The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim

The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim

Buddha's First Noble Truth:

Existence is painful.

Yaj Ekim's Noble Corollary:

So it goes. Deal with it. Get over it. Move on. It will all be over soon enough.

* * * *

1 Corinthians 13:11:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put aside childish things.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Time to grow up, children.

* * * *

Jesus on Prophets (Mark 6:1-6):

Jesus observed that "Prophets are not without honour,

except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

And their own time.

* * * *

René Descartes:

I think, therefore I am.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

I think, therefore I think I am.

* * * *

Foremost thing Western parents want for their children:

"I want them to be happy."

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Hah! That ain’t going to happen! Forget about it! Fat chance!

* * * *

Voltaire:

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Hey! Yo! Dude! … Uh … I … think … that’s … uh … what … we … uh … did.

* * * *

Voltaire:

A witty saying proves nothing.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

But they are entertaining, and pass some of the moments.

And what is not life, but a ceaseless quest for pleasure, and the avoidance of pain and suffering and death,

Which only causes more of the same, if moderation is not within easy reach.

* * * *

Stephen King:

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word.

There are no exceptions to this rule.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Alas, we cannot all be Stephen King.

* * * *

Friedrich Nietzsche:

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary

When you look into an abyss, the abyss becomes you.

* * * *

Socrates:

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

The examined life, only a little more, perhaps less.

* * * *

Hippocratic Oath:

Primum non nocere … First do no harm.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Define harm.

* * * *

Yoda (Star Wars):

Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

To try requires effort. To try is not doing.

* * * *

Sarlo:

Effing the Ineffable.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Effing away.

* * * *

Thomas Hobbes:

… and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

* * * *

Albert Camus:

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

The second truly serious not-quite-philosophical problem is who buries who.

* * * *

Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey):

Then he [The Star Child] waited,

Marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers.

For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next.

But he would think of something.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Still thinking.

* * * *

Jane Smith (Angela Jolie in “Mr. & Mrs. Smth”):

Happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Uh-oh.

* * * *

Harvey Logan (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid):

Rules!? In a knife fight!?

Yaj Ekim:

Rules!? In this world!?

* * * *

Anon:

Money cannot buy happiness.

Yaj Ekim:

Then how am I supposed to get my bottle of Jack?

* * * *

Curly (City Slickers):

The day ain’t over yet.

Yaj Ekim:

Waah!

* * * *

Kilgore Trout (a.k.a., Kurt Vonnegut) in “Timequake”

Men are jerks. Women are psychotic.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,

A Fistful of Chromosomes, A Few Chromosomes More.

* * * *

Chuang-Tzu (The Butterfly as Companion):

Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Or neither dreaming both.

* * * *

George Orwell:

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night

Only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

People sleep peacefully in their beds at night

Only because geeky nerds sit ready to code algorithms

For their shopping pleasure for things they never once needed.

* * * *

Yoda (Star Wars):

Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Do what?

* * * *

William Makepeace Thackeray:

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man

that he doe not know till he takes up the pen to write.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Only a thousand?

* * * *

Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) (As Good as It Gets):

[to a group of depressed psychiatric patients]

What if this is as good as it gets?

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

How could it be any better?

* * * *

Ecclesiastes:

Nothing new under the sun.

A time to be born and a time to die.

Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Live and learn, die anyway.

* * * *

J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings):

Frodo Baggins: I wish it need not happen in my time.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Decide well, Friend, decide well.

* * * *

Nikos Kazantzakis:

There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

There is only one monkey in the world. One monkey, with many faces.

* * * *

Melvin Udall to a group of depressed psychiatric patients

(Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets):

What if this is as good as it gets?

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Waaa!!!

* * * *

Mickey Knox's father’s last words

Before he blows his head off with a shotgun

(Natural Born Killers):

Do you believe in fate, boy?

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Nothing but.

* * * *

Mom:

Not everyone can be like you.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

But, but, but …

* * * *

William Shakespeare (MacBeth):

Lady MacBeth: What's done cannot be undone.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Waaa!!!

* * * *

Kurt Vonnegut (Cat’s Cradle):

Bokonon: If I am ever put to death on the hook, expect a very human performance.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Much more entertaining than a worm.

