There Is No Birth and There Is No Death - Quotations

This came across my Facebook and it was too good to let disappear over time. I am documenting it here as well as sharing it with you.

I love you and am grateful that you are in my life.

Michael

• • • • •

"There is no birth, there is no death. There is no coming, there is no going. We only think there is. When we know that birth and death are together always, we are no longer afraid of dying. What you call birth and death are only transformation." 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

"When someone we love dies, we get so busy mourning what died that we ignore what didn’t." 

~ Ram Dass

"Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there. I did not die." 

~ Mary Elizabeth Frye

“Death is nothing to be sad about, it is something to be celebrated with songs and dances. It is a moment of rejoicing. Death is only the death of the body. But you will go on living in the universal consciousness, forever and forever.” 

~ Osho

“A culture that denies death inevitably becomes shallow and superficial, concerned only with the external form of things. When death is denied, life loses its depth. Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die” – and find that there is no death. Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.” 

~ Eckhart Tolle

"The real does not die, the unreal never lived. In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not. And life is never so alive as after death.

In some cases, death is the best cure. Life may be worse than death, which is rarely an unpleasant experience, whatever the appearances. Therefore, pity the living, never the dead.

With death the idea 'I am this body' dies. The witness does not. People are afraid to die because they do not know who they are and what death is. 

The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description." 

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“The only reason why people have such a fear of death is they know nothing beyond the body.” 

~ Sadhguru

"This form is just a costume for a while. But the one behind the costume is eternal. If you know this, you don't worry about anything. When you discover yourself as awareness, the fear of death will not trouble you any longer."

~ Mooji

"If you are afraid of death, be afraid. And then comes the hitherto unbelievable surprise: you don't die because you were never born. You had just forgotten who you are." 

~ Alan Watts

“Death is only an experience through which you are meant to learn a great lesson: you cannot die. The reality of your life cannot die for you are indestructible consciousness.”

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

"There is no birth, there is no death. There is no coming, there is no going. We only think there is. When we know that birth and death are together always, we are no longer afraid of dying. What you call birth and death are only transformation.

When you lose a loved one, you suffer. But if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no-birth, no-death. 

Pay attention to the world around you, to the leaves and the flowers, to the birds and the rain. 

If you can look deeply, you will recognize your beloved manifesting again and again in many forms. 

You will release your fear and pain and again embrace the joy of life.

No coming, no going, no after, no before, I hold you close, I release you to be free; I am in you and you are in me." 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

Death belongs to life as birth does. The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down.

And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well.

Man is immortal; therefore he must die endlessly. For life is a creative idea; it can only find itself in changing forms.

In death the many become one; in life the one becomes many.” 

~ Rabindranath Tagore

"If thought turns its attention away from the objects which it seems to know, turns its attention back on itself, it ceases to be thought and is revealed as pure Consciousness. 

This open, empty, dimensionless, objectless Awareness that we essentially are, is not limited by any of the thoughts, feelings, sensations, or perceptions that appear within. 

It was present prior to the appearance of the body-mind, it is present during the appearance of the body-mind, and it remains present after the disappearance of the body-mind. 

That is not something we discover when we die. We can discover it at any moment. 

Nothing ever disappears. Only forms are constantly transformed."  

~ Rupert Spira

“Consciousness was pre-existent and will survive the body. The body dies, but the spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. 

When a pot is broken, the space within is not. When the body dies, the Self in it remains eternal. 

The dead are fortunate. It is only those who are left behind who feel miserable. 

Discover your undying Self and be immortal and happy.”

~ Ramana Maharshi

"Nobody dies. There is no such thing as death. There is only eternal life, and you are that. You are dreaming the mortal dream! 

If you're aware that you're dreaming, are you going to react to anything? Will you react to situations if you know that you're dreaming? Of course not. You'll laugh! 

You'll see a war going on and you'll get in the middle of the battlefield and you'll say, "What are you doing? This is all a dream! Throw your guns away. You're wasting your time! 

Nobody dies, nobody is killed, nobody is born. It's all a dream.” And they'll probably shoot you for saying that! 

Makes no difference if they shoot you! You're aware that you're dreaming, so you're the witness of you being shot, and you keep laughing. 

And then you wake up." 

~ Robert Adams 

Bardo

Here are a few quotes from a wonderful book I read a while ago but recently unearthed. They deal with the "Bardo" or in-between place, so often discussed in Buddhist teachings.

Bardo One:

The Tibetan Book of the Dead tells us that bardo means the in between place. Bar means in between, and do means island or mark; most often it is thought of as the place between death and rebirth. However it isn’t only the island between death and life but also all the little in between places, the bardos, of living; for in life, death happens all the time. One thing ends, another begins. It is the point in between that is the bardo. 

