quotes

showing 8 Observations
taken from: Do-ing

I keep talking about death, it’s my favorite subject. There’s nothing more important in the bloody world. Until you live with death, you don’t know what life is. What does it mean: ’live with death’? You must have a mature relationship to that reality! It’s one of the only two certainties that a person has - and ignores it! There are two things we know for sure: one, we were born, and two, we are going to die - the body anyways. There is not another bloody thought in your head that you can’t attach a question-mark to! Until these two facts are a ’living reality’, whatever is in-between birth and death has no real context - everything is subject to attack by the ’universe of devilish imagination’.
So, there, the secret is out: why all this recurring talk on death. It’s amazing the reaction that the average person has to the subject. It’s considered morbid. ’Morbid’ and ’death’, in linguistics, somehow get related. Morbid is terrible, it’s like black - the most horrible thing! That’s the biggest mistake a man makes. Death is the best thing that happens to us - if we’re ready. Because it’s really a birth! People should get excited with the thought of death - to be prepared for it!
 
But the least a person could do is to take the bullshit fear out of it! Death is inevitable. Stupid to be fearful and turn it into a horror, and fog-up your whole psyche.
The implications of the Death issue are so wide, but I’m not speaking of it for that reason alone. I’m inclined to rub that ’dirty word’ into peoples’ faces, until they get used to the smell. It doesn’t smell like anything else on earth - but you can live with it. It’s really not like a bad smell, it’s just that it’s so different!

Related Subjects: Doing

Many people half-consciously assume that if they do 'good' for their family, associates or some aspect of humanity, 'God', or people that they have demonstrated in front of will 're-pay' their efforts.

Related Subjects: Doing 'good'

Why are you doing what you are doing?
Because you 'have to'?
Do you 'have to' in order to GET SOMETHING, or merely to 'stay out of trouble'?

Related Subjects: Doing

No matter how you twist and turn it, it brings us back to the Work. When you attempt to 'do the Work' even somewhat awkwardly, at least you're not in your usual mechanics. Work requires a conscious effort. And, in order to make that kind of effort you must be, to some degree, awake. When you're only in the mechanics it's all just happening and nothing clear can be gained. YOU were not there to gain, and retain, in Understanding. 

To do something that has meaning to you, to experiment intelligently, to ponder, to try something that you think would be useful in real terms requires conscious-effort. For that, you have to be present.

Related Subjects: Doing, The Work

What can you do other than come from the very best you've got, and realize your limitations? You can only reach that point by fully using what you've got. Use your best as if there's no tomorrow. You still need explanations? Someone has to tell you that you're living in hell? There's no time for delay.

Related Subjects: Doing
taken from: Respond Ability

What a person is capable of doing or responding to on the outside is relative to where and what they are inside.

Related Subjects: Doing
taken from: Do-ing

”Man lives in the illusion that he can do.”
Everyone says ‘yeah’, but they can only see up to their own level of experiencing. You can observe how, when you want to do something, and then you go to do it, but you don’t do it! Or, you decide something the night before, and you get up in the morning and even the thought of it is gone. Or, you say you’ll never do something again and the next time you bump into a similar situation, you do the exact same thing. So you begin to see the gap between your intentions and your action. This is, maybe, the most obvious level of ‘man cannot do’.
Again, in the Work it is said:

“All real doing is indirect.”

 
At the mechanical level, ‘it’ does. You can, more or less, understand that. But Work Ideas have a density of meaning - even if they also stand-up simply as common sense.

Related Subjects: Doing
taken from: Do-ing

Another angle on this question of ’doing’. Man cannot ’do’, in his usual state - it’s a complete illusion. He doesn’t do - ’it’ does. A person might see that and say: “Well, no wonder I don’t have such a high regard for myself. I don’t know what I’m doing, I really don’t have control over it. So, I don’t really feel very proud.”
Now, let’s say a person had a more thoughtful background and was able to understand some of what is written here. Look - there are three major elements in ’doing’, relative to a ’conscious being’.
1) Why are you doing it.
2) What are you doing.
3) What ’state’ are you in when you are doing it.

Related Subjects: Doing