* * * *

Jean Baudrillard:

The great person is ahead of their time.

The smart make something out of it, and the blockhead, sets themselves against it.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

The middle path is living in relative anonymity, and leaving it for the world to find, or not.

In the vanity-vanity of it, does it really matter?

* * * *

Nikos Kazantzakis:

There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

… Yes Dear … You were right … I was wrong … I’m sorry …

The litany every man best remember if he doesn’t care to camp out on a couch or in a car.

* * * *

Lee Hoffmann:

The good die young, Michael.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Well, at least I know I won’t live as long as you.

* * * *

Irish Proverb:

Curiosity killed the cat.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Don’t be a cat.

* * * *

Plato:

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Only the dead have seen the end of absurdity.

* * * *

The Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear:

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

And what fear could there be if there were no desire for one more or another?

* * * *

Walt Whitman:

I think I could turn and live with animals. They are so placid and self-contained. I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. They do no lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one is dissatisfied. Not one is demented with the mania of owning things. Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

So lucky, and they don’t even know it.

* * * *

Hamlet:

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;

He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!

My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.

Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?

Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Poof!

* * * *

Mooji:

Consciousness creates a problem in order to experience transcending the problem.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Consciousness is the problem, or at least human consciousness.

No other creature on this planet has ever even once confabulated

All the ceaseless bother we through all our little whirl of time have.

* * * *

Aldous Huxley:

What we feel and think and are is to a great extent

determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

So it wasn’t the Devil that made you do it.

* * * *

Latin Proverb:

De gustibus non est disputandum

(Ain't no accounting for taste)

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

For brains, neither.

* * * *

Miguel Ángel Ruiz’s Five Agreements:

1. Be impeccable with your word.

2. Don't take anything personally.

3. Don't make assumptions.

4. Always do your best.

5. Be skeptical, but learn to listen.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Good luck with that.

* * * *

Old Adage:

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never harm you.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

And when you do let words hurt, what is it that is hurting but vain self-imagery,

All the self-deceits, all the insecurities about your fictional persona,

That spin their way to suffering of the imaginary kind.

* * * *

Gianni Grassi a.k.a., Yesei Kaige (Wild Spirit-Precept Flower)

Wrote a poem titled "How A Feral Monk Thinks"

The feral monk does not abide

Takes rest in no masters refuge

Schools of thought collect like frost around ideas

that occur largely out of schools

Institutions bestow credentials

Courage bestows credibility

The street and the unbeaten path

are my monasteries

I have been feral all my life.

Embraced transformations. Shattered cocoons. Emerged.

Lately have lived by my wits with no greater need for nostalgia

t han that which sustains my gratitude

Faith is the willingness to show up vulnerable.

Trust is actually showing up that way

GOD is a three-letter word

that stands for everything that I do not

know at this moment.

Seekers never find. Finders never seek.

I prefer finding

I aspire to see everything old as if for the first time ...

... everything new as if for the last

I would rather feel the Buddha’s blisters on my feet,

than his footprints on my sandals

Who listens gives teaching …

… Who speaks gives listening.

I would like it to be said of my presence ...

He lived happy, joyous, and free

on less than his share.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary

Ooh, feral, I like that word, and all it implies.

* * * *

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago

Our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,

Conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Do not be in denial, do not be deluded, about the fact that the United States of America,

With its Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and who knows how many laws,

Was founded upon the genocide of the Americans who inhabited it long before Columbus,

The enslavement of tribal peoples abducted from their village homes in Africa,

And destruction and annihilation, all across the planet ever since.

George Orwell in Animal Farm:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Thucydides in the History of the Peloponnesian Wars:

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power,

While the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

* * * *

Gianni Grassi a.k.a., Yesei Kaige (Wild Spirit-Precept Flower)

Outlined the evolving WHO-WHERE-WHEN-WHY-WHAT-HOW of humankind's rise,

That he calls "The Historical Transformations of Buddhasapience"

Buddha 1.0 ... Identity ... WHO

200 to 50 thousand years ago ... Warm Climate ... Gathering ... Ritual Burial

Buddha 2.0 ... Locality ... WHERE

50 TO 10 thousand years ago ... Glaciation ... Hunting ... Shamanistics

Buddha 3.0 ... Periodicity ... WHEN

10 to 3 thousand years ago ... Glacial Thaw ... Cultivation ... Astrologics

Buddha 4.0 ... Universality ... WHY

3,000 to 600 years ago ... Hyper-Population ... Trade ... Metaphysics

Buddha 5.0 ... Objectivity ... WHAT

600 to 60 years ago ... Isolation ... Institution ... Science

Buddha 6.0 ... Emergence ... HOW

60 years ago to present ... Emergence ... Networking ... Synergistics

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Emerging ... Networking ... Synergizing ...