There are six major bardo states in Tibetan Buddhism: the Bardo of Birth, the Bardo of Dreams, the Bardo of Samadhi Meditation, the Bardo of the Moment Before Death, and Bardo of Dharmata, and the Bardo of Becoming.

At the end of one’s life a person experiences three bardo states: the Bardo of the Moment Before Death, the Bardo of Dharmata, and the Bardo of Becoming.

Tibetan Buddhists say there is a kind of uncertainty regarding one’s sanity or insanity—confusion or enlightenment—in the bardo state. There exist within the bardo, if one is prepared to enter it consciously, the potential for all sorts of visionary discoveries that occur on the way to sanity or insanity. There is definitely a quality of uncertainty, even paranoia in a bardo. It takes courage as well as one-pointed purpose of mind and heart to exist consciously in the bardo state. It takes all the strength one has.

Bardo 2:

... I couldn’t think of how to help you in any other way. In fact, the only way I knew how to “be there for you” was to not be there, to go away and let you thrash around in this alone...

I’ll walk through this with you or wait on the edge of it. But I want you always to know — even if you aren't feeling it— that I’ll be standing there with you when it’s over. 

I can’t always be with you in the shadow of your fears and angers, but I’m always right on the other side, waiting for you to emerge.”

Bardo 3:

O son of noble family, now what is called the Great Luminosity has arrived. You are not alone in leaving this world. It happens to everyone, so do not feel desire and yearning for this life. Even if you feel desire and yearning, you cannot stay. You can only wander in Samsara. Do not desire, do not yearn. O son of noble family, whatever terrifying projections appear in the Bardo of Dharmata, do not forget these words but go forward remembering their meaning; the essential point is to remember them and recognize everything as projections of your own mind. 

Enter now the Bardo of Dharmata and say this prayer as you tread this dangerous path: Now when the Bardo of Dharmata dawns upon me, I will abandon all thoughts of fear and terror, I will recognize whatever appears as my projection and know it to be a vision of the bardo; now that I have reached this crucial Point I will not fear the peaceful and wrathful ones, my own projections.

Bardo 4:

Is death bad? (Is there such a thing as good and bad?) ... It’s just what all human beings spend most of their life trying to overcome, avoid, or do away with. Don’t you see? We decided death is bad. Death is bad here on Earth, where all we can see and know is life. Ego likes life, hates death ... Its the value we give it on Earth, not it’s real value. It’s all the same Energy, channeled through different conduits. 

The way the Energy expresses itself is affected by the conduit’s complex parts. When the conduit is a human being, it’s the person’s personality or his shape, his consciousness or ...  lack of consciousness. 

But the Energy itself isn’t (good or) bad. The Energy itself—even in its most humanly undesirable form—is still the same energy. And later, after time goes by, humans often find the meaning of the ’good’ stuff that was an indirect result of what they at one time judged to be ’bad stuff.’ 

Bardo 5:

“I don’t like the way this sounds.”

“You might be surprised. Who would ever say anything good came out of AIDS? But here you are discovering things about yourself and It that you might never have discovered had you not become sick. That’s not to say you would choose to be sick, but since your are sick you‘ve chosen—that is, directed your individual form of the Energy—towards developing yourself in the most conscious way possible. No one would ever have wished you to be sick, but that doesn’t mean that something positive hasn’t developed as a result of it.”

Bardo 6:

EG sits up in bed. The room is dark. No light comes from the window. No one is there. He tries looking about the room, but it is useless. There simply is no light in the room. There has never been such darkness, such blackness, such a vacuum of lightlessness.

... This must be it, he thinks. This must be the moment. Of course, he thinks, the panic giving way to ironic humor. I would go now, when the room is dark and everyone is gone. Of course, he thinks, the very thing I have always dreaded most comes to pass: being alone at this moment. I must remember this all is a projection of my own mind. There is nothing wrong with being alone. This is fine. This is perfectly all right. It simply doesn't matter. I have to do this alone, anyway, no matter how many people are in the room.

...I will not be afraid. There is nothing to fear. Everyone is here somewhere . I don’t see them, but I believe that they are here somewhere.

Then EG (main character in the book)  hears a quiet laughter coming from he side of the bed. ... You are here after all!

It was just a little flash. Like a time blip into the future. You might think of it as a preview.

What does it mean?

Nothing. It means nothing. That happens sometimes when your getting close. You handled that very well, by the way. We’re all quite impressed.

Who is?

All of us. Just lie back and rest. It’s almost over. We’ll be right here.

So I’m not alone?

