The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

Some tasks are impossible, even if you are a Buddha. Even if you have eleven heads and a thousand arms.”

Disaster can strike at any moment, but we forget this, distracted by the bright, shiny comforts of our everyday lives. Wrapped in a false sense of security, we fall asleep, and in this dream, our life passes.

what is real? impermanance

Already broken. Knowing this, we can appreciate each thing as it is, and love each other as we are—completely, unconditionally, without expectation or disappointment. Life is even more beautiful this way, don’t you think?

Every person is trapped in their own particular bubble of delusion, and it’s every person’s task in life to break free. Books can help. We can make the past into the present, take you back in time and help you remember. We can show you things, shift your realities and widen your world, but the work of waking up is up to you.

This was the problem of getting rid of things. You never know when you might need them.

Why was it that women could never work hard enough to quiet their nagging fear that they were not enough? That they were falling behind? That they could and should be better?

Your life is not a self-improvement project! You are perfect, just as you are!

Problem of self help books

books are under no obligation to make people happy. That some books bring sorrow or confusion, and that is okay, too.”

When everything you think you own—your belongings, your life—can be swept away in an instant, you must ask yourself, What is real?

All books were not created equal, she thought. There were many that should be weeded, particularly in the self-help genre,

A person’s clutter wasn’t the result of laziness, procrastination, psychological disorders, or character flaws. It was a socioeconomic and even philosophical problem, one of Marxian alienation and commodity fetishism, which required nothing less than a spiritual revolution in a person’s world view, and a radical reevaluation of what was real and important.

Thus, one book, when read by different readers, becomes different books, becomes an ever-changing array of books that flows through human consciousness like a wave. Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. According to the capabilities of the reader, books have their own destinies.

your left hand gets a painful splinter, what does your right hand do? Does your right hand say, “Oh, that’s too bad, but it’s not my problem”? No, of course not. The right hand pulls the splinter out. This is interconnectedness.

“It is ze problem with possessions,” the Bottleman said. “Eventually they possess you. . . .”

help. Blame is just another way of refusing to take responsibility for your life,

Ze truth about stories is that is all we are.’ A famous Cherokee writer named Thomas King once said this. We are ze stories we tell ourselves, Benny-boy. We meck ourselves up. We meck each other up, too.”