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Quote by Sol Luckman

“Conflicts are, of course, an inevitable part of life. When dissension arises and testosterone runs high, our instinctual response is to defend our point of view by proving the other party wrong. But as with fighting back unnecessarily, this stubborn approach rarely leads to resolution and often fans the flames of conflict.”

Quote by Sol Luckman

Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

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Sol Luckman

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“Death resists all comparison and simile. This is something I learned in my first year at Rassambur. To say death is like a land beyond the sea or like an endless scream is to miss the point. Death is not like anything. There is no craft analogous to Ananshael’s work. The truest response to his mystery and majesty is silence. On the other hand, to remain silent is to encourage the fantasies of the uninitiate— skulls brimming with blood, graveyard orgies, infants dangling like impractical chandeliers from the ceilings of candlelit caverns— and so maybe an imperfect analogy is better than none at all. Take a grape. The purple skin is muted, as if by mist or fog. Polish it, or not, then pop it into your mouth. The flesh is firm beneath the cool smooth skin. If you find yourself becoming aroused, stop. Start your imagining over. The grape is a grape. Imagine it properly, or this will not work. Now. What does the grape taste like? A grape tastes like a grape? Of course not. Until you bite the grape, it has no taste. It might as well be a stone lifted from the cold current of some river in autumn: a smooth, chill orb, reticent, flavorless. You could hold it trapped between your palate and tongue forever, with only the faintest hint of juice at the tiny breech where it was plucked from the stem. You are like that grape— plump with slick, rich sweetness, with wet purple life. The truth of life is the grape's truth: only when jaws bite down, when the skin splits, when the sun-cold flesh explodes onto the tongue does it matter. Without the moment of its own destruction, the grape is just a smooth, colorful stone. Without the foreknowledge of the woman who holds it in her hand, her anticipation, before it even passes her lips, of the mangled skin and the sweet life draining over the tongue, the grape would hold no savor… We are not stones. Our human skin is thin, the life inside us bright. And death? The god I serve? He is the jaw locked around us, the promise of a sweet purple destruction without which we would be no more than so much polished rock.”

LifeTruthDeathHumanitySilenceMortalityMemento Mori
Book:Skullsworn
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“Nonreaction isn’t about ignoring the problem or suppressing your emotions, but about choosing a more skillful and, dare I say, more eloquent response. It’s about recognizing that your silence can be more disarming than any logical (or illogical) argument.”

SilenceEmotionsArgumentEloquenceConflict ResolutionMastery Of OneselfPower Of SilenceWinning An ArgumentPersonal BoundariesNonreaction
Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“In his moments of lucidity, which would later become increasingly rare and painful, he suggested an explanation of what was happening to him: “I am a guilty man. That is why I am being punished like Abuya's heretical sons, I gazed when I should not have gazed and turned my eyes away when I should not have. I saw a sin committed… a crime…I could have, I should have, done something, called out, shouted, struck a blow. I forgot our precepts, our laws, that require an individual to struggle against evil wherever it appears. I forgot that we can never simply remain spectators, we have no right to stand aside, to keep silent, to let the victim fight the aggressor alone. I forgot so many things that day…That is why I am forgetting other things now. Can there be anything worse than that?” Yes, there was worse, there is worse: to forget that one has forgotten.”

SinSilenceGuiltAgingMemoryForgettingDementiaMemory LossLucidity
Book:The Forgotten
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“In the context of conflict resolution, wu wei encourages us to approach disagreements with a sense of controlled (but not controlling) detachment. Instead of imposing our will or trying to micromanage the outcome, we learn to flow with the present moment and allow the situation to resolve itself naturally. This doesn’t mean being passive or indifferent. The practice of wu wei … is about finding a delicate balance between action and inaction. We speak our truth when necessary, but we also recognize when silence is the more prudent and persuasive course of action.”

SilenceBalanceSelf ControlDetachmentConflict ResolutionArgumentsDisagreementsMicromanagementWu WeiPower Of Silence
Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“Meditation brings a revolution of our innermost being. As we go deeper into the silence of our inner being, desires disappears. Desires exists only on the surface of our consciousness. They are like waves existing on the surface of our consciousness. When you dive deeper into the ocean of our consciousness there are no waves. Then you can come back to the surface of our consciousness, but you cannot lose contact with the center of our inner being. Then you can remain in the world, in the marketplace, and yet remain in tremendous silence. One can be in the crowd, and yet be absolutely alone. One can act with love, silence, joy, truth, freedom and creativity, but without any tension. This is the most fundamental thing for a meditator to be in the world, and yet to not be of it. It is to be in the world, but not allow the world to be in you. Then the whole world becomes a stage, and all relationships become a great drama. Then the meditator becomes the center of the cyclone.”

ConsciousnessSilenceMeditationDesires
Book:The Way of the Heart
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