But into what in what sort of a dystopian, Frankensteinian creation are we talking about?

Thanks, but no thanks.

* * * *

Jason Brown:

I just don’t ‘like’ women anymore.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Certainly not as easy once the overpowering delusion of that lower brain diminishes.

* * * *

Jesus (John 8:7)

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary

Define sin.

* * * *

Doug Honeyman’s early-on response to these many thoughts

(Doug was an acquaintance during the late 80’s teaching years

at Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Oak Grove School in Ojai, California):

Nice words, but they don’t do anything for me.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Not sure they do all that much for me, either, frankly,

But they keep bubbling into consciousness,

And I ain’t got nothing much better to do most daze.

Temporal gratification of the creative mind; ain’t it wonderful.

* * * *

Roland Russell:

Mike, why don’t you write poetry, it’s kind of fun.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

“What would have become of me if I hadn’t?” he wondered.

* * * *

George Santayana:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

* * * *

George Santayana:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Even those who remember the past only just maybe avoid repeating it.

* * * *

George Berkeley:

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Even if a tree falls in a forest surrounded by a throng,

Did it, or they, ever really exist is the question.

* * * *

Doug Honeyman’s early-on response to these many thoughts

(Doug was an acquaintance during the late 80’s teaching years

at Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Oak Grove School in Ojai, California):

Nice words, but they don’t do anything for me.

Yaj Ekim’s corollary:

Krishnamurti is a hard act to follow.

* * * *

Edward Bulwer-Lytton:

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Yeah, right.

* * * *

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas in Wall Street):

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

For some.

* * * *

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas in Wall Street):

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Define good.

* * * *

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas in Wall Street):

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

And what is good, Phaedrus,

And what is not good –

Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

(From Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”)

* * * *

Zen Story:

A student once asked his teacher, "Master, what is enlightenment?"

The master replied, "When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep."

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Not rocket science.

* * * *

Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary):

CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.

Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Fortunately and whew, them Scythians have gone quantum,

but keeping an eye out just in case.

* * * *

René Descartes:

If you would be a real seeker after truth,

You must at least once in your life, doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

If you are a real seeker, it will be, rest assured, far more than once.

* * * *

Albert Camus:

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Scorning away.

* * * *

Solipism:

solipsism | ˈsäləpˌsizəm |

noun

the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

The irony being, of course, that Self does not “exist.”

Never has, never will.

* * * *

George Santayana:

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Only the dead have seen the end of absurdity.

* * * *

The True Believer:

Trust God

Yaj Ekim’s Corollory:

Yeah, to slowly, painfully, twist-and-turnfully, grind you back into oblivion.

* * * *

Popular Saying:

Old age ain’t for sissies.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

What exactly, is so great about hobbling around with a cane or walker wishing for a rewind button?

Or being in a rest home with other old people whining about all their aches and pains?

Or staring at a blank wall all day every day in an Alzheimer's facility?

Or being a tube-infested lab rat in an ICU unit?

Old age ain’t for sissies; it is for those afraid of letting go.

* * * *

English Proverb:

“You can't eat your cake and have it (too)” or “You can't have your cake and eat it (too).”

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

You can eat your cake, and have it (too), if you bake two.

* * * *

Chuck Hooper:

Giving speeches that make the world a better place.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Not better yet.

* * * *

Candide to Pangloss:

Let us cultivate our garden.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

In other words, Pangloss, shut your pie hole and hoe those weeds.

* * * *

Common Meme:

History repeats itself.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

History does not repeat itself; the patterns do.

* * * *

René Descartes:

I think, therefore I am.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

You imagine, therefore you imagine you are.

