The last words of Buddha: "...strive on untiringly..."

"The Buddha saw death and life as inseparable. These are two sides of the same thing. Death is always with us. Death is part of a whole large unknown. And if we are unable to smile at the idea of the unknown we're in big trouble. That's the realism the Buddha was talking about, trying to come to terms with reality."

- W.S. Merwin, PBS Documentary - The Buddha

http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/

"What can I do myself to fix the problems I perceive?"

The above quote is from an article I read this morning entitled Why Is Independence So Frightening To Some People? by Brandon Smith. The nature of the piece is socio-political but I'm going to stray in a somewhat different direction.

When I read, "what can I do myself to fix the problems I perceive?" one of the first things to come to mind was: "I'd better carefully manage the number of perceived problems." Eckhart Tolle teaches about problems being a matter of perception. He acknowledges the existence of life situations to be handled. Do we ever run out of opportunities to exercise choices in what actions to take or not? I will embrace Smith's quote, carry it around in my mind and apply it today.


Here is a direct link to socio-political article that led to the above thoughts:

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2307-why-is-independence-so-frightening-to-some-people