Japan

EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING

Shoma Morita gave us a great antidote for the checking voice: Be clear about your purpose, accept your feelings and thoughts, and then just do what needs doing.

In the sense that you are concerned solely with the “I,” you are self-centered. You want to be thought well of by others, and that is why you worry about the way they look at you. That is not concern for others. It is nothing but attachment to self.

something’s gone wrong with the words in time—syllables linger, refusing to dissipate or fall into silence—so that now there’s a pileup of sounds, like cars colliding on a highway, turning meaning into cacophony, and before she knows it, she is adding to the din, wordlessly, soundlessly, with a cry that rises from her throat and goes on and on

Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgment from another person as “good.” And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person’s yardstick. If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person’s yardstick and put the brakes on one’s own freedom. “Thank you,” on the other

Suppose you are going on a journey to Egypt. Would you try to arrive at the Great Pyramid of Giza as efficiently and quickly as possible, and then head straight back home by the shortest route? One would not call that a “journey.” You should be on a journey the moment you step outside your home, and all the moments on the way to your destination