#monk

I think any spiritual experience that's worthwhile is not about ego and it will humble you in some way. And also, a Zen monk once said to me, 'If you're not laughing, then you're not getting it.' ↗

— David O. Russell

#also #any #ego #experience #getting

I love going into the centre of London because people don't give a monkey's about you or who you are. You can be in a restaurant and no one notices you or if they do they won't show it. ↗

— Teddy Sheringham

#because #centre #give #going #i

He [Thelonious Monk] played each note as though astonished by the previous one, as though every touch of his fingers on the keyboard was correcting an error and this touch in turn became an error to be corrected and so the tune never quite ended up the way it was meant to. ↗

— Geoff Dyer

#beauty

Peaceful and kind one monk is more valuable than violent and rude ten thousand men! ↗

— Mehmet Murat ildan

#men

... without the incarnation, Christianity isn't even a very good story, and most sadly, it means nothing. "Be nice to one another" is not a message that can give my life meaning, assure me of love beyond brokenness, and break open the dark doors of death with the key of hope. The incarnation is an essential part of Jesus-shaped spirituality. ↗

— Michael Spencer

#internet-monk #jesus #spirituality #story #death

Being a monk was the strangest and most perverted way of life imaginable. Monks spent half their lives putting themselves through pain and discomfort that they could easily avoid, and the other half muttering meaningless mumbo jumbo in empty churches at all hours of the day and night. They deliberately shunned anything good—girls, sports, feasting and family life. ↗

— Ken Follett

#monks #religious-practices #family

I doubt she likes the idea of seeing him put back in a cage.” “Maybe not,” he said. “But she knows that the Authority are the only people who might be able to help him.” “Or kill him,” I said. “That too. What is life without risk?” “Long?” Terric laughed, a sort of high whooping that made me—and Zayvion, much to my surprise—smile. Contagious. For all he had a serious exterior, Terric was the guy you’d want to sit next to at a funny movie, just to hear him laugh. ↗

— Devon Monk

#devon-monk #terric #zay #funny

I’d been traveling in Asia long enough to know that monkeys there are nothing like their trombone-playing, tambourine-banging cousins I’d seen on TV as a kid. Free-living Asian primates possess a characteristic I found shocking and confusing the first time I saw it: self-respect. If you make the mistake of holding the gaze of a street monkey in India, Nepal, or Malaysia, you’ll find you’re facing a belligerently intelligent creature whose expression says, with a Robert DeNiro–like scowl, “What the hell are you looking at? You wanna piece of me?” Forget about putting one of these guys in a little red vest. ↗

— Christopher Ryan

#monkeys #primates #intelligence

Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life. ↗

— Santoka Taneda

#creating #haiku #japanese #poetry #zen

O cowardly amd tyrannous race of monks, persecutors of the bard, and the gleemen, haters of life and joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! O race that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with deceit! ("The Crucifixion Of The Outcast") ↗

— W.B. Yeats

#religion #life