Michael Perkins

The aim of life is to live,
and to live means to be aware,
joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
--Henry Miller







See Also:
Let Us Read and Let Us Dance
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened ...

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
-- Voltaire








See Also:
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened ...

Related:
Ikkyu: A single night of love ...
The Buddha: Do not believe ...
Chuang-tzu: The Master soars past sun and moon ...
The Mind's Worst Disease
Laugh at the Sky
Jane Hirschfield: The Adamantine Perfection of Desire

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
--Bertrand Russell











Related:
Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell was a giant among 20th century intellectuals. He is remembered primarily as a philosopher and mathematician.  He was one of the founders of analytic philosophy, and with Alfred North Whitehead, he co-authored Principia Mathematica, one of the 20th century's most important works on the foundations of logic and mathematics.

Lord Russell was also a pacifist and political activist.  He was inprisoned and later dismissed from Trinity College for his pacifist activities during World War I. Later in life, he was a tireless advocate of nuclear disarmament and a strong opponent of the Vietnam war.

Russell was an outspoken social critic who often found himself at odds with the establishment. In 1940, his appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York was annulled by the New York Supreme Court on the grounds that he was morally unfit for the post. In defense of this claim, the court cited, among other things, his liberal views on premarital sex.

A prolific writer on a wide range of topics, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.

Above all, Russell was a tireless champion of reason in all areas of human affairs.

In the following brief excerpt from a 1959 BBC interview, Russell expresses two ideas he would like to pass down to future generations.

If you want truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between for and against is the mind's worst disease.

-- Seng-ts'an

The Master soars past the sun and moon,
tucks the universe under her arm,
and is one with the ten thousand things.
She lets the confused stay confused
if that is what they want
and is always available
to those with a passion for the truth.
In the welter of opinions,
she is content with not-knowing.
She makes distinctions
but doesn't take them seriously.
She sees the world constantly breaking
apart, and stays centered in the whole.
She sees the world endlessly changing
and never wants it to be
different from what it is.

-- Chuang-tzu

Rinzai's disciples never got the Zen message,
But I, the Blind Donkey, know the truth:
Love play can make you immortal.
The autumn breeze of a single night of love is
better than a hundred thousand years
of sterile sitting meditation ...

 - Ikkyu

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

-- The Buddha