Life is like the oil within a lamp.
It can be measured, but the pace at which it burns depends on how the dial is turned day by day, how bright and fierce the flame.
And there is no predicting whether the lamp might be knocked to the ground and shatter, when it could have blazed on a great while longer.
Such is the unpredictability of life
Ah, September!
You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul ...
but I must confess that I love you only because you are a prelude to my beloved October
It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence.
The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years
but he who has most felt life.
It is quite true what Philosophy says:
that Life must be understood backwards.
But that makes one forget the other saying:
that it must be lived—forwards.
The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible,
precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward- looking position.
I believe there's another force as well, one every bit as real as the God ...,
and that it works consciously to bring all our decent impulses to ruin. ...,
but a kind of demon of discord, a prankish and stupid thing
that laughs with glee when an old man sets himself on fire trying to light his pipe
or when a much-loved baby puts its first Christmas toy in its mouth and chokes to death on it.
It’s hard to be in the wrong relationship.
It’s hard to be in the right one.
It’s hard to be broke and miserable,
it’s hard to achieve your dreams.
It’s hard to be stuck in the middle, not really feeling anything at all.
Everything is hard, but you choose your hard.
You choose what’s worth it.
You don’t choose whether or not you’ll suffer,
but you do choose what you want to suffer for
All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike.
All is ephemeral—both memory and the object of memory.
The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything;
and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you.
Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere.
they recognize one of their own,
and it always feels so good when someone gets caught with his pants down
and it isn't you.
Secretly,
by the light of the moon,
a worm bores into a chestnut.
This world?
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun;
and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon.
The Harvest Moon appears from September Wednesday 18 to Thursday 19
The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time,
One thing that sets the Harvest Moon apart from other full Moon names is that it’s not associated with a specific month, as the others are.
Instead, the Harvest Moon relates to the timing of the autumnal equinox (September 23, 2024), with the full Moon that occurs nearest to the equinox being the one to take on the name “Harvest Moon.”
This means that the Harvest Moon can occur in either September or October, depending on how the lunar cycle lines up with the Gregorian calendar.
The Harvest Moon does typically occur in September, taking the place of the full Corn Moon.
However, it occasionally lands in October instead, replacing the full Hunter’s Moon.
For several evenings, the moonrise comes soon after sunset. This results in an abundance of bright moonlight early in the evening, which was a traditional aid to farmers and crews harvesting their summer-grown crops. Hence, it’s called the “Harvest” Moon!
There are just a little over 12 complete Moon cycles every year, on average (there being about 29.53 days in a synodic month). The Harvest Moon isn’t like the other Moons.
Additionally, the Harvest Moon rises at sunset and then will rise very near sunset for several nights in a row because the difference is at a yearly minimum. It may almost seem as if there are full Moons multiple nights in a row!
While September’s full Moon is usually known as the Harvest Moon, if October’s full Moon happens to occur closer to the equinox than September’s, it takes on the name “Harvest Moon” instead. In this case, September’s full Moon is referred to as the Corn Moon.
This time of year—late summer into early fall—corresponds with the time of harvesting corn in much of the northern United States. For this reason, a number of Native American peoples traditionally used some variation of the name “Corn Moon” to refer to the Moon of either August or September. Examples include Corn Maker Moon (Western Abenaki) and Corn Harvest Moon (Dakota).
Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition.
It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregorian calendar falls on a Friday, which happens at least once every year but can occur up to three times in the same year.
2015 had a Friday the 13th in February, March, and November,
will happen again in 2026;
2017 through 2020 had two Friday the 13ths;
2016, 2021 and 2022 had just one Friday the 13th,
as will 2025;
2023 and 2024 have two Friday the 13ths.
A month has a Friday the 13th if and only if it begins on a Sunday.
One source mentioned for the unlucky nature of the number "13" is a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party in Valhalla.
The trickster god Loki, who was not invited, arrived as the 13th guest, and arranged for Höðr to shoot Balder with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.
"Balder died, and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day."
This major event in Norse mythology caused the number 13 to be considered unlucky.
The superstition seems to relate to various things, like the story of Jesus' last supper and crucifixion in which there were 13 individuals present in the Upper Room on the 13th of Nisan Maundy Thursday, the night before his death on Good Friday.
I love him whose soul is deep,
even in being wounded,
and who may perish through a minor matter:
thus he goes willingly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgets himself,
and all things are in him:
thus all things become his going under.
I love him who has a free spirit and a free heart:
thus his head is only the guts of his heart;
his heart, however, causes his going under.
I love all who are like heavy drops falling one by one out of the cloud that lowers over man:
they herald the coming of the lightning,
and as heralds they perish.
It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all.
By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard.
Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all
In modern physics, there is no such thing as "nothing."
Even in a perfect vacuum, pairs of virtual particles are constantly being created and destroyed.
The existence of these particles is no mathematical fiction.
Though they cannot be directly observed, the effects they create are quite real.
The assumption that they exist leads to predictions that have been confirmed by experiment to a high degree of accuracy.
A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.…
We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because we are in it, we are part of it.
Actually we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat.
The only difference between us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick.
Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.
Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be;
it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt,
and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect
The question has often been asked;
Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy?
It does not matter what you call it.
Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial.
Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance.
The name one gives is inessential....
In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody.
Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds
. The gods either have power or they have not.
If they have not, why pray to them?
If they have, then instead of praying to be granted or spared such-and-such a thing, why not rather pray to be delivered from dreading it, or lusting for it, or grieving over it?
Clearly, if they can help a man at all, they can help him in this way.
You will say, perhaps, ‘But all that is something they have put in my own power.’
Then surely it were better to use your power and be a free man, than to hanker like a slave and a beggar for something that is not in your power.
Besides, who told you the gods never lend their aid even towards things that do lie in our own power?
Begin praying in this way, and you will see.
Where another man prays ‘Grant that I may possess this woman,’ let your own prayer be, ‘Grant that I may not lust to possess her.’ W
here he prays, ‘Grant me to be rid of such-and-such a one,’ you pray, ‘Take from me my desire to be rid of him.’
Where he begs, ‘Spare me the loss of my precious child,’ beg rather to be delivered from the terror of losing him.
In short, give your petitions a turn in this direction, and see what comes.
