Wisdom gleaned from a kitten

If you are not comfortable enough with a person to sleep on them, question your need for them.

Focus on nothing; be aware of everything.

Never deny a nap.

If it looks impossible, try it anyways. You may succeed.

There is always something new to try.

Love just is.

If you are cold, seek heat.

Question's unasked shouldn't be.

There is no definitive bedtime. Tired, sleep.

Personality melts the iciest of hearts.

No matter how large the opponent, a well-placed strike will win the day.

Dogs are smelly...

Kind v. Love

So a friend of mine posed a question that was a variant of "love thy neighbor" which was "be kind to thy neighbor". The reasoning behind this being it is easier to be kind to those who are different from ourselves as opposed to actually loving others. Naturally I began to question the differences between being kind and loving.

Love is not ambiguous. Either one loves someone/a thing or nothing. There is no real grey line. Sure there are degrees of love, such as familial or romantic, but it is still love. In general I would doubt that there would be a large division of the definition of love across ethnic lines.

As far as kind goes though, it is hyper-variant. One can be kind to a neighbor by tossing their newspaper onto the porch, but what type of kindness is this? Would it not require a definition of the exact feelings one has about the neighbor? Is this neighbor an elderly person who has trouble walking or is it one who will engage any person in conversation to express their displeasure with the delivery of said paper?

Examine the cliche of "killing them with kindness". There is no equivalent in regards to love. One can fake kindness rather easily while faking love requires quite a bit of engagement as the latter evolves over time. One can be "kind" to a stranger and move on. It requires in the moment engagement and that is all.

Returning to the friend's argument, yes it is much easier to "be kind to thy neighbor" as it does not involve any real emotional engagement. But, the question then lingers: would the world be a better place?

Understanding the empty room

The Spacious Mind

By Ajahn Sumedo, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. V, #1

The spacious mind has room for everything. It is like the space in a room, which is never harmed by what goes in and out of it. In fact, we say "the space in this room," but actually, the room is in the space, the whole building is in the space. When the building has gone, the space will still be there. The space surrounds the building, and right now we are containing space in a room. With this view we can develop a new perspective. We can see that there are walls creating the shape of the room and there is the space. Looking at it one way, the walls limit the space in the room. But looking at it another way, we see that space is limitless.


From the Tao, it is not the room that is important, but the space within. From Heidegger, the space exists whether the room does or not.

But I feel that what we fail to realize is that it is the space, the empty area that defines the room, that we never truly understand. The area we live in is filled with our stuff, stuff that we feel defines us, but the space between all of that is what truly does. It feels all that we do, and absorbs our energies, recording what we were at that moment in time.

And that is what we fail to see, that all that we do is seen somewhere, usually by the space around us, and is recorded. While we all wish to be good and do the right thing, in reality we all have our own dark moments. The space around us records it.

No, we should not avoid the darkness. It is part of our own human nature and vital to our survival. It makes us who we are, and if we can embrace it as natural, then we will be whole.