View high resolution

A letter Marlon Brando sent Marilyn Monroe.

from “Target” by Jason Koo

Oh you out there not in love,
I know how it is, when you wake up in the morning and look down
at your body like an émigré looking back
Disgustedly at his homeland; when you peer through the blinds
and the world is nothing but a grey side;
When you feel each day is a dart flung at a target you keep missing
because who, or where, or what is the target?
The soul cannot live like this, the soul needs a cable, a clasp, its talons
are hungry for a peak, there’s too much space
And it’s thinning out like smoke: you step out of the furrow of the future
onto an asphalt present. Worse, there’s
A whiff of sin about you, because not to be in love with a person
should never stop you from being
In love with the world: and the problem is you’ve fallen out of love
with the world. You’ve come to hear
An underlying Goddamit! in everything, and never notice the trees
tossing their heads in the wind like conductors.

shambles:

(via myserendipities)

"Mara was waiting for him with one last temptation. He appealed this time to what had always been Gautama’s strong point, his reason. Mara did not argue the burden of reentering the world with its banalities and obsessions. He posed a deeper challenge. Who could be expected to understand truth as profound as that which the Buddha had laid hold of? How could speech-defying revelation be translated into words, or visions that shatter definitions be caged in language? In short, how show what can only be found, teach what can only be learned? Why bother to play the idiot before an uncomprehending audience? Why not wash one’s hands of the whole hot world- be done with the body and slip at once into nirvana? The argument was so persuasive that it almost carried the day. At length, however, the Buddha answered, “There will be some who will understand,” and Mara was banished from his life forever."

The World’s Religions, Huston Smith
(on Buddhism)

ohgosh:(via icanread)

21 Unusual/Fun Date Ideas

ohgosh:

hamandheroin:

1. Go on a search for as many good climbing trees as possible, climb as high as you both can in all of them, compile photo evidence.
2. Go to a major chain bookstore, and leave notes to future readers in copies of your favorite books.
3. Create photo evidence suggesting that you went on an adventure that didn’t really happen.
4. Adjust the lights to a low setting and build a fort out of furniture and blankets.
5. Try and visit as many people as you can in one night, and change as many things around inside their apartment without them noticing.
6. Go to the airport, get the cheapest, soonest departing flight to anywhere and stay there for the weekend.
7. Rent a season (or two of your favorite show) and watch them all marathon style with a big bowl of popcorn.
8. Go for a walk, and collect various things you find along the way. Later, see who makes the most creative design from their found materials.
9. Write a piece of fiction together. Outside a cafe. Ask strangers when you get stuck.
10. Go downtown with a video camera and interview strangers. Pretend it’s for a film workshop.
11. Dress to the nines, pretend to be married, and go out for a fancy dinner.
12. Do the lamest tourist thing in your area that you both secretly think would be fun.
13. Volunteer at a local animal shelter for the afternoon.
14. Blindfold one, and let the other feed him/her foods of their choice. Try to guess them then switch.
15. Go to a public library/book store and take turns reading your favorite childhood stories to each other.
16. Get into your pajamas, prepare some hot chocolate and/or snacks and go to the latest showing of a movie. It’ll feel like sneaking out when it’s past your curfew.
17. In the middle of the night, drive to the beach, so you arrive just before the sun rises. Have a breakfast picnic.
18. Drive somewhere unknown and have dinner in a city you’ve never been to. With fake names and/or fake accents.
19. Pick a challenging recipe and attempt to master it together.
20. Go around the city with sidewalk chalk and draw hearts with equations on random things.
21. Rent a movie you’ve never seen before. Set to mute, and improvise the dialogue.

"Everybody gets exactly what is deserved- we have made our beds and must lie in them. Conversely, the idea of a moral universe closes the door on chance or accident. Most people have little idea how much they secretly bank on luck- hard luck to justify past failures, good luck to bring future successes. How many people drift through life simply waiting for the breaks, for that moment when a lucky lottery number brings riches and a dizzying spell of fame. If you approach life this way, says Hinduism, you misjudge your position pathetically. Breaks have nothing to do with protracted levels of happiness, nor do they happen by chance. We live in a world in which there is no chance or accident. Those words are simply covers for ignorance."

The World’s Religions, Huston Smith
(on Hinduism)

Mirror Mirror, Spike Milligan

A young spring-tender girl
combed her joyous hair
‘You are very ugly’ said the mirror.
But,
on her lips hung
a smile of dove-secret loveliness,
for only that morning had not
the blind boy said,
‘You are beautiful’?

starsmending:

reluctantbuddha:

breathsoftruth

Emotional IQ Test

dearoldlove:

I should’ve learned by now that dysfunctional plus dysfunctional does not equal normal.

"It is possible to climb life’s mountain from any side, but when the top is reached the trails converge. At base, in the foothills of theology, ritual, and organizational structure, the religions are distinct. Differences in culture, history, geography, and collective temperament all make for diverse starting points. Far from being deplorable, this is good; it adds richness to the totality of the human venture. Is life not more interesting for the varied contributions of Confucianists, Taoists, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and Christians? “How artistic,” writes a contemporary Hindu, “that there should be room for such variety- how rich the texture is, and how much more interesting than if the Almighty had decreed one antiseptically safe, exclusive, orthodox way. Although he is Unity, God finds, it seems, his recreation in variety!” But beyond these differences, the same goal beckons."

The World’s Religions, Huston Smith
(on Hinduism)

"Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also."

Marcus Aurelius