#zen

Every year thousands of dogs are abandoned to shelters because of behavior problems. And these are things that can be corrected with just basic training. Dogs are being killed because of lack of training, and that's what the Canine Good Citizen program is all about. (Mary Burch, AKC) ↗

— Martin Kihn

#canine-good-citizen #dogs #love

This revolutionary idea of Western citizenship—replete with ever more rights and responsibilities—would provide superb manpower for growing legions and a legal framework that would guarantee that the men who fought felt that they themselves in a formal and contractual sense had ratified the conditions of their own battle service. The ancient Western world would soon come to define itself by culture rather than by race, skin color, or language. That idea alone would eventually bring enormous advantages to its armies on the battlefield. (p. 122) ↗

— Victor Davis Hanson

#civilization #consent #contract-for-service #government #politics

There was no politics in Persia because the great king was the master of slaves, not rulers of citizens. The point is beautifully made by Herodotus, the father of history and our own starting point. The exiled Spartan king, Demaratus, had taken refuge at the court of the great king of Persia, Darius I, in 491 BCE. Darius made him the ruler of Pergamum and some other cities. In 480 Darius's son and successor, Xerxes, took him to see the enormous army he had assembled to avenge his father's humiliation by the Athenians in an earlier attempt to conquer Greece. 'Surely,' he said to Demaratus, "the Greeks will not fight against such odds.' He was displeased when Demaratus assured him that they certainly would. 'How is it possible that a thousand men-- or ten thousand, or fifty thousand should stand up to an army as big as mine, especially if they were not under a single master but all perfectly free to do as they pleased?' He could understand that they might feign courage if they were whipped into battle as his Persian troops would be, but it was absurd to suppose that they would fight against such odds. Not a bit of it, said Demaratus. THey would fight and die to preserve their freedom. He added, 'They are free--yes--but they are not wholly free; for they have a master, and that master is Law, which they fear much more than your subjects fear you. Whatever this master commands they do; and his command never varies: it is never to retreat in battle, however great the odds, but always to remain in formation and to conquer or die.' They were Citizens, not subjects, and free men, not slaves; they were disciplined but self-disciplined. Free men were not whipped into battle. ↗

— Alan Ryan

#this-is-sparta #beauty

A pity it is evening, yet I do love the water of this spring seeing how clear it is, how clean; rays of sunset gleam on it, lighting up its ripples, making it one with those who travel the roads; I turn and face the moon; sing it a song, then listen to the sound of the wind amongst the pines. ↗

— Li Po

#sword-sentiments #zen #love

To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging cannot be limited: even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going. Obey the nature of things (your own nature), and you will walk freely and undisturbed. ↗

— Sengcan

#zen #nature

What is Zen? Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, doing anything perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning of this perfectly? How does it differ from perfectly? Perfectly is in the will; perfectly is in the activity. Perfectly means that at each moment of the activity there is no egoism in it… our pain is not only our own pain; it is the pain of the universe. The joy of the universe is also our joy. Our failure and misjudgment is that of nature, which never hopes or despairs, but keeps on trying. R. H. Blyth ↗

— R.H. Blyth

#nature

The real ugliness lies in the relationship between people who produce the technology and the things they produce, which results in a similar relationship between the people who use the technology and the things they use. ↗

— Robert M. Pirsig

#relationship #technology #zen #relationship

A boddhisattva is someone who is on the way to becoming a buddha. All of us become boddhisattvas as soon as we start to take our Zen work seriously and the work we do contributes to creating a world in which all good actions become more efficacious. ↗

— David Brazier

#religion #zen #religion

I'd rather feel something for real than pretend it's not what it is. Which Zen guy said "If you want to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water"? ↗

— A.S. King

#great-story #teenage #young-adult #young-adult-fiction #zen

This accidental meeting of possibilities calls itself I. I ask: what am I doing here? And, at once, this I becomes unreal. ↗

— Dag Hammarskjöld

#self #zen #zen