Q: Where did you get the confidence from [to make “Citizen Kane”]?
Orson Wells: Ignorance! Ignorance! Sheer ignorance, you know. There’s no confidence to equal it. It’s only when you know something about a profession that you’re timid or careful.
Category: Quote
On Grief
One of my students lost a beloved pet two nights ago. She wrote me that she is taking refuge [in the Dharma], but she still misses her companion. She understands impermanence and yet remains effected by loss.
I’ve always thought Buddhist priest Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) expressed this apparent disconnect best. He wrote this haiku on the occasion of the death of his daughter:
This world of dew
is a world of dew.
And yet…
Neil deGrasse Tyson on how death helps us live more fully:
“We fear death because we are born knowing only life…
“It is the knowledge that I am going to die that creates the focus that I bring to being alive. The urgency of accomplishment. The need to express love now, not later. If we lived forever, why ever even get out of bed in the morning? Because you always have tomorrow. That’s not the kind of life I want to lead.”
Death Is Part of Life
“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the moment.”
– Unknown (attributed incorrectly to Lao Tzu, but still a brilliant idea)
Fake Lao Tzu Quote
“To me, spirituality means “no matter what.” One stays on the path, one commits to love, one does one’s work; one follows one’s dream…no matter what.”
—Yehuda Berg
No Matter What
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
—Albert Einstein
Miracles
Spiritual Wealth
“I focus on spiritual wealth now, and I’m busier, more enthusiastic, and more joyful than I have ever been.”
—John Templeton
What does “spiritual wealth” mean? For me, it’s simply time to practice the Dharma by bringing it into my awareness throughout my days. It’s how I keep my mind, moment to moment. It’s remembering to be my best in any circumstance. It’s listening to my Buddha-Nature.
That’s wealth, indeed. And you have it, too.
Dukkha
“People know they are lacking something, they are constantly wanting some kind of spiritual guidance.”
—Douglas Hurd
When the Buddha said that life is dukkha – “unsatisfactoriness” – perhaps this is what he meant: that vague feeling that there’s something fundamental missing from our lives. For those of us who perceive that void, a spiritual practice is the most “satisfying” way to fill it.
“It’s a basic fact about being human that sometimes the self seems to just melt away.”
—Jonathan Haidt
Non-Self
“The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science.”
—Albert Einstein
Living in the Dash 