A Simplifying Renunciation
Thus, you should carefully consider which among the main things you want in life is the most important, and renounce all the others to dedicate yourself to that thing alone. Among the many matters that…
Tag: Meredith McKinney
First Things First
One’s education must first of all be directed to a thorough knowledge of the classics and an understanding of the teachings of the sages. –—Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney, 80
Seize the Instant Already!
A man engaged in Buddhist practice will tell himself at night that there is always the morning, or in the morning will anticipate the night, always intending to make more effort later. And if such…
Word of the Day
aware, Japanese —a feeling-tone in which responsiveness to the moving nature of the phenomenal world derives from a recognition of its transience. –Meredith McKinney, in her translation of Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, xxvii.
Today’s One-Liner (#94)
Things that give you pleasure—When someone you don’t like meets with some misfortune, you’re pleased even though you know this is wicked of you. –Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, translated by Meredith McKinney
Next Door
Such people do not realize that by alleviating the suffering of those before your eyes, practicing benevolence and living rightly, our good influence will extend far beyond. –Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney…
Isn’t This the Truth?
It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, a book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met. —Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness, translated by…
Show Up Already
Even if you lack all faith, simply to seat yourself before an image, hold a rosary and take up a sutra book is to perform a virtuous act, however perfunctory, even seated on your meditation…
Today’s One-Liner (#12)
It’s terribly depressing to discover some quite worthless person blithely reciting a poem that you yourself had particularly liked and carefully copied down in a notebook. –Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, translated by Meredith McKinney
Counter-the Culture
The highest way of living for those who take the tonsure is to aim to lack nothing while owning nothing. —Yoshida Kenkô, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney If you wish to possess everythingYou must…