Beauty & Truth Lab

August 4, 2026 at 02:33PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DboieMIknpq/

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August 3, 2026 at 09:29PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbmtVe9lCeJ/

Meme quotes on the internet are not completely suspect, but they are sufficiently suspect to rouse our eternal vigilance. . One of my favorite corrective sources for Fake Buddha Quotes says: Lots of people tell me it’s unspiritual to be concerned about Fake Buddha Quotes. The Buddha, surely, would not be troubled by such things? Surely he, as a really cool, chill guy, would just shrug it off? . From the scriptures we have, it seems he wouldn’t. He was very concerned about being misquoted. It was a cause of disharmony, and would lead to the “disappearance of the true Dharma [teaching].” Misquote enough, and peoples’ understanding of the teachings drifts and warps, until what they’re doing can’t take them to enlightenment. . fakebuddhaquotes.com . August 2, 2026 at 10:34AM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/Dbi9kNLGM2O/

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All mt favorite places . Image is from @thishowthingswork July 30, 2026 at 12:42PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/Dbbd2cLDwQl/

Ursula K. Le Guin says: Please bring strange things. Please come bringing new things. Let very old things come into your hands. Let what you do not know come into your eyes. . Let desert sand harden your feet. Let the arch of your feet be the mountains. Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps and the ways you go be the lines on your palms. Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing and your outbreath be the shining of ice. . May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words. May you smell food cooking you have not eaten. May the spring of a foreign river be your navel. May your soul be at home where there are no houses. Walk carefully, well loved one, walk mindfully, well loved one, walk fearlessly, well loved one. Return with us, return to us, be always coming home. . + . Art by Lari Washburn July 30, 2026 at 09:18AM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbbGgjMFCHr/

July 29, 2026 at 12:53PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbY6TfPklKQ/

I protest and reject this quote, usually attributed to Rumi. The notion that silence represents pure, undiluted divine communication, while all other forms of expression constitute degraded approximations, strikes me as weird, wrong, and pretentious. . This quote proposes that the Divine Source, which I personally call the Goddess, speaks most authentically in the void between sounds. . Everything else is somehow inferior, a corruption of the original silent message: the cry of a newborn, the song of a mockingbird at dawn, the crash of waves against rocks, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the “I love you” between partners. . I reject this mystical elitism. . The ranking of silence over sound rests on a dualism I distrust, in which spirit is purer than matter and the ineffable outranks the effable. . Nope. This is the old transcendence trap, the notion that we must escape the messy, noisy realm of embodied existence to access authentic spirituality. . Read more here: tinyurl.com/SilenceNotAlwaysGolden . July 28, 2026 at 12:32PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbWTECqD_Xj/

July 27, 2026 at 11:03AM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbTkHLZmLjK/

Read what I’ve written about Uranus in Gemini: tinyurl.com/UranusThroughGemini July 26, 2026 at 04:02PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbRhjZMDz3O/

July 26, 2026 at 01:36PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbRQ29vEthp/

You Reading This, Be Ready - by William Stafford . Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air? . Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts? . When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you found; carry into evening all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life–– . What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this room, when you turn around? July 25, 2026 at 10:15AM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbOVAuQlBxI/

July 24, 2026 at 12:27PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbL_XhDjx4A/

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July 21, 2026 at 08:32PM via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/DbFIdEJFEbi/