Oh, my child you’ve never been alone. If you only knew the crowds you move among day in and day out. You’ll see. You’ll see. ... You’re only alone when you think you are. It’s all illusion, my boy. It always has been.

I don’t understand.

Now don’t lose confidence here at the end. Will yourself to it. You’re doing fine. Rest, child. Rest. The most difficult part is ahead.

But you’ll be here, right? 

We‘ll be here, It’s up to you to remember that. Everything now is up to you.

"The course of true love never runs smoothly!" Final episode of Downton Abbey spoken by Maggie Smith as Violet Grantham, The Dowager Countess of Grantham

YING and YANG: A Quote

"What is the measure of one's YING and YANG when the balance wants to be stark simplicity vs overplayed complexity?" Horvich 2016

Hiding

Thanks to Sarah for sharing this with me:

"Hiding is a way of staying alive. Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Even hiding the truth from ourselves can be a way to come to what we need in our own necessary time. Hiding is one of the brilliant and virtuoso practices of almost every part of the natural world: the protective quiet of an icy northern landscape, the held bud of a future summer rose, the snow bound internal pulse of the hibernating bear.

Hiding is underestimated. We are hidden by life in our mother’s womb until we grow and ready ourselves for our first appearance in the lighted world; to appear too early in that world is to find ourselves with the immediate necessity for outside intensive care.
Hiding done properly is the internal faithful promise for a proper future emergence, as embryos, as children or even as emerging adults in retreat from the names that have caught us and imprisoned us, often in ways where we have been too easily seen and too easily named.

We live in a time of the dissected soul, the immediate disclosure; our thoughts, imaginings and longings exposed to the light too much, too early and too often, our best qualities squeezed too soon into a world already awash with too easily articulated ideas that oppress our sense of self and our sense of others. What is real is almost always to begin with, hidden, and does not want to be understood by the part of our mind that mistakenly thinks it knows what is happening. What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.

Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others, especially in the enclosing world of oppressive secret government and private entities, attempting to name us, to anticipate us, to leave us with no place to hide and grow in ways unmanaged by a creeping necessity for absolute naming, absolute tracking and absolute control. Hiding is a bid for independence, from others, from mistaken ideas we have about our selves, from an oppressive and mistaken wish to keep us completely safe, completely ministered to, and therefore completely managed.

Hiding is creative, necessary and beautifully subversive of outside interference and control. Hiding leaves life to itself, to become more of itself. Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future."

David Whyte

My Friend

Behold! The lovelier blue of heaven is gathered in my friend's eye, and from his unclouded brow beams highborn fidelity.

More brightly it is written there then in gold upon our door;

Where good men love one another, joy dwells ever and every more!

Friedrich Holderlin - Hymn to Serenity

(This quote was read to me when Gregory and I celebrated our Civil Union in Vermont many years ago.)

Some Advice and a Quote

Great advice from E. B. White to a student. From a book by Michael Sims, The Story of Charolotte's Web: E.B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of An American Classic. 2011. P4.

"Remember that writing is translation and the opus to be translated is yourself."

A great line from a poem by E.B. White, writer of Charlotte's Web in the same book, P168.

"In the poem he admitted that he saw himself as the spider, groping his way on a tenuous thread of his own creation, hoping eventually that ― by trusting the vary act of making the web ― he would wind his way home to where he started."

NEW: michael a horvich quotes

I have been collecting quotations "that speak to me" for some twenty years now. I have decided to start this blog to share and catalogue some of my favorites. Enjoy!

http://mhorvichquotes.blogspot.com

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe

Recently re-watched Lily Tomlin's one woman show written by her love Jane Wagner. We saw it live when it was performed in the late 80's. The film version was made early 1991. The show still holds up. Ms. Wagner and Ms. Tomlin take people from all walks of life and socio economic levels and honestly portrays them while bringing them up a peg. She never puts a person down, no matter how low, how crazy, how entitled.

• • • • •

Here are a few quotes that stayed with me:

 ...all we really know is how little we know about what it all means. Plus, there's the added questions of what it means to know something. Scientists say for every deep truth discovered, the opposite is also true  So when we get the feeling we're going around in circles – we are!

...maybe we should stop trying to figure out the meaning of life and sit back and enjoy the mystery of life. The operative word here is what? Mystery! Not meaning. 

...we stopped to look at the stars. And as usual, I felt in awe. And then I felt even deeper in awe at this capacity we have to be be in awe about something. Then I became even more awestruck at the thought that I was, in some small way, a part of that which I was in awe about.

