A story and six quotes

Story:
The Zen master, Hakuin, was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life. A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child. This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment, at last named Hakuin. In great anger the parents went to the master: “Is that so?” was all he would say.

After the child was born, it was brought to Hakuin. By this time, he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else the little one needed. A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fish market.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, and to get the child back. Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”


Quote 1: “That man sees people dying all around him every day, every moment, yet he thinks that he is not going to die!” – Yudhistra, the eldest of the pandava brothers, when asked as to what the most amazing thing in this world

Quote 2: Man has to face two tragedies in life, one when his desire is fulfilled and the other when it is not – George Bernard Shaw

Quote 3: Experience is merely whatever happens to us, whatever occurs. The confused mind views experience that arises of a cognitive contact as permanent, with an inherent existence from its own side. It confuses the experiences and appearances that arise out of beauty, wealth, fame, and power to be of a different substance than those arising out of anger, hatred and despair

Quote 4: It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves – Edmund Hillary

Quote 5: A problem cannot be solved by being in the same condition in which it was created – Albert Einstein

Quote 6: Personal responsibility…taking responsibility for your behaviour and not forever supposing that society must forgive you because it’s not your fault – Celebrated historian & Pulitzer price winner, Barbara Tuchman, when asked what she thought was most needed in the coming century.

Quote(s) Time

My Intro
Few quotes are given below. I came across these in the book that I finished reading over the long weekend.

Quote
One thing I have learned in a long life; that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have – Einstein

Theories based on experience are essentially statistical; in that they formulate an ‘ideal average’ which abolishes all exceptions on either ends of the scale and replaces them by reality. Ultimately truth is the goal of science and this cannot be reached by our limited conscious experience – Carl Jung

What sleep is for the individual, death is for the ‘will’…Through the sleep of death it reappears fitted out with another intellect as a new thing..- Arthur Schopenhauer

Love your neighbor as yourself; Love one another as I have loved you; Love one another as I love the Father and Father loves me – Jesus

When there’s somebody fighting for a place to stand, for a decent job or a helping hand, where there’s somebody struggling to be free, look in their eyes Ma and you’ll see me – Bruce Springsteen

Would you agree with me that the problem of God is a problem of great importance – asked Father Copleston and Bertrand Russell replied “Roughly speaking, yes”

Lord, you need me as much as I need you. If you did not exist, whom would I pray to? If I did not exist, who would do the praying? – Jewish mystic Baal Shem

As long as you are suffering, whoever you are and whatever your suffering may be, I suffer also – Unknown

A man should be so poor that he is not and has not a place for God to act in – Eckhart

Take thyself off the battlefield today, you are exhausted, go refresh yourself and come back and fight tomorrow – Rama to Ravana in Kamba Ramayanam

I came along and I go as a stranger. I do not know who I’m nor what I have been doing. I have not been the protector and guardian of the empire. Life, so valuable, has been squandered in vain. I fear for my salvation, I fear my punishment. I believe in God’s bounty and mercy, but I’m afraid because of what I have done. Every torment I have inflicted, every sin I have committed, every wrong I have done, I carry the consequences with me – Aurangazeb in his letters to sons Azam and Kam Baksh

The inevitability of misery; the origin of misery in the craving for pleasure; the elimination of craving; and finally, the achievement of such elimination through the practice of the eightfold path – right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right Endeavour, right mindfulness and right concentration – Buddhism

Perceive rather than merely see, listen rather than merely hear, meditate rather than merely think – Yajnavalkya in Brihadaranyanka Upanishad

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; the water has no mind to receive the image – a Zen Master

Have faith my son, have faith. Never confuse yourself in this, you are knowledge itself, you are lord, you are self, much beyond, nature – Ashtakvakra Samhita

He who is strong in concentration, weak in energy, is overcome by idleness, since concentration partakes of the nature of idleness. He who is opposite is overcome by distractions. Therefore, they should be made in balance to one another; from balance comes contemplation and ecstasy – Buddhaghosha

Some Interesting Age Quotes

I hope I never get so old I get religious.
~ Ingmar Bergman ~

I think when the full horror of being fifty hits you, you should stay home and have a good cry.
~ Alan Bleasdale ~

A woman's always younger than a man at equal years.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning ~

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.
~ Hervey Allen ~

I refuse to admit that I am more than 52, even if that makes my children illegitimate.
~ Lady Nancy Astor ~

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
~ Bernard M. Baruch ~

It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem --and in my esteem age is not estimable.
~ Lord Byron ~

I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.
~ Wendy Cope ~