Raph > Raph's Quotes

“the mind poet stays in the house / the house is empty and it has no walls / the poem is seen from all sides / everywhere / at once.”
― Gary Snyder, Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places

“And our conservationist-environmentalist-moral outrage is often (in its frustration) aimed at the logger or the rancher, when the real power is in the hands of people who make unimaginably larger sums of money, people impeccably groomed, excellently educated at the best universities - male and female alike - eating fine foods and reading classy literature, while orchestrating the investment and legislation that ruin the world.”
― Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild: With a New Preface by the Author

“Deer love mushrooms.”
― Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild: With a New Preface by the Author

“All too many people in power in the governments and universities of the world seem to carry a prejudice against the natural world -and also against the past, against history. It seems Americans would live by a Chamber-of-Commerce Creationism that declares itself satisfied with a divinely presented Shopping Mall. The integrity and character of our own ancestors is dismissed with "I couldn't live like that" by people who barely know how to live at all. An ancient forest is seen as a kind of overripe garbage, not unlike the embarrassing elderly.”
― Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild: With a New Preface by the Author

“White clouds gather and billow. Thin grass does for a mattress, The blue sky makes a good quilt. Happy with a stone underhead Let heaven and earth go about their changes.”
― Gary Snyder, Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems

“Spring-water in the green creek is clear Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white Silent knowledge—the spirit is enlightened of itself Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.”
― Gary Snyder, Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems

“We have to believe that by engaging in dialogue with the other person, we have the possibility of making a change within ourselves, that we can become deeper.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

“In a true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

“that we may see ourselves more accurately on this continent of watersheds and life-communities—plant zones, physiographic provinces, culture areas; following natural boundaries. The “U.S.A.” and its states and counties are arbitrary and inaccurate impositions on what is really here.”
― Gary Snyder, Turtle Island

“There may be a time when a country will have to wake up from a vision of happiness, when they have to realize that theirs is not the perfect idea, that there are many aspects that do not correspond to the reality of what is there, the real need and aspirations of the people. A country might want the people to become heroes, but maybe they don’t want to be heroes. The moment they release that notion of happiness, the country will again have another chance. But if people do not learn from the suffering of the past, they will repeat exactly the same mistake and adopt another notion of happiness. And we don’t know how long they will keep this new notion of happiness. So a notion is always something dangerous.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers

“There are many people who in the name of faith or love persecute countless people around them. If I believe that my notion about God, about happiness, about nirvana is perfect, I want very much to impose that notion on you. I will say that if you don’t believe as I do, you will not be happy. I will do everything I can to impose my notions on you, and therefore I will destroy you. I will make you unhappy for the whole of your life. We will destroy each other in the name of faith, in the name of love, just because of the fact that the objects of our faith and of our love are not true insight, are not direct experience of suffering and of happiness; they are just notions and ideas.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers

“Life is so precious, too precious to lose just because of these notions and concepts. Very often we feed ourselves only with words and notions and concepts. Please reflect. Not only do we feed ourselves with words and concepts for one, two, or three days, but we do it all our lives. Concepts like “nirvana,” “Buddha,” “Pure Land,” “Kingdom of God,” and “Jesus” are just concepts; we have to be very careful. We should not start a war and destroy people because of our concepts.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers