{"id":316,"date":"2008-11-10T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2008\/11\/maxims-you-dont-agree-with.html"},"modified":"2008-11-10T12:00:49","modified_gmt":"2008-11-10T12:00:49","slug":"maxims-you-dont-agree-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/11\/maxims-you-dont-agree-with.html","title":{"rendered":"Maxims you don’t agree with"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen, I hope you’ll excuse the title. I couldn’t bring myself to title the post “Maxims with which you don’t agree.” Hey, it’s a blog, right?<\/em>
\nThe last few years I’ve gotten fond of collecting aphorisms, particularly when they seem to resonate with dharma. I came across the following Mark Twain quote recently:<\/p>\n

    Don’t part with your illusions; when they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.<\/strong>
    \n(from Following the Equator<\/em>, ch. 66, \u201cPudd\u2019nhead Wilson\u2019s New Calendar,\u201d 1897)<\/ol>\n

    Twain certainly provoked me. He points to something I’ve been a little conflicted about, because on some level his words really reasonate with my experience, and at the same time they seem rather adharmic<\/em> (undharmic, that is). I thought that when we parted from our illusions, we ceased to exist, and began to live!
    \n
    \nI suppose Twain’s quote resonates with me because I do feel like I’ve always drawn a lot of vitality from my illusions, fantasies, reveries, flights of fancy\u2014the whole gang. When I part from them, life does in fact often seem flat. Do I simply need to part a little more? Or part with more subtle, less fun illusions?
    \nAnd then there’s advice I think I’ve heard from teachers who’ve said we don’t need to give up our illusions, we just need to recognize them as such. I think I can do that sometimes. Sort of. Uh, maybe.
    \nSo I’m sitting with this one.
    \nAre there any popular maxims that completely rub you the wrong way?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ellen, I hope you’ll excuse the title. I couldn’t bring myself to title the post “Maxims with which you don’t agree.” Hey, it’s a blog, right? The last few years I’ve gotten fond of collecting aphorisms, particularly when they seem to resonate with dharma. I came across the following Mark Twain quote recently: Don’t part…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\nMaxims you don't agree with - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/11\/maxims-you-dont-agree-with.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maxims you don't agree with - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ellen, I hope you’ll excuse the title. 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He lives in New York City, where he is also a member of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York. He has undertaken advanced study over the past few years at the Rime Shedra Rime of New York City, the Mipham Academy under Khenpo Gawang, and the Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/gzwahlen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}