The Void, of which it cannot be said that it is or is not, nor that it has consciousness or has none, while it denies absoluteness to any experiential value (alike to being and to consciousness) cannot be identified. And that is the doctrine of not-self (anatta) as I see it in one aspect at present. This voidness cannot be “is-ed” and so introduced into the worldly scheme, except as the denial of absoluteness of all particular values. It has no more effect on ordinary life than the theory of relativity. But just as that theory completely alters calculation of enormous speeds, so, as I see it, this void-element completely alters calculations of extraordinary situations, of death (as killing, suicide or the partner of old age). N.T

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Life's perfect representation


That is why I never feel so close to the truth, so initiated into its secrets, as on the rare occasion when I go to the theatre or the circus: then I know that I'm finally watching life's perfect representation. And the actors and actress, the clowns and magicians, are important and futile things, like the sun and the moon, love and death, the plague, hunger and war among humanity. Everything is theatre. Is it truth I want?

Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Disquiet
translation: Richard Zenith
p. 291
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