Commonplace Entries: Philosophy

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.

You can’t help but do philosophy. You can only do it well or do it badly.

A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but it is enough.

Picture a wave, in the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it’s there. And you can see it, you know what it is. It’s a wave.

And then it crashes in the shore, and it’s gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while.

You know it’s one conception of death for Buddhists: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it’s supposed to be.

Things which do not grow and change are dead things.

Despite knowing the journey and where it leads, I embrace it and welcome every moment.