#ritual

My choosing Islam was not a political statement; it was a spiritual statement. ↗

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#islam #political #political statement #spiritual #statement

Spiritual space is lost in gaining convenience. I saw the need to create a mixture of Japanese spiritual culture and modern western architecture. ↗

— Tadao Ando

#convenience #create #culture #gaining #i

Don't fret, boy. I'm not so foolish as to ridicule the myths and legends of other people. For countless generations, people, no matter where they're from, have been trying to understand this world of ours. ↗

— Nahoko Uehashi

#religion #respect #spirituality #tolerance #religion

Further, in the modern story, reality is that which is observable, measurable, and repeatable - the kinds of phenomena available, accessible, and verifiable to the five senses. Thus, reality comes to equal the scientific method. It should come as no surprise that in such a world the life of the spirit is ignored or marginalized (as well as a great many other nonmaterial things.) This view of life subsequently birthed in human beings a ravenous materialism as matters of the soul were ignored or reinterpreted within this tightly controlled version of reality. When the life of the spirit is ignored, people will seek to feed the hunger of a neglected soul with the only nourishment available: in our context, the consumptive acquisition of material goods. ↗

— Tim Keel

#materialism #modernity #science #spirituality #equality

No non-poetic account of reality can be complete. ↗

— John Myhill

#god-s-whisper-creation-s-thunder #john-d-barrow #john-myhill #metaphysics #mysticism

Lately I have come to believe that the principle difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep there.... ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#spiritual-wisdom #science

• “Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are.” --Dalai Lama http://amzn.to/dMBLWW ↗

— Sukhraj Dhillon

#religion

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse. ↗

— Carlos Castaneda

#challenge

I picture it like Judgement Day,' he says finally, his eyes on the water. 'We'll rise up out of our bodies and find each other again in spirit form. We'll meet in that new place, all of us together, and first it'll seem strange, and pretty soon it'll seem strange that you could ever lose someone, or get lost. ↗

— Jennifer Egan

#spirituality #the-future #internet

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#landscape #nature #seeing #spirituality #life