Tired of dreary old WesternCivilization? Feeling the lack of something you can't quite put your finger on? Richer, healthier, better educated and more comfortable than any previous generation but don't feel like you deserve it? : '''We have the answer!''' Take only three seemingly contradictory, ambiguous self-referential sound bites a day we guarantee a whole new world view. So refreshing! So restful! So buy some. ''No unpleasant thinking required. EasternAphorisms contain no actual philosophy and are completely safe.'' ------------- "There is not just the code, there is the space around the code, for without that space, there would be no code." -- AnonymousDonor ---- EasternAphorisms are actually UnitTest''''''s or AcceptanceTest''''''s (I'm not sure which - please advise or edit) of the person listening. They test that your mind is open to truths that contradict perceived reality. For example, "ThereIsNoSpoon". If you can recognize that 'spoon' is merely your interpretation of a visual stimulus, you have passed the test. If you say "What?! Of '''course''' there's a spoon!" then you failed. -- JoshuaJuran ''What visual stimulus? What is doing the stimulating? What is being stimulated?'' "Who's on first?" Actually the test is whether or not you are acting on unexamined thought. It may well be that there is a spoon. The spoon is a spoon. Then it is not a spoon. Then it is a spoon again. You cannot step in the same river twice. You cannot be the same person twice. -- DougPhilips Unless you use updated versions of ''be'' and ''is'' that already take all that stuff into account. So darn it, there simply is a spoon, and if you disagree with that, you're giving the verb a stupid meaning. ''I am experiencing a spoon-like phenomenon that consistently exhibits spoon-like behaviour. The ultimate nature of reality is outside my pay-scale.'' --BenTremblay If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it must be a spoon. ------------- Please understand that the question "who was born first, the chicken or the egg" has nothing to do with chickens or eggs. If I point my finger to the moon, I may lead you to see the moon, but my finger is not the moon. Now imagine my finger as the words you read and listen, and the moon is the truth. Koan :) You can tell when people are drunk, because they say things that drunk people would say. Time is wasted reading sentences like this. Twice a day, or maybe three times a day, but probably just twice a day, although sometimes more than two or three times - one can find doubt in their own beliefs. ---- When I was young, adulthood was just age. As I grew in age, I realized adulthood was more than age. Now that I'm aged, I realize adulthood is being young. As I contemplated that I had to constantly silence my children so I could meditate on it. If you are eating a thousand-year-old egg, and someone asks "how can you prove it's that old" - tell them "if it tastes like a thousand-year-old egg. . . "