This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The two systems have unique disadvantages as well as advantages. Thus, the rational system, although superior to the experiential system in abstract thinking, is inferior in its ability to automatically and effortlessly direct everyday behavior, and the experiential system, although superior in directing everyday behavior is inferior in its ability to think abstractly, to comprehend cause-and-effect relations, to delay gratification, and to plan for the distant future. Since each system has equally important advantages and disadvantages, neither system can be considered superior to the other system.
Disease |
Sen T’Sen, aka Seng T'San, Jianzhi Sengcan, Kanchi Sosan, Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen
Trusting In Mind - The Great Way is not difficult, Just don’t pick and choose. If you cut off all likes or dislikes Everything is clear like space. Make the slightest distinction And heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see the truth, Don’t think for or against. Likes and dislikes Are the mind’s disease. Without understanding the deep meaning You cannot still your thoughts. It is clear like space, Nothing missing, nothing extra. If you want something You cannot see things as they are. Outside, don’t get tangled in things. Inside, don’t get lost in emptiness. Be still and become One And all opposites disappear. If you stop moving to become still, This stillness always moves. If you hold on to opposites, How can you know One? If you don’t understand One, This and that cannot function. Denied, the world asserts itself. Pursued, emptiness is lost. The more you think and talk, The more you lose the Way. Cut off all thinking And pass freely anywhere. Return to the root and understand. Chase appearances and lose the source. One moment of enlightenment Illuminates the emptiness before you. Emptiness changing into things Is only our deluded view. Do not seek the truth. Only put down your opinions. Do not live in the world of opposites. Be careful! Never go that way. If you make right and wrong, Your mind is lost in confusion. Two comes from One, But do not cling even to this One. When your mind is undisturbed The ten thousand things are without fault. No fault, no ten thousand things, No disturbance, no mind. No world, no one to see it. No one to see it, no world. This becomes this because of that. That becomes that because of this. If you wish to understand both, See them as originally one emptiness. In emptiness the two are the same, And each holds the ten thousand things. If you no longer see them as different, How can you prefer one to another? The Way is calm and wide, Not easy, not difficult. But small minds get lost. Hurrying, they fall behind. Clinging, they go too far, Sure to take a wrong turn, Just let it be! In the end, Nothing goes, nothing stays. Follow nature and become one with the Way, Free and easy and undisturbed. Tied by your thoughts, you lose the truth, Become heavy, dull, and unwell. Not well, the mind is troubled. Then why hold or reject anything? If you want to get the One Vehicle Do not despise the world of the senses. When you do not despise the six senses, That is already enlightenment. The wise do not act. The ignorant bind themselves. In true Dharma there is no this or that, So why blindly chase your desires? Using mind to stir up the mind Is the original mistake. Peaceful and troubled are only thinking. Enlightenment has no likes or dislikes. All opposites arise From faulty views. Illusions, flowers in the air – Why try to grasp them? Win, lose, right, wrong – Put it all down! If the eye never sleeps, Dreams disappear by themselves. If the mind makes no distinctions, The ten thousand things are one essence. Understand this dark essence And be free from entanglements. See the ten thousand things as equal And you return to your original nature Enlightened beings everywhere All enter this source. This source is beyond time and space. One moment is ten thousand years. Even if you cannot see it, The whole universe is before your eyes. Infinitely small is infinitely large: No boundaries, no differences. Infinitely large is infinitely small: Measurements do not matter here. What is is the same as what is not. What is not is the same as what is. Where it is not like this, Don’t bother staying. One is all, All is one. When you see things like this, You do not worry about being incomplete. Trust and Mind are not two. Not-two is trusting the Mind. Words and speech don’t cut it, Can’t now, never could, won’t ever.
Assertion | Disease | Dreams | Earth | Hate | Heaven | Meaning | Mind | Mystery | Oneness | Present | Reality | Will | Words | World | Worry |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Illumination is eternal. Now is always evolving. As there are billions of stars, there are billions of steps.As there are billions of souls, there are billions of ways to grow.
Disease |
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
Before we are born we are defiled with contagion, and before the enjoyment of light we receive the injury of our very origin. For we are conceived in iniquity… Birth itself has its contagions, and not only one, but nature itself has contagion.
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
A merciful man is the physician of his own soul. Like a violent wind he drives the darkness of the passions out of his inner self.
Disease | Experience | Kindness | Little | Man | Need | Soul | Understanding | Words |
Saki, pen name for Hector Hugh Munro or H.H. Munro NULL
Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.
Better |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
In a man's letters his soul lies naked.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Were a man not to marry a second time, it might be concluded that his first wife had given him a disgust to marriage; but by taking a second wife, he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.
Desire | Diligence | Disease | Envy | Money | Nothing | Regard | Respect | Torture | Wealth | Wise | Respect | Value |
At any moment each person is always doing the VERY BEST he can, based on his total conscious and non-conscious prevailing awareness and which is within his capabilities, energy, time, and developed talents and abilities. If people are always doing the very best they can, it is illogical and irrational to expect them to do better. What is the reason this concept is so important to understand? If it is true, then it is counterproductive to criticize someone for not meeting or conforming to an expectation or standard until they have the awareness of the benefits they will receive by conforming. What needs to exist is for people to be made aware of how they will get better results, by pointing out the consequences of their behavior and giving them the choice and opportunity to make adjustments.
Conversation | Disease | Nothing | Words |
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
I can still recall vividly how Freud said to me, 'My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most essential thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma of it, an unshakable bulwark' ... In some astonishment I asked him, 'A bulwark-against what?' To which he replied, 'Against the black tide of mud'—and here he hesitated for a moment, then added—'of occultism'.
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Heaven, too, was very near to them in those days. God's direct agency was to be seen in the thunder and the rainbow, the whirlwind and the lightning. To the believer, clouds of angels and confessors, and martyrs, armies of the sainted and the saved, were ever stooping over their struggling brethren upon earth, raising, encouraging, and supporting them.
Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
Before we are born we are defiled with contagion, and before the enjoyment of light we receive the injury of [our] very origin. For we are conceived in iniquity... Birth itself has its contagions, and not only one, but nature itself has contagion.
Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.
Discussion | Disease | Education | Enthusiasm |
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
And his heart was stirred, it felt a father's kindness: such an emotion as the possessor of beauty can inspire in one who has offered himself up in spirit to create beauty.
Disease |