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The universe stares back at us with its stark glare and reminds us how deeply strange and unclear our life really is, even the most simple and normal things. The great cosmologist Carl Sagan said, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height.” This feeling of awe is immensely liberating and provoking. It reminds us that we stand at the crossroads of the infinite and the finite, everything and nothing, knowledge and
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“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough,” said renowned theoretical physicist Richard Feynman.
We should look to the universe often, not solely for answers but for perspective; for a helpful adjustment and an aerial consideration of our daily life. With this practice, the little things in life become more striking, the mistakes and the annoyances become less significant, the calm comes more easily, and the everyday activities of our lives that we so often view as wasteful and tedious reveal themselves to be wonderfully strange and curious parts of our existence that we should make effort to ponder and appreciate as often as we can.
How can it have a point by not having one? How can it mean anything by not meaning anything? How can one argue for and against it at the same time? This paradoxical and brain-breaking riddle is known as a kōan. A kōan is a riddle or dialectic meditation device used in Zen Buddhist practice that is intentionally designed to, at least on the surface, be unclear and obscure. Its point is not to provide a conclusion or answer to the question presented, but rather, to disregard the relevance of the answer—to detach itself from the functions of conclusion and singular resolution. There are over a
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