Here at the frontier, the leaves fall like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are still two cups at my table.


Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~


Friday, October 07, 2011

Mastery

Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past):

We do not receive wisdom,
we must discover it for ourselves,
after a journey through the wilderness
which no one else can make for us,
which no one can spare us,
for our wisdom is the point of view
from which we come at last to regard the world.
The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you,
have not been shaped by a paterfamilas or a schoolmaster,
they have sprung from very different beginnings,
having been influenced
by everything evil or commonplace
that prevailed round about them.
They represent a struggle and a victory.

1 comment:

walt said...

"We do not receive wisdom,
we must discover it for ourselves..."


Humbling, when it dawns on me that I am called to contribute wisdom too.


*Killer* new header, btw!