I once wrote a quote on this site—taken from a text titled “What Is Religion?” which I was fortunate enough to read and carry with me: “Blessed are those born within the church, yet woe to those born within the church who also die there.”
To leave is not an act of rejection, but an experience. I had the good fortune to spend time in a pagoda and to read the sutras; and were it not for those pages of scripture…
I am not surprised by the notion that “a genius is simply a genius who survived, while countless others perished.”
Survival is a stroke of fortune.
Emerging from madness is a stroke of fortune.
Yet, such fortune comes only to those who possess faith in themselves and exert ceaseless effort.
Imagine living each day with the mindset: “Having is akin to not having; what is possessed eventually ceases to be.”
Imagine living each day with the mindset: “We, the servants of the Lord…”
The answer lies with each individual. A transformation of one’s very being requires nourishment for both body and spirit—and the courage to transcend the prejudices of love and hate. We need to transcend skin color. We need to transcend history. We need to let go and become solitary travelers.
We all return to solitude.
But how does one walk alone amidst a torrent of people?
We need to experience life firsthand and unfold from within.
A society, too, needs the right conditions to flourish.
The wisdom of this era is not the wisdom of another.
In a distant past, religion was wisdom; the church needed religion to shepherd the faithful.
In that same distant past, governance was a form of wisdom. Governments returned religion to the religious sphere, yet still required it as an invisible buoy for the soul.
It seems we need a different kind of wisdom.
We still need government, and we still need religion; but how do we let the color of religion fade away? The colors of the nation are fading, and the question remains: how can we reach a day when we love what is right yet also cherish what is wrong?
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