Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
Gautama BuddhaRead
All descriptions of reality are temporary hypotheses.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that our understanding of reality is not absolute but rather provisional and subject to change.
Gautama Buddha's quote suggests that our perceptions and interpretations of reality are not fixed truths but rather temporary theories or hypotheses that can evolve over time. This perspective encourages openness to new ideas and experiences, reminding us that what we consider to be true may change as we gain more knowledge and insight.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of reality.
Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit.
There are having flowers in Spring, breezes in Summer, moon in Autumn, snows in Winter. If there is nothing worrying over you, it will be the best seasons at all times.
Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.
When a wise man is advised of his errors, he will reflect on and improve his conduct. When his misconduct is pointed out, a foolish man will not only disregard the advice but rather repeat the same error.
The tongue like a sharp knife ... Kills without drawing blood.
I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.
I come from the so-called Third World (what is the Second)?
In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.
If alpha [the fine-structure constant] were bigger than it really is, we should not be able to distinguish matter from ether [the vacuum, nothingness], and our task to disentangle the natural laws would be hopelessly difficult. The fact however that alpha has just its value 1/137 is certainly no chance but itself a law of nature. It is clear that the explanation of this number must be the central problem of natural philosophy.
Bliss is a thing which is always there and is not something which comes and goes. That which comes and goes is a creation of the mind.
Holy is the dish and drain, the soap and sink, and the cup and plate and the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile, showerheads and good dry towelsand frying eggs sound like psalms, with bits of salt measured in my palm. It's all a part of a sacrament, as holy as a day is spent.
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