Super Short Story (180): Tragicomedy Of Life He realised that even good comedies run out of laughs after some time. Even good comedies alternate with tragedies for bittersweet realistic contrast. Even good comedies mimic life, except that they focus more on laughing at its...

From ‘Young Blood’, as covered by Birdy… Lyrics: We’re only young and naive still We require certain skills The mood it changes like the wind Hard to control when it begins Comments: Most of us are still spiritually naive, despite our age, still lacking much skilful...

Instead of dreading the unexpected curve balls of life thrown at him, he decided to anticipate them best he can, to use them for practising his mean swings. Come what may, he’s going to enjoy the training. Beats the usual pitches any...

Thoughts before jumping out of bed: Instead of just asking why we sleep, how about wondering why we wake up? Why make the effort to crawl out of bed? What makes it worth the trouble? Why wake up more and more, until we are fully awakened? Because we can’t sleep forever anyway, because...

Dukkha is suffering from Birth Ageing Sickness Death Departure from who/what we like, Being with who/what we dislike, Failing to achieve what we like or to be with who we like, Form, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness (Five Aggregates) subject to clinging Dukkha is from...

Gil tells Adriana in ‘Midnight in Paris’, when they travelled back in time to an era of Paris (Belle Epoque) more appealing to her, ‘Adriana, if you stay here, though, and this becomes your present, then pretty soon you’ll start imagining another time was really your,...

Detail from Segantini’s ‘The last task of the day’. Reminds me of the Dukkha of life’s routine burdens and dreariness, and the setting sun signifying it’s time to go home at the end of the day. Towards the Western Pure Land for me....

Colour was my visit-long obsession and joy too, gazing upon Monet’s works, learning about his hard life, which makes his works all the more amazing and...

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. - Alfred Hitchcock S: Dukkha (suffering) is in this moment only when there is clinging to or fretting of it. D: The real pain (physical sensation) may just last for a few seconds but thinking about it creates more...

Some discomfort is good. That from recognising Dukkha drives us to Nirvana. Some discomfort is not good. That from denying Dukkha keeps us from Nirvana.- Stonepeace Some reject the Dharma due to discomfort with its reality check on Dukkha, that life is prevalent with dissatisfactions, which...

An unnerving passage by Steven Grant, in Warren Ellis’ ‘Scars’. ‘If they weren’t there and I saw them, there’s something drastically wrong with me. If they were there, and I saw them, there’s something drastically wrong with the universe.’ Such...

If you focus only on the bad things in your life, you’ll miss the good things in your life, and you’ll experience endless bad things because after the bad things comes the good things. Yet, to focus on the bad things is to recognise the First Noble Truth of Dukkha, in order to...

Squeezing some ice, he screams in pain. But he only had to let it go to end the needless pain. Crystal clear is the case of foolishness above. So should I stay here to suffer fools (to exhaust my negative karma), or am I a fool too for staying here (to perpetuate this negative karma), to...

Anxiety inspires. Angst inspires. Pain inspires. Dukkha inspires. 烦恼即菩提 Afflictions are Bodhi Related Article: Troubling-ness http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/12/troubling-ness...

The magical ulcer in my mouth seems to come from nowhere, to grow and grow. It doesn’t seem to go, till it shrinks and shrinks, before it disappears into nowhere. But what about the ulcer, the sore, that trouble in mind? That too, will pass! But you can hasten it, you can heal it, but...

I always wondered what is the moral of the story of ‘The Princess and the Pea’. Does it sing the ‘virtues’ of being sensitive to even a single pea under twenty mattresses? But to have such hyper physical sensitivity is to be liable to have great personal suffering...

A drop of water at the hot-and-cold water dispenser dripped on a finger. For a second, I couldn’t decide if it was hot or cold. Much heat can feel like much cold. Like how ice ‘burns’ too. Laughing too hard can become painful. If only too much pain can become laughable...

A good translator can be both satisfied and unsatisfied: unsatisfied with other translations seen, which urges one to come up with a more satisfactory translation… which leads to satisfaction with one’s better translation, till one sees a more satisfactory translation...

Q: Sometimes, suffering may not be a bad thing. A: Suffering is ‘useful’ only if it spurs one to advance to enlightenment. If not, suffering will return again and again – and one repeats suffering pointlessly – life after life. Q: I don’t think I am...

Some lyrics from R.E.M.’s ‘Everybody Hurts’: Well, everybody hurts sometimes. Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes. And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on… Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on… Everybody hurts. You are not...