#ton

One evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. They had taken over the joint. He knew about nonduality of self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the sense that they were just a projection of his own mind—all the unwanted parts of himself—he didn’t know how to get rid of them. So first he taught them the dharma. He sat on this seat that was higher than they were and said things to them about how we are all one. He talked about compassion and shunyata and how poison is medicine. Nothing happened. The demons were still there. Then he lost his patience and got angry and ran at them. They just laughed at him. Finally, he gave up and just sat down on the floor, saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.” At that point, all of them left except one. Milarepa said, “Oh, this one is particularly vicious.” (We all know that one. Sometimes we have lots of them like that. Sometimes we feel that’s all we’ve got.) He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked over and put himself right into the mouth of the demon and said, “Just eat me up if you want to.” Then that demon left too. ↗

— Pema Chödrön

#compassion #meditation #tonglen #food

Bubba made a sound of disapproval "You're not supposed to be kissing on anybody else, Miss Sookie" he said "Bill said it was okay, but I don't like it. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#bubba #eric-northman #sookie-stackhouse #sookie-stackhouse

For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#sookie-stackhouse #true-blood #sookie-stackhouse

Of course I am grateful, and I'm sure you are, as you put it, a special vintage," Bill said politely, "But I have my own wine cellar. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#sookie-stackhouse

Sometimes the greatest wounds are the ones we try the hardest not to inflict. ↗

— Laurell K. Hamilton

#anita-blake

I passed a typing test and became a member of the staff of Rear Adm. Newton. ↗

— Jack Adams

#i #member #newton #passed #rear

I'm not exaggerating when I say that the 761st was Patton's best tank unit and nobody knew about it. ↗

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#best #exaggerating #i #knew #nobody

I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the The New York Times and The Washington Post that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most important case. ↗

— Floyd Abrams

#case #got #government #how #i

I chose the most explosive dress I could find. I put a ton of makeup on and some great round earrings. I looked like Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun. ↗

— Victoria Abril

#could #dress #duel #earrings #explosive

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin. ↗

— Henry Adams

#darwin #evidence #evolution #grant #president