#ect

The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there is another kind of union than the one we imagine. In this union, achieved when the egocentric model of dualistic thinking is no longer dominant, we are not united with it, nor am I united with you, but we all just are. The movement from object to subject, as described in both Eastern meditation and modern psychotherapy, is training for this union, but its perception usually comes as a surprise, even when this shift is well under way. It is a kind of grace. The emphasis on sexual relations in the tantric teachings make it clear that the ecstatic surprise of orgasm is the best approximation of this grace. ↗

— Mark Epstein

#desire #dualistic-thinking #grace #meditation #objectification

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. ↗

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

#life #life

We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing. ↗

— Seneca

#how #never #nothing #pleasant #reflect

Was my life going to go on like this forever, totally uneventful? Alternating between unfulfilled expectations and expected disappointments? ↗

— Eva Heller

#expectation #life #life

Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life. ↗

— Seneca

#am #choose #death #depart #go

With respect to the first of these obstacles, it has often been made a matter of grave complaint against Political Economists, that they confine their attention to Wealth, and disregard all consideration of Happiness or Virtue. ↗

— Nassau William Senior

#attention #been #complaint #confine #consideration

Fluorine has a protecting action against caries, but this is a local effect. If you drink it, you are running the risk of all kinds of toxic actions. ↗

— Arvid Carlsson

#actions #against #drink #effect #kinds

Well, in pharmacology, if the effect is local, it's of course absolutely awkward to use it in any other way than as a local treatment. ↗

— Arvid Carlsson

#any #awkward #course #effect #local

The real power of effective leadership is maximizing other people’s potential which inevitably demands also ensuring that they get the credit. When our ego won’t let us build another person up, when everything has to build us up, then the effectiveness of the organization reverts to depending instead on how good we are in the technical aspects of what we do. And we have stopped leading and inspiring others to great heights. ↗

— John Dickson

#ego #inspiring #leadership #potential #inspirational

What was I supposed to do then I wondered. Was there even a supposed-to for this kind of situation? A situation when when I looked at my receding past everything seemed retrospectively marked by an extreme order and predictability yet all moments since seemed to obey, and promised to continue obeying, their own set of stochastic, undisclosed, and undiscoverable laws. Where I was fully aware of the pitfalls and folly of a finely-tuned narcissism but still the known universe seemed to bend and bend inexorably inward and towards me where it awaited my next move, supremely ready to react accordingly. And how I knew that decisions I would soon make or defer would have near-Sophoclean import and yet nonetheless it all seemed oddly irrelevant. ↗

— Sergio De La Pava

#future #life #past #retrospective #uncertainly