I've met an interesting person yesterday. When I asked about his activities, he said he takes people's anger and dissolves it in his chest. That's what being a "macho" is all about, he said. He said some other interesting things, but I had to go to the bathroom and the conversation terminated. To me he looked disturbed, as if living, day to day, was a constant battle within, like I also feel from time to time. I'm sorry to see people taking refugee on drugs and am ever sorrier when the person is talented. Let's have some courage to face it, to ask for help. How long do you have? Happy new year.





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You think back, things that happened in your life. Some you wish never ended, some you wish never happened. And it feels that now is just a brief something, quite unreal and uncertain, and the future seems big, sometimes bright, sometimes dark. Now is the only existing moment. No other day can be so real. And what are you? You are now, nothing else. You might think that you are now a consequence of yesterday and a preparation for tomorrow. But now, only now, you are free to be whatever you want. Maybe that is free will. Maybe that is what meditation is all about, to train your mind to be here and now, and with that, to gain freedom to the mind, to dissolve vicious connections. We are not our minds or our bodies but everything; we are the creators and receptors. Let’s make magic.




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I keep being called at my dreams, sometimes softly and close, sometimes a far away scream: ''MAYA!". I wake up sometimes answering "what?", sometimes just listening to my heart pound in my chest and listening to the deep silence of the night. What is that??





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Offerning Good

I wonder why us, humans, are so proud of our indignations. Why do we feel good about expressing how something makes us angry? Do we expect to change what we dislike in the world by spreading our anger? Can we change anything, profoundly, with this method?





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Quando estamos sozinhos, e paramos para escutar, sempre, sempre que abrimos espaço para Deus, alí Ele está, exatamente onde olharmos. É quando nos damos conta do que nos cerca. É quando a resistência se rompe entre nós e o mundo fora de nós. Se conseguimos sentir Deus, se conseguimos vê-Lo, aí então somos Deus e tudo é Deus.
De olhos fechados tudo é escuridão.




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plenitude

"A sede que temos de nos exteriorizar – a necessidade de satisfação por meio de uma ação exterior a nós e, portanto, contra o que a plenitude realmente implica – continua em nós. Todos a temos ; ela é a raiz de todas as nossas misérias. Porém ela nunca é satisfeita, a não ser que dê as costas a si mesma, volte-se para o interior – ao invés de para o exterior – e alcance a plenitude. Assim, o próprio cessar dessa ânsia por exteriorização é prova de que alcançamos a plenitude. Se a pessoa não alcançar a plenitude, essa ânsia nunca passa. Seu objetivo pode mudar, mas o fogo nunca é extinto, exceto por meio da proximidade do Sagrado que a plenitude implica. "

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The Brothers Karamazov

It's over, unfortunately. He could have written so much more I feel. It was as if he was tired, or maybe he would continue in a separate book but never had the chance for he died the year after Brothers Karamazov was finished. I really wish I knew what happened to Ivan...he filled me with even more questions but gave no answers. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was in prison in Siberia himself for several years, where he began to suffer from epilepsy. "His prison experiences coupled with his conversion to a conservative and profoundly religious philosophy formed the basis for his great novels." His brutal father was murdered by his serfs, strangled by vodka.




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“(...)But what's virtue then? You tell me, Alexei. We, for instance, may think that virtue is one thing while the Chinese may believe its something quite different. Isn't virtue something relative then? It's a pretty tricky question! I hope you won't laugh at me if I tell you that this question has prevented me from falling asleep for two nights in a row. You know, I'm surprised that some people can go trough life without even wondering about these things.(...)”
Fiodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov





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Samskaras

"A idéia de que podemos melhorar a nossa vida, em profundidade, sem mudar nossa maneira de ser, é uma fantasia, somente passível de ocorrer a quem desconheça o que são os samskáras e vásanas. Mudar significa, basicamente, atingir aquele patamar superior de compreensão a partir do qual podemos discernir (viveka) quais são os vásanas negativos que, a partir do subconsciente, governam nosso comportamento. Cabe-nos transformá-los, desenvolvendo, em nosso íntimo, qualidades, hábitos e comportamentos opostos àqueles."

Anger

It took me some courage to get back to Brothers Karamazov, for I have a copy in my computer only. Well, screen reading here I go. I’m almost half way trough and loving Dostoyevsky for every word, specially the discussions on religion. Makes me feel less lonely in all my questioning...so much questioning. It is clear that anger brings no solutions, on the contrary. However, knowing does not prevent me from feeling it. What do I do with it? Is there a wise way to use it? Right now I believe God is everywhere I look, but having a tremendous hard time accepting His entire world and feeling Him. Think, think, think! Dalai Lama says. But only by thinking we wont be able to understand. The practice seems the only way for now. I want to love man kind, I want to love my neighbors as Ivan Karamazov says in the book, but, as him, I find very, very hard to do so. No, this time the mind won't be up for the job. As for now I have the option of trusting without understanding, following the path, concentrating my mind and following the doctrine, or to be always angry or sad for everything I see, within and without, that breaks my heart so badly.
God help us.




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OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
Peter Dixon Woolley
Joyce Marjorie Evelyn Pereira da Fonseca

A cada minuto uma força que acaba e que nao existe. De onde tiramos essa força, a beleza, leveza…? Tem isso, de coisas que somem, e voltam, dependentes umas das outras…mas aonde é o começo? Some things have to be said the way they come and some thoughts sound as the words I have heard when I was born. I have questions. Muitas. Melhor sonhar um pouco, dormindo. Os sonhos de acordada me levam a lugares que provavelmente só existem aqui dentro, fazem com que me sinta sozinha e isso nao existe. Dreams, sweet ou sour, speak. I should just listen and be quiet.




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Dostoyevsky

"Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man."
Fiodor Dostoyevsky when he was 18 years old.






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"... E de novo acredito que nada do que é importante se perde verdadeiramente.
Apenas nos iludimos, julgando ser donos das coisas,
dos instantes e dos outros. Comigo caminham todos os mortos que amei, todos os amigos que se afastaram, todos os dias felizes que se apagaram. Não perdi nada, apenas a ilusão de que tudo podia ser meu para sempre."
Sousa Tavares