10)

On ne donne rien si libéralement que ses conseils.  –La Rochefoucauld, Maxim #110 One gives nothing so liberally as pieces of advice. –Translation by Stuart D. Warner and Stéphane DouardSt. Augustine’s Press, 2001

All Our Relations

All women are mothers and sisters, and all men are fathers and brothers in God’s family.–Maharajji, in Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba Oh humanityI am your grateful son.Every man my…

Searching

It was in Kafka that Scholem discovered a kind of heretical, secular Kabbalah, a literature paradoxically at once canonical and nihilistic. With Max Brod and Walter Benjamin, Scholem saw in Kafka a deeply Jewish writer,…