zen bow, zen arrow

Is an excellent book by John Stevens, isbn 978-1-59030-442-6. As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

He never missed a day of teaching, regardless of the weather, and would often sit for hours in the dojo watching and instructing, even if it was freezing outside.

Gratitude will make you brave.

Learn from a teacher everything he or she has, all the way - that is the real secret of training that will give you great results.

Self-reflection encourages great bravery. Rationalization is your greatest enemy.

Fostering the spirit is painful, hard work; shoot each shot as if your life depended on it.

The essence of Buddhism is not meditation or liberation from samsara. It is kenso, "seeing into your nature."

Do your best at each and every thing. That is the key to success. Learn one thing well and you will learn how to understand ten thousand things.

The two greatest virtues: self-control and returning kindness.

Human beings always cling to things. Practice begins when you stop clinging.

One day of effort is one day of bliss; One day of sloth is a hundred years of regret.

Out of the crisis

is an excellent book by W. Edwards Deming (isbn 0-911379-01-0). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

All industries, manufacturing and service, are subject to the same principles of management.

Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process.

Today, 19 foreman out of 20 were never on the job that they supervise.

Fear amongst salaried workers may be attributed in large part to the annual rating of performance.

Absenteeism is largely a function of supervision. If people feel important to a job, they will come to work.

He that would run his company on visible figures alone will in time have neither company nor figures.

There has never been a definitive study of quality in the dental profession; nor is there likely to be one. Partly because they tend to work alone, dentists resist the idea of being evaluated, or even observed, by others.

Where there is fear, there will be wrong figures.

It is well known that rework piles up: no one wishes to tackle it.

This company had been sending a letter to every driver at every mistake. It made no difference whether this was the one mistake of the year for this driver, or the 15th: the letter was exactly the same. What does the driver who has received 15 warnings, all alike, think of the management?

Tao Te Ching

is an excellent book translated by R.L.Wing (isbn 0-7225-3491-4). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages

In trying to understand a work like the Tao Te Ching, it is important to keep in mind that Chinese characters are not so much representations of words as they are symbols of ideas.

Because of its idea-embedded nature, the Tao Te Ching is a work that brings truth to the adage: It is better to read one book one-hundred times than one-hundred books one time.

True power is the ability to influence and change the world while living a simple, intelligent, and experientially rich existence.

Simplicity in conduct, in beliefs, and in environment brings an individual very close to the truth of reality.

When expectations are dropped, the mind expands, and reality expands along with the mind.

Nothing exists without the presence of its opposite.

Practice non-interference.

A house filled with riches cannot be defended.

Individuals who master themselves become less egocentric

Evolved Individuals strive to be intuitive, spontaneous, and simple.

Never fall completely into step with current society.

Aquinas

is an excellent book edited by Anthony Kenny (isbn 0-19-287500-0). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

We employ the word 'think' in two quite different ways; we talk of thinking about something, and we talk of thinking that something.

Intellectual activity, then, is regarded as in some way dependent on sense-experience; in some sense of the word Aquinas is an empiricist. Many empiricist philosophers have held that all our ideas arise from sense-experience, and that they are required by abstraction from or selective inattention to features of that experience.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I 'see' myself rather than seeing the mirror, unless I am making an especial effort to attend to the mirror.

A man cannot know what a whole is or what a part is except through the possession of concepts or ideas derived from experience.

A sense faculty which cannot go wrong is not a sense-faculty at all.

The oldest Oxford and Cambridge colleges were still in the future; just after Thomas was lecturing on the Sentences in Paris the delinquent baron, John de Balliol was ordered, as a penance, to found a house of scholars in Oxford.

As Wittgenstein once observed, it is not the answers which Aquinas gives, but the questions which he asks, which are the measure of his philosophical gifts.

Kierkegaard in a nutshell

is an excellent book edited Robert Van de Weyer (isbn 0-340-69404-1). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

Kierkegaard ... says that most people avoid choice by living 'aesthetically', which broadly means relying on instinct and feelings.

In a provocative passage Kierkegaard suggests that boredom is the root of all evil. He contrasts boredom with idleness.

To Kierkegaard true freedom consists in overcoming constraints, because this involves choice and effort.

He did try to imagine a true 'knight of faith'; and his description is astonishing because the person he portrays is so ordinary... What marks him out is that he takes delight in every scene, every activity and every person. And even if something does not meet his expectations, he enjoys whatever transpires.

His consistent theme, that the source of truth is subjective experience, leaves little room for academic philosophy.

Far from being the root of all evil, idleness is the only true good. Boredom is the root of all evil, and so it must be kept at a distance. Idleness is not evil.

Boredom is overcome through being intensive in your interests, not extensive.

No moment should be regarded as so significant that is cannot be forgotten at your convenience. Equally each moment should have such significance that is can be remembered at will.

When you being to notice that a certain pleasure or experience is gaining too strong a hold on your mind, you should pause and reflect. This will make you want to stop the experience. From the start you should keep every enjoyment under control, never giving yourself totally to it.

I wish I'd said that

is an excellent book by Maurice Silver (isbn 1-86105-285-5). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

Advice is like snow - the more softly it falls, the better it takes hold.

Don't wait for your ship to come it; swim out to it.

A stumbling block is a stepping-stone that you tripped over.

Make a point to do something each day that you don't want to do.

Error is the discipline through which we advance.

Men inevitably become indifferent to anything they do often.

There can be no economy where there is no efficiency.

When you are through changing, you're through.

Fear is like a darkroom where little doubts gets developed.

The mind grows rich from what it receives; the heart from what it gives.

It is not doing the things we like to do, but liking the things we have to do that makes life pleasant.

Do not look where you fell but where you slipped.

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.

The instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.

Existentialism and Humanism

Existentialism and humanism is an excellent book by Jean Paul Sartre (isbn 0-413-31300-X). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

There is only one sin, and that's failing to believe you have a choice.

I should be without illusion and I should do what I can.

Many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, "Circumstances have been against me."

What produces cowardice is the act of giving up.

I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another.

What is not possible is not to choose.

We define man only in relation to his commitments.

The content is always concrete, and therefore unpredictable; it has always been invented.