* * * *

Voltaire:

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished

Unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

It is forbidden to partake in cults; therefore all zealots are ignored

Unless they blindly adhere in large numbers and to the sound of organs.

* * * *

Matthew 6:10

From the King James Version of the New Testament

Second verse of the Lord's Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew:

Thy kingdom come, t hy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Kinda scary if you tweak on it a bit.

* * * *

Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie under her pseudonym of Violet Fane

(Or unknown early 16th century source according to Oxford Dictionary of Quotations):

All things come to those who wait.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Yeah, right.

* * * *

King James Bible – Genesis 3:19:

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground;

For out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Kersneeze.

* * * *

Protagoras:

Man is the measure of all things:

Of the things that are, that they are,

Of the things that are not, that they are not.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

Man is the measurer of all dreams:

Of all dreams that are not, never were, will never be.

* * * *

Standard apology:

I’m sorry.

Yaj Ekim’s Corolllary:

Not sorry enough.

* * * *

Alfred Lord Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade:

Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

No.

* * * *

Sandra Maa (Sandra Heber-Percy):

Referring to a caricature of a donkey pursuing the Carrot of Enlightenment

That is attached to the Stick of Desire tied on its back, Sandra asks:

Is the promise of infinite bliss the carrot for the donkey?

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

If there is no more carrot, no more stick, no more seeking, no more seeker ,

Who is left to hee, who is left to haw , in that infinite liberation?

Existence, and all the illusions and delusions to which so many are so attached,

May be very painful, but is it better than nothing? … And who is asking? ... Who is answering?

* * * *

Friedrich Nietzsche:

That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

What doesn’t kill you today will take another stab at it tomorrow.

* * * *

Ancient Proverb:

Golden Rule: Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Respect others, as you wish them to respect you.

* * * *

A proverb attributed to John Lyly's Euphues (1578):

All is fair in love and war.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

All is fair in lust and war.

* * * *

René Descartes:

If you would be a real seeker after truth,

It is necessary that at least once in your life,

You doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Maybe even twice.

* * * *

Voltaire:

A witty saying proves nothing.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

To any, but those who listen well.

* * * *

1 Corinthians 13:11:

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Are we just talking Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

* * * *

Ethics:

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending,

and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior". The field of ethics, along with aesthetics,

concerns matters of value, and thus comprises the branch of philosophy called axiology.

Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil,

right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy

also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Ethics is the luxury of a full belly and a safe harbor.

* * * *

Jesus on Prophets (Mark 6:1-6):

Jesus observed that "Prophets are not without honour,

except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Likely because they are not near as notable nor liked as their writings.

* * * *

Voltaire:

A witty saying proves nothing.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Define nothing.

* * * *

Friedrich W. Nietzsche:

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster,

for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

You are the abyss, gazing into its Self.

* * * *

New Testament (1 John 4:16):

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

And there they are in their glass cathedrals.

* * * *

New Testament (Matthew 7:6):

Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine,

lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

The horror of good intentions; do not say nobody ever warned you.

* * * *

Albert Camus:

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

And if you don’t do it, or can’t do it, yourself; the Reaper will be along shortly.

* * * *

Jesus on Prophets (Mark 6:1-6):

Jesus observed that "Prophets are not without honour,

except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

That asshole!? You think he's a prophet!? Pfft, yeah right, and have I got a bridge for you.

* * * *

Henry Gee:

To paraphrase Lehrer, if we are going to write about human extinction, we’d better start writing now.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Thank the gods I will be bye-bye with roaring falls,

Still relatively distant for this breath’s point and purpose.

* * * *

Matthew 7:16:

By their deeds you will know them. Does a man gather grapes from thorns or figs from briars?

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

So, no deeds; no thorns, no briars, no worries.

* * * *

Jesus on Prophets (Mark 6:1-6):

Jesus observed that "Prophets are not without honour,

except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Good way to hide out, stay anonymous, avoid the bothers of any variety of vain notion.

* * * *

Voltaire:

A witty saying proves nothing.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

A spiked club tends to be much more effective.

* * * *

Ancient Proverb:

Familiarity Breed Contempt.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Keep everyone an arm’s length or so, if you want them in your life, that is.

