God Beauty Perfection Love :: Synonyms
To a practitioner of Tendai (Buddhism), everything is wonderful. ~ Saiko
While we’re still fresh with images of butterflies… ‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’ ~ Trina Paulus Hope for the Flowers
The Vinegar tasters is among my favourite allegories and provides an excellent introduction to the three philosophies that dominated China through thousands of years: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. For me, the most important of these is Taoism, a gentle, soulful and luminous philosophy. I’m going to be lazy and let […]
I watched the film adaptation of Anne Michaels’ novel, Fugitive Pieces today. One of the most achingly beautiful love scenes I’ve ever seen is followed, closely, by Michaela picking up Jakob’s journal, holding it, looking at it, quizzically, curiously. she seems to be asking of it, “what else might you […]
It wasn’t very far into Ken Follet’s, The Pillars of the Earth before I understood what might be enthralling the people who’ve been telling me I should read it. “Because it will be beautiful,” Tom the Builder answered Prior Philip.
Following is some dialog from the film Contact, a film adaptation of Carl Sagan’s sci-fi novel of the same name. I had… an experience. I can’t prove it. I can’t even explain it. All I can tell you is that everything I know as a human being, everything I am […]
A passage from one of my favourite books… I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I […]
Here’s something for "Perfection ", Peter. It’s a superbly spiritual passage from Mark Helprin, a writer whose fiction I love, though whose politics I loathe. Life hands out challenges like that, doesn’t it? Beauty is found in the most unusual places. Had I known his politics before having read most […]