Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Buddha teaching











Do not go by revelation; 
Do not go by tradition; 
Do not go by hearsay; 
Do not go on the authority of sacred texts; 
Do not go on the grounds of pure logic; 
Do not go by a view that seems rational; 
Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances; 
Do not go along with a considered view because you agree with it; 
Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent; 
Do not go along because the recluse is our teacher. 
—Siddartha Gautama c.563-c.460

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Almodóvar Viva Pedro

9 films in a box set: 
—Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown 
—All About My Mother 
—Talk to Her 
—The Flower of my Secret 
—Live Fresh 
—Law of Desire 
—Matador 
—Bad Education 
Add one more to make it 10 —
Volver 
Money well spent.










The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death. Almodovar add 5 more to life: secret, transsexual, betrayal, incest, murder.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Thank-You Notes















I own so much
to those I don't love.
The relief as I agree
that someone else needs them more.

The happiness that I'm not
the wolf to their sheep.
The peace I feel with them,
the freedom -
love can neither give
nor take that.

I don't wait for them,
as in window-to-door-and-back.
Almost as patient
as a sundial.
I understand
what love can't.
— Wislawa Szymborska, 1923 – 2012

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Under a Certain Little Star — Wislawa Szymborska

















My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity in case I'm mistaken.
Don't be angry, happiness, that I take you for my own.
May the dead forgive me that their memory's but a flicker.
My apologies to time for the quantity of world overlooked per second.
My apologies to an old love for treating a new one as the first.
Forgive me, far-off wars, for carrying my flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss.
My apologies to those in train stations for sleeping soundly at five in the morning.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing sometimes.
Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing in with a spoonful of water.
And you, O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage,
staring, motionless, always at the same spot,
absolve me even if you happen to be stuffed.
My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs.
My apologies to large questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much attention.
Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me.
Bear with me, O mystery of being, for pulling threads from your veil.
Soul, don't blame me that I've got you so seldom.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere.
My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me,
since I am my own obstacle.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and then labor to make them light.

Wislawa Szymborska July 2, 1923 — February 1, 2012