As opposed to giving my inexpert analysis of Bush’s state of the union address, I’ve decided to post a few sayings from my zen day calender (which I bought yesterday). I mean how many people have already mentioned his militant unilateralism, his reunification of Church and State, his anti-gay mentality and his drug testing at schools. I’m just another guy, not even an American.
Without further ado:

“The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all. No existent theology can be a final formulation of spiritual truth.”
– Harry Emerson Fosdick
“If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.” – John Bunyan
“Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.”
– Jalal Al-Din Rumi
“It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We say that someone has the wondrous ability to play the zither or the lute, but if we ask where that art resides, not even the wisest man can answer… This art, produced by something we cannot fully know, is like the innate nature of the mind that operates in all of our daily activities.”
– Hakuin
“When we understand, we are at the centre of the circle, and there we sit while Yes and No chase each other around the circumference.”
– Chuang-Tzu
“A buddha enters forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables, and objects of the mind and is not confused by them. Thus a Buddha masters the six sense objects, which are all marked with emptiness. A Buddha is free… and does not need to respond to anything. A buddha practices miracles that are grounded on the earth.”
– Master Huizhao
“Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.”
– Walter Lippmann (Man! So right!)
“Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold to the truth within yourself, as to the only truth.”
– The Buddha
“Example moves the world more than doctrine.”
– Henry Miller
“One instant is eternity; eternity is the now.
When you see through this one instant,
you see through the one who sees.”
– Wu-Men
“Today means boundless and inexhaustible eternity. Periods of months and years and of time in general are ideas of men, who calculate by number; but the true name of eternity is Today.”
– Philo