Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘We’re only human. But we’re also more. We’re by nature aspirational beings. Our imaginations are unlimited. We can’t be satisfied simply with the world as it appears. Presented with that, we will do what we have always done – distract and destroy. We will be deeply, narcissistically, self-protective and dissatisfied, and out of that uncomfortable smallness we will do stupid and terrible things. This is unworthy of us. We need a wider, deeper, more altruistic vision of who we are, for we are bigger than we look – as big as our imaginations project us to be. We each have to take ourselves less seriously as the person we think we are, and more seriously as the bodhisattva we surely are. All the world’s great religions teach this in one way or another. This is why they exist.’ (The World Could Be Otherwise)

I have, as I suspected, posted this paragraph before; I picked up this wonderful book to prepare for talks on the Paramitas that I will be giving at the Hebden Bridge group next week, and this jumped out at me again,