* * * *

Thucydides:

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public,

but was done to last forever.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Whatever forever is.

* * * *

Daito Kokushi:

Wishing to entice the blind, the Buddha has playfully let words escape his golden mouth.

Heaven and earth are ever since filled with entangling briars.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

… Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! … Well-intentioned briars … Thank you, thank you … Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! …

* * * *

A Philosophical Question:

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

What tree?

* * * *

Matthew 5:29:

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:

for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish,

and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Who comes up with this bullshit?! And who believes it?

* * * *

Alexander Pope’s ‘An Essay on Man’:

Hope spring eternal.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Hope springs delusional.

* * * *

Merrit Hulst:

Without history, we are nothing.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Even with history, we are nothing.

* * * *

Thirteenth century proverb:

For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

For want of a pen, an insight was lost.

* * * *

Dirty Harry (a.k.a., Clint Eastwood), Magnum Force:

A man’s got to know his limitations.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

A species has got to know its limitations.

* * * *

Hippocratic Oath:

First do no harm.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Tell that to a good friend of mine, who could, as soon as he walked through the entrance,

Hear his mother, on her death bed in a residential care facility, waiting for her next morphine shot,

Screaming in unutterable pain, because the powers that be were concerned that she might get addicted.

* * * *

Charles Darwin:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.

It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Hear! Hear!

It may or may not have been Charles Darwin who penned it, but it is true, nonetheless.

* * * *

Genesis 1:27:

In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

You are imagination, imagining this mind-body, this slab of meat, real and important.

* * * *

Jesus on Prophets (Mark 6:1-6):

Jesus observed: Prophets are not without honour,

except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

They have known him in the daily routine of his life,

And he has never been all they would hope, all they would expect, a prophet to be.

You cannot carnival-trick or cult your way out of that bag.

* * * *

Kurt Vonnegut:

History, read it and weep.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Weep? Bawl and whimper, is more like it.

* * * *

Kurt Vonnegut:

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far,

but I think it’s a very poor scheme for survival.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Hear! Hear!

* * * *

Michael Gorbachev:

Nature is my god.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Nature is God’s manifestation. I am Nature. Therefore I am God.

* * * *

1 Corinthians 13:11:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Cupid, Saint Patrick, Father Time …

And yes, Jesus, too.

* * * *

Albert Camus:

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Don’t I know it.

* * * *

Two Monks and a Woman – A Zen Story:

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together.

At one point, they came to a river with a strong current.

As the monks were preparing to cross the river,

they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross.

The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.

The two monks glanced at one another, because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.

Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river,

placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his journey.

The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened.

After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.

Two more hours passed, then three.

Finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out,

“As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The older monk looked at him and replied,

“Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

So, what are you still carrying?

* * * *

Napoleon Bonaparte:

Imagination rules the world.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

But does it rule You?

* * * *

Mark 6:1-6:

Jesus observed that "Prophets are not without honour,

except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Yup.

* * * *

Ancient Proverb:

Might Makes Right

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Might may make right, but it does not make truth.

* * * *

Voltaire:

A witty saying proves nothing.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Neither do astute nor shrewd nor judicious nor dull ones.

In fact, neither maxim, nor any book, thick with knowledge, proves anything, either.

Only gunpowder and steel truly govern what the Fates ordain.

High or low, all must endure the way it is

Might always make right.

Darwin lives.

* * * *

Rumi:

You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the entire ocean in a drop.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

You are not a drop in the mystery; you are the entire mystery in a drop.

* * * *

Ramana Maharshi:

Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may.

Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it.

This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.

Yaj Ekim’s Corollary:

Be a lot easier if I had spent my entire adult existence,

sitting homeless in a loincloth in an ashram near a famous mountain.

* * * *

René Descartes:

I think, therefore I am.

Yaj Ekim's Corollary:

I think, therefore I think I am.

I imagine, therefore I imagine I am.

You imagine, therefore you imagine you are.

And right-here-right-now, we all are, imagining we all, in space-time are.

An unborn-undying, unrehearsed, Shakespearian theater,

For as long as imagination draws breath.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim

http://www.thestillnessbeforetime.com/thecorollariesofyajekim.pdf