The photos are ©copyrighted.They may not be used or reproduced in any way without my permission. If you'd like to use one of my images for any reason, please contact me.

 

If you want to express your thoughts and opinions about my photos it's enough to leave comment and fave them (if you like them you will fave them :)) I would appreciate that the most, since I'm not really into all those invitations, competitions, awards etc.

I, personally will praise your work in the same manner.

  

Jerry

   

You Were a Peacock

  

 

You carry yourself with beauty, dignity, and confidence.

You are able to see the past, present, and future with clarity.

 

What Animal Were You In a Past Life?

 

No way!!! :)

      

Man is not alone in the universe, any more than the individual is

alone in the group, or any one society alone among other societies.

Even if the rainbow of human cultures should go down for ever into

the abyss which we are so insanely creating, there will still remain open

to us provided we are alive and the world is in existence a precarious

arch that points towards the inaccessible. The road which it indicates

to us is one that leads directly away from our present serfdom: and

even if we cannot set off along it, merely to contemplate it will procure

us the only grace that we know how to deserve. The grace to call a

halt, that is to say: to check the impulse which prompts Man always to

block up, one after another, such fissures as may be open in the blank

wall of necessity and to round off his achievement by slamming shut

the doors of his own prison. This is the grace for which every society

longs, irrespective of its beliefs, its political regime, its level of

civilization. It stands, in every case, for leisure, and recreation, and

freedom, and peace of body and mind. On this opportunity, this chance

of for once detaching oneself from the implacable process, life itself

depends. Farewell to savages, then, farewell to journeying! And

instead, during the brief intervals in which humanity can bear to

interrupt its hive-like labours, let us grasp the essence of what our

species has been and still is, beyond thought and beneath society: an

essence that may be vouchsafed to us in a mineral more beautiful than

any work of Man; in the scent, more subtly evolved than our books,

that lingers in the heart of a lily; or in the wink of an eye, heavy with

patience, serenity, and mutual forgiveness, that sometimes, through an

involuntary understanding, one can exchange with a cat.

 

Claude Levi-Strauss

  

Trading Dialogue For Lodging

 

Provided he makes and wins an argument about Buddhism with those who live there, any wandering monk can remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, he has to move on.

 

In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother monks were dwelling together. The elder one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.

 

A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, properly challenging them to a debate about the sublime teaching. The elder brother, tired that day from much studying, told the younger one to take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in silence," he cautioned.

 

So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.

 

Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."

 

"Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.

 

"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come from one realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.

 

"Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.

 

"I understand you won the debate."

 

"Won nothing. I'm going to beat him up."

 

"Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.

 

"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, suggesting that between us we only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"

 

How often were you misunderstood?

www.101zenstories.com/