It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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{Photography by Luisvilla}

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

“I am going to pose a question,” King Milinda said to Venerable Nagasena. “Can you answer?”

Nagasena said: “Please ask your question.”
The King said: “I have already asked.”
Nagasena said: “I have already answered.”
The King said: “What did you answer?”
Nagasena said: “What did you ask?”
The King said: “I asked nothing”
Nagasena said: “I answered nothing”

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{Photography by Natalie Maynor}

Buddhism: Look within, you are the Buddha
Christianity: The kingdom of heaven is within you
Confucianism: Heaven, earth and human are of one body
Yoga: God dwells within you as you
Upanishads: By understanding the self, all this universe is known

(Photography by Tambako the Jaguar}

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.   

- William Ernest Henley

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{Photography by Idea Cream}

There was once a samurai who wanted to learn the difference between heaven and hell. He sought until he found a master from whom he thought he could learn. He stood before the Master and asked him what was the difference between heaven and hell. The Master took the samurai’s sword and, turning it to the flat of the blade, struck the samurai on the head. The samurai was surprised at this but chose to ignore it. He thought that the Master had failed to understand his question. He once again asked the Master about the difference between heaven and hell. Again the Master struck the samurai on the head. The samurai staggered back and puzzled over this. He approached with his question for a third time and, before he could utter a word, the Master struck him a third time. The samurai was now so enraged at this behaviour that he grabbed his sword from the Master, raised it over his head and was prepared to bring it down on the Master’s head when the Master raised one finger and the samurai paused.

“That is hell,” said the Master.

The samurai was instantly so overcome by the courage of this frail old man – to have risked his life for the sake of a stranger’s question – that he fell to his knees and bowed before the Master.

“That is heaven,” said the Master.

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{Photography by Zonabar}

Wikipedia: John Cage

“Buddhism does not have the answer to your question . . . You do. Only you do.

The answer and the question are one and the same thing. Zen is a process, not an answering machine.”

- John Daido Loori in The Heart of Being: Moral and Ethical Teachings of Zen Buddhism

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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{Photography by Col Adamson}