my strange relationship with time
I have a strange relationship with time. On one hand, I have time anxiety: the fear that time will pass too quickly and I’ll run out of time. On the other hand,…
tags /impermanence /
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insights from a forest monk
I like to read Buddhist books because it serves a radical narrative compared to the ones we’ve been served in mainstream society. It teaches us to understand the nature of our suffering,…
time to be while being anxious about time
I have severe time anxiety. Every day I am hyper aware of time passing by. It is already the end of March, and soon it would be mid year, and before we…
out of control
I don’t know about other people, but my relationship with life is as though I’m in an abusive relationship. I feel like I am always walking on eggshells, I am almost fearful…
2022: 自乐 (self-amusement)
I write one of these every year to pair with my year-end review. Part of me ponders again what is the point of setting intentions for the year when the marking of…
And yet it all seems limitless.
Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless. – Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
catalyst
The world is in a weird state now, where some of us are lucky enough to go on about life as though nothing is different, while others are facing unimaginable suffering. I…
looking back at 2020
I’m not entirely sure how accurate can a review post be, versus being a snapshot of how one feels at the very end of the year. Memories are always sort of fuzzy,…
the truth of insubstantiality
I’ve been noticing an uncomfortable energy in my body, like I am unable to be still, a sort of twitchiness. I am not sure if I have always been this way or…
embracing instead the very stuff of life that will destroy you
As Stephen Batchelor has written, “When the stubborn, frozen solidity of necessary selves and things is dissolved in the perspective of emptiness, a contingent world opens up that is fluid and ambiguous, fascinating and terrifying. Not only does this world unfold before us with awesome subtlety, complexity, and majesty, one day it will swallow us up in its tumultuous wake along with everything else we cherish. The infinitely poignant beauty of creation is inseparable from its diabolic destructiveness. How to live in such a turbulent world with wisdom, tolerance, empathy, care, and nonviolence is what saints and philosophers have struggled over the centuries to articulate. What is striking about the Buddhist approach is that rather than positing an immortal or transcendent self that is immune to the vicissitudes of the world, Buddha insisted that salvation lies in discarding such consoling fantasies and embracing instead the very stuff of life that will destroy you.”