Monday, February 13, 2017

Probabilities


"In the beginning there
were only probabilities.
The universe could only
come into existence
if someone observed it.
It does not matter that the observers
turned up several billion years later.
The universe exists because
we are aware of it."

- Martin Rees (1942 - )

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Coexistence


"There is a constant and
intimate contact among the
things that coexist and co-evolve
in the universe;
 a sharing of bonds and
messages that makes reality
into a stupendous network
of interaction and communication."

- Ervin Laszlo (1932 - )

Friday, February 10, 2017

Rhymes


"There is no closed figure in nature
Every shape participates with another.
No one thing is independent of another,
and one thing rhymes with another,
and light gives them shape."

- Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 - 2004)

Tuesday, February 07, 2017

Art of Reflection


"In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time, Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men, practising debate with Govinda, practising with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe."

- Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)

Sunday, February 05, 2017

Simple Beauty


"The power of bonsai is in its ability to portray the utmost beauty of nature. This is the goal for all who grow bonsai... Bonsai is a living thing in the roots and even in the leaves. Every day that you are attending your bonsai, although the plant cannot speak to you, you'll sense that the plant is trying to tell you something. You'll one day know a plant is asking for water or fertilizer. When you come to that stage, you'll have developed a close bond. Bonsai responds to your love and becomes like honest friends with no human falsehood or betrayals... Bonsai are loyal if you water and fertilize regularly with loving care. Life is more meaningful when we attend these little plants. We learn the essence and dignity of life!"

- Saburo Kato (1915 - 2008)
"Bonsai No Kokoro"
(Spirit and Philosophy of Bonsai)

Friday, February 03, 2017

Feeling of Meaning


"Religion, mysticism and magic all spring from the same basic 'feeling' about the universe: a sudden feeling of meaning, which human beings sometimes 'pick up' accidentally, as your radio might pick up some unknown station. Poets feel that we are cut off from meaning by a thick, lead wall, and that sometimes for no reason we can understand the wall seems to vanish and we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite interestingness of things."

-  Colin Wilson (1931 - 2013)

Wednesday, February 01, 2017

Peculiarity


"If you observe something long enough, you’ll see something peculiar. If you can’t see something peculiar, if you stare long enough, then that in itself is peculiar. And then you try to explain the peculiarity... A lot of it is, I'm convinced, done by the subconscious... You look - it depends on what kind of thing you are dealing with - but you look at it until you see something that attracts your attention, your curiosity. Maybe it doesn't suggest anything at all. You go on to something else. The next day you come back and look at it again."

- Thomas Dyer, a Navy code breaker stationed
in Hawaii during WWII (The Pacific Crucible)