The Magus by Eliphas Levi

They are without fears and without desires, dominated by no falsehood, sharing no error, loving without illusion, suffering without impatience, reposing in the quietude of eternal thought... a Magus cannot be ignorant, for magic implies superiority, mastership, majority, and majority signifies emancipation by knowledge. The Magus welcomes pleasure, accepts wealth, deserves honour, but is never the slave of one of them; he knows how to be poor, to abstain, and to suffer; he endures oblivion wi...

 Zen Perception of Time

In its own way, each one of the arts which Zen has inspired gives vivid expression to the sudden or instantaneous quality of its view of the world. The momentariness of sumi paintings and haiku, and the total presence of mind required in cha-no-yu and kendo, bring out the real reason why Zen has always called itself the way of instantaneous awakening. It is not just that satori comes quickly and unexpectedly, all of a sudden, for mere speed has nothing to do with it. The reason is that Zen is...

 Symbols as Abstractions and Zen

Men feel themselves to be victims or puppets of their experience because they separate "themselves" from their minds, thinking that the nature of the mind-body is something involuntarily thrust upon "them." They think that they did not ask to be born, did not ask to be "given" a sensitive organism to be frustrated by alternating pleasure and pain. But Zen asks us to find out "who" it is that '1las" this mind, and "who" it was that did not ask to be born before father and mother conceived us. ...

 The Function of Negative Knowledge

...the function of negative knowledge is not unlike the uses of space-the empty page upon which words can be written, the empty jar into which liquid can be poured, the empty window through which light can be admitted, and the empty pipe through which water can Bow. Obviously the value of emptiness lies in the movements it permits or in the substance which it mediates and contains. But the emptiness must come first. This is why Indian philosophy concentrates on negation, on liberating the min...

 Whoever knows that nothing depends on anything has found ...

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist. Mortals keep creating the mind, claiming it exists. And arhats keep negating the mind, claiming it doesn't exist. But bodhisattvas and buddhas neither create nor negate the mind. This is what's meant by the mind that neither exists nor doesn't exist. The mind that neither exists nor doesn't exist is called the Middle Way. If you use your mind to study reality, you wo...

 The Mind is the Way

Someone who seeks the Way doesn't look beyond himself. He knows that the mind is the Way. But when he finds the mind, he finds nothing. And when he finds the Way, he finds nothing. If you think you can use the mind to find the Way, you're deluded. When you're deluded, buddhahood exists. When you're aware, it doesn't exist. This is because awareness is buddhahood. If you're looking for the Way, the Way won't appear until your body disappears. It's like stripping bark from a tree. This karmic ...

 Leisure is an End That Can Only Be Enjoyed Without Burdens

But even when the work ethic reigns supreme, leisure holds a potent moral valence. Although we may not have much say over how we make money, we do have a choice about what we do in our free time. If work represents is, leisure represents ought: How we choose to use it will either embody our understanding of the good life or reveal the depth of our degradation. What is time well spent? Philosophers and social critics have long pondered variations of that question and offered rather consistent ...

 The Culture that Create Abundance has Difficulty Enjoying It

All were expressing a leisure ethic: a worldview in which a preference for free time and intrinsically motivated pursuits is accompanied by an understanding of how time can best be spent. To most people today, the notion of a leisure ethic will sound foreign, paradoxical, and indeed subversive, even though leisure is still commonly associated with the good life. More than any other society in the past, ours certainly has the technology and the wealth to furnish more people with greater freedo...

 Your Productive Life is Only as Long as You Retain Your M...

We ught to consider not only that our life is daily wasting away and a smaller part of it is left, but another thing also must be taken into the account, that if a man should live longer, it is quite uncertain whether the understanding will still continue sufficient for the comprehension of things, and retain the power of contemplation which strives to acquire the knowledge of the divine and the human. For if he shall begin to fall into dotage, perspiration and nutrition and imagination and a...

 Internet as a "Playground for Losers"

Realize that the internet and social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit is mostly bullshit. These apps are used daily by losers. Even if a successful person posts on Twitter or Instagram, that’s only 5% of their life, the rest of their time spend with firends, on gym or reading productive book. If people are truly getting things done, they’re busy and don’t have time to waste online. The internet is actually place for losers. If you can't stop doom scrolling you are addicte...