Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Life is like the harp string, if it is strung too tight it won't play, if it is too loose it hangs, the tension that produces the beautiful sound lies in the middle.
Interpretation
Life requires balance; too much tension or too little leads to discord.
This quote by Gautama Buddha emphasizes the importance of balance in life. Just like a harp string must be taut enough to create sound yet loose enough to avoid breaking, our lives need a delicate equilibrium between stress and relaxation to thrive and produce harmony. Extreme states on either end can lead to dissatisfaction, whereas finding the middle ground fosters a fulfilling existence.
In practice
In a motivational speech about mental health, one might emphasize the need for balance with this quote.
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 suppose I have a really loose interpretation of 'work,' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep.
You don't spend twenty years of your life in the service and not have a warm, nostalgic feeling left in you. It's a small service, and there's a lot of esprit de corps.
The twenty minutes or more we spend inside the ring, that's the fun part. It's the rest of our lives that's the real battle - the ruthless backstage politics, the constant traveling, the endless mental and physical aches and pains.
Sometimes we just walk into something that is not for us at all. We pretend it is. We think we can shrug it off like a coat, but it's not a coat at all, it's more like another skin. [...] All I wanted was to make my life thrilling for a while: to take the oridinary objects of my days and make a different argument out of them, no obligations to my past.
This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep gratification from the mundane.
What's the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?
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