"One real world is enough."  --George Santayana

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor:

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thoughts,
the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

--Rumi

All philosophies are mental fabrications. There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things. --Nagarjuna

This life's dim windows of the soul

Distorts the heavens from pole to pole

And leads you to believe a lie

When you see with, not through, the eye.

--William Blake

I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, 'Got any shoes you're not using?' --Steven Wright