reality and the likes

Lao Tzu: The Original Dude from the dudeism website The original dude, the O.D. if you will, was surely Lao Tzu, the author of the Chinese classic the Tao Te Ching . Lao Tzu was so incredibly dudeish that no one is even sure if he existed or not. All that we know of him comes from a tale, possibly apocryphal, in which the great sage got fed up with Chinese civilization, and was asked to scribble down his accumulated wisdom before he split, never to be heard from again. Hardly a self-promoter, the ephemeral Lao Tzu never really engendered an iconography – virtually the only enduring image of him can be found in a painting called “The Vinegar Tasters.” And this picture says a thousand words – a sum not much greater than in the entire Tao Te Ching , in fact. In the painting, the three prime movers of Chinese religion are found sticking their fingers in a pot of vinegar and tasting it. The Buddha finds it bitter, that it represents the suffering of ...

The beautiful passage below was taken from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.