A Few Quotes

Our friend Pat sent these quotes to me in an envelope with my address on it and a stamp for the U.S.P.S. There was also a small, flat gift inside a card and a few quotes. Nice to receive something in the mail now and then besides junk. (Notice I didn't' mention bills, most of my bills are paperless.) Thanks Pat!


"Thank you for being."
A Native American greeting.


"There are people who take the heart out of you. And there are people who put it back."
Elizabeth David

"Believe with all your heart that how you live your live makes a difference."
Colin Beavan

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person. Having neither to weight thoughts nor measure words, but poring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."
George Elliot

A Greeting

"Thank you for being."
A Native American greeting.

Writing

As Thomas Mann famously said: "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

Denyce Graves

Notes on attending an Opera Master Class with Denyce Graves at Northwestern University. The slant of her entire presentation was GOD oriented. Ms. Graves is a very talented as well as wise person.

"Listen to your heart and that which is not you will fall away." 

"Life is ... 'the innocent cause if your sorrow.' As spoken by The Commodore to Butterfly was a character defining statement in her portrayal of Butterfly."

"The challenges never stop. We continue to gather information for our souls."

"It is not always what you chose but what choses you."

"Everything is going to be OK in the end."

March 2009

Quotes

ALIVENESS

The source of continuing aliveness is to find your passion and to pursue it with whole heart and single mind.  

Modern Maturity Magazine. Gail Sheehy. July 1995.

CELEBRATION

To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know.

The Poisonwood Bible. Barbara Kingsolver. 2002. P.385.

COLLECTING

All collections are trying to elude time. To stop time. To control it. Closest thing to immortality —which is, of course, the irony of it. Because the collector is physical, which is to say temporal. The collector is a childlike figure, a prisoner of the eternal present.

Rephrased: The Secret of Lost Things. Sheridan Hay. P 112.

A Quote

This is a quote from my Chicago Children's Museum colleague and friend Louise Belmont Skinner. It is short and to the point but accurately describes how I go about living my life. 

As .... artists, collectors, designers ... we are always observing, interpreting, translating, making meaning.  

A Quote

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics, endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best of others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks to the Hnilicka/Cushing family for reminding me of this quote. R.I.P. George Hnilicka.

A Lion Among Men

Gregory Maguire has written a number of books retelling very familiar fairy tales and taking them in new, previously unimagined directions. All are well worth the read.

They include Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister which is based on Cinderella, Lost which is about current day relatives of Jack the Ripper and Ebenezer Scrooge, Mirror Mirror about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Wicked about the Wizard of Oz Witches.


The Wicked series includes: Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. Here is a quote from the later which resonated with me:

"Burr's recall of what had happened before seemed limited to apparent causes of what had happened next. The future reshapes the memory of the past in the way it re-calibrates significance: some episodes are advanced, others lose purchase." P. 56

Food for Thought

Selected quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche:


Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.


All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.


Faith: not wanting to know what is true.


He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. 


In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play. 


One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. 


The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. 


This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver. 


What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame. 


When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. 


Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth. 


You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. 

On Writing and Hope

Anyone who wants to can be surprised by the beauty or pain of the natural world, of the human mind and heart, and can try to capture just that - the details, the nuance, what is. If you start to look around, you will start to see. When what we see catches us off guard, and when we write it as realistically and openly as possible, it offers hope.

Taken from: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anne Lamott. 1995. P. 101.

Chicago and Time

There is a quote in a 1948 Chicago Travelogue: "Time goes you know. Ah no alas, we go, time stays." It is by Austin Dobson and was the motivation for the 1922 sculpture and fountain in Jackson Park, "The Passage of Time" by Loredo Taft. (See link to travelogue below.)


Even though I was only three years old at the time the film was made, watching it brings back many memories of what Chicago used to look like, of buildings and places that no longer exist, of a time that was slower and less complex, and of a world that to a child seemed much bigger.


Now as an adult, it seems that life and time moves much more quickly, is amazingly complex, and is not quite as large as it used to be. In looking back, my adult lessons in life, which came on the 10's are:


30: (In retrospect - Wasn't really aware of life lessons at this age.) Life is. The world is mine to conquer. I can be and do whatever I put my mind to. I will never die. I can't even fathom the idea of death.


40: Life is linear. Some choices have to be left behind and there is no going back to those intersections. Your entire life is still ahead of you. Use it well!


50:  Life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Most of your life is still ahead of you. Use it well!


60: In life, there is here and there is the here-after. So live for the here and try not to worry too much about the here-after. A lot of life is still ahead of you. Use it well!


70: ...


LINK:  1948 Chicago Travelogue    Macintosh Dictionary: Travelogue films, a form of virtual tourism or travel documentary, have been providing information and entertainment about distant parts of the world since the late 19th century.