"The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell"
Konrad Banicki
@castalia1981.bsky.social
Philosophy • psychology • psychotherapy (gnōthi seauton) • psychiatry • silence • chess • literature • Tweets in EN/PL • Views expressed, if any, are not mine
"It is fitting that Zen should have begun with a flower and a smile. This episode, you may say, is too beautiful to be true. Yet it is too beautiful not to be true. The life of Zen does not depend upon historical truth... 👇👇👇
"Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it." - Simone Weil
For "something of a précis" of Maggie Ross' "Silence: A User’s Guide" see: postmodernquaker.wordpress.com/2020/12/01/s...
"And despair, now, is everywhere. Let us not think that our interior solitude consists in the acceptance of defeat. We cannot escape anything by consenting tacitly to be defeated. Despair is an abyss without bottom. Do not think to close it by consenting to it & trying to forget you have consented."
"There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us. When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve. It must therefore die."
"I beg to urge you everyone: life and death is a grave matter; all things pass quickly away. Each of you must be completely alert; never neglectful, never indulgent."
"social media, that little narcissism machine, the easiest way we have ever had to place ourselves on a pedestal of vanity, propagandise ourselves, is also the mechanism that most efficiently breaks you up" - Peter Pomerantsev
"'How we work out, faithfully, attentively, obediently, what we need to do and say...' [by Rowan Williams] - this is an instruction in learning discretion... 👇👇👇
"In every age, religious demagogues - and, in ours, atheistic ones as well - are quick to censure people and situations they not only do not understand but also refuse to understand. This deliberate closing of the mind is not only culpable; it exposes bitter, narrow hearts that lust for power."
"Silence is context and end, beholding the means. In the final analysis, this is all we need to know. This silence i not the absense of noise; it is the vast interior landscape that invites us to stillness. At its heart, in our heart, it is the Other... 👇👇👇
"I look towards silence. It is not, as I had heard, a peak with natural footholds and the crampons left by better climbers Contrary to what they say there is no map (they may be speaking of another place) there is only surrender." "Inside Out" by Pauline Matarasso
"Willingness is about opening yourself to what is. It is about becoming one with the universe, participating in it, doing what is needed in the moment. It is doing the dishes when needed, helping someone up who has fallen, letting go of battles you will never win... 👇👇👇
"Only silence is deep enough to hold everything" - Siter Florence Leone Poch, OSF (1929-2024) (as quoted by Marsha Linehan)
"silence is not the absence of noise; it is the vast interior landscape that invites us to stillness. At its heart, in our heart, it is the Other. Silence is not in itself religious, but to express the ineffable joys found in its depths is almost impossible without... 👇👇👇
"Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness ... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words" - Rainer Maria Rilke
"Let your mercy spill On all these burning hearts in hell If it be your will To make us well" www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Xc...
The Webb Sisters - If It Be Your Will (Official Live in London 2008)
YouTube video by LeonardCohenVEVO
youtube.com
Zen Buddhism on the Aristotelian phronesis: "In this ever-changing, dynamic reality in which we live our lives, circumstances are different from moment to moment. This, of course, determines whether, for example, non-stealing or non-lying is called for. And although... 👇👇
"I have Anselm to thank for a second piece of advice, too. It was more of a statement. I had contemplated becoming a nun, which is not so very surprising for a Catholic girl. Mother would have been ecstatic; she often urged me to go down that path. When I told Anselm this, he said... 👇👇👇
"Speak words of hope. Be human in this most inhuman of ages. Guard the image of man for it is the image of God." - Thomas Merton
The registration is still open for an Institute of Applied Psychology Interdisciplinary Series (IAPIS) talk by Lisa Osbeck. Please feel invited to register and participate! To register: forms.gle/pd6bKWFVcrxEn8KS8
"The doorway into the silent land is a wound. Silence lays bare this wound. We do not journey far along the spiritual path before we get some sense of the wound of the human condition, and this is precisely why not a few abandon a contemplative practice like meditation... 👇👇👇
Marsha Linehan's 'hold my beer' moment: "I should not have been surprised at my father’s response. Almost before I had finished describing my plan, to move and find a job to support myself, he said sharply, 'You won’t be able to get a job in Chicago.' 👇👇👇
"hunting for so-called ‘religious experiences’ is not only futile, it is a form of hubris" - Maggie Ross (Martha Reeves) Source: postmodernquaker.wordpress.com/2020/12/01/s...
"All the same, I hesitate to say this book is nonfiction. Indeed, I begin to wonder if we rightly label any book nonfiction, because perception and memory, the filters of dying and living, pain and joy, hurting and healing, all conspire to make liars out of those rash enough to write about their...👇
