José “Pepe” Mujica

“And tomorrow, like everyone, I’ll be a pile of worms and disappear.”

“Either you’re happy with very little, free of all that extra luggage, because you have happiness inside, or you don’t get anywhere! I am not advocating poverty. I am advocating sobriety.”

“We have invented a mountain of superfluous needs. Shopping for new, discarding the old. That’s a waste of our lives! When I buy something, or you buy something, you’re not paying money for it. Your paying with the hours of life you had to spend earning that money. The difference is life is one thing money can’t buy. Life only gets shorter. And it is pitiful to waste one’s life and freedom that way.”

“What I do recommend is that we stop wasting resources on useless things, on luxuries houses that require six servants to maintain. What good is all that? What good is it? None of that is necessary. We can live much more modestly. We can spend our resources on things that are really important for everyone.”

José “Pepe” Mujica
former President of Uruguay
Photo’s source:
http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/02/150227_uruguay_mujica_10_frases_irm

“Man may very well be the only animal capable of self-destruction.”

“Human nature is constructed in such a way that you end up learning much more from suffering than form a life of ease. That does not mean that I recommend a quest for suffering, or anything like that. But this is what I want to make people understand: You can always pick yourself up again. It’s always worth it starting from zero again, once, or a thousand times, as long as you’re still alive. That’s the biggest lesson in life. In other word, you are not defeated until you give up the fight. You give up the fight by giving up the dream. Fighting, dreaming, being down on the ground, confronting reality that’s what gives meaning to existence, to the lives we lead.”

“You can’t live life when you nurse a grudge. And you can’t live going in circles.”

“You have to learn to pack up your scars and keep going, headed for the future. If I spend my time licking my wounds, I’m not moving forward. I see life as the road that lies ahead. What counts is tomorrow.”

Way of the Cross - Seventh station

Mario Girotti alias Terence Hill as Pietro (Un passo dal cielo),
on his character's personal Way of the Cross (S01 E12-  La lacrima del gigante)
Source of the photo: https://www.facebook.com/TerenceHilltelefilm2000oggi/

Seventh station: Jesus falls for the second time

“The tradition that Jesus fell three times beneath the weight of the Cross evokes the fall of Adam – the state of fallen humanity – and the mystery of Jesus’ own sharing in our fall. Throughout history the fall of man constantly takes on new forms. In his First Letter, Saint John speaks of a threefold fall: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. He thus interprets the fall of man and humanity against the backdrop of the vices of his own time, with all its excesses and perversions. But we can also think, in more recent times, of how a Christianity which has grown weary of faith has abandoned the Lord: the great ideologies, and the banal existence of those who, no longer believing in anything, simply drift through life, have built a new and worse paganism, which in its attempt to do away with God once and for all, have ended up doing away with man. And so man lies fallen in the dust. The Lord bears this burden and falls, over and over again, in order to meet us. He gazes on us, he touches our hearts; he falls in order to raise us up.”

(Joseph Ratzinger’s Way of the Cross meditation, Colosseum, 2005)

Source of the text:
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2005/documents/ns_lit_doc_20050325_via-crucis_en.html

Dalai Lama XIV: The paradox of our times

Is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers
Wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints

Dalai Lama XIV
(Tenzin Gyatso)
Source of the photo:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendzin_Gyaco

We spend more, but we have less.

We have bigger houses, but smaller families
More conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees, but less sense
More knowledge, but less judgement
More experts, but more problems
More medicines, but less wellness.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often
We have learnt how to make a living, but not a life.
We have added years to life, but not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back
But have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour.
We have conquered outer space, but not inner space.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted our soul.
We've split the atom, but not our prejudice.
We've higher incomes, but lower morals.
We've become long on quantity but short on quality.

These are the times of tall men, and short character;
Steep profits, and shallow relationships.
These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare,
More leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.

These are the days of two incomes, but more divorces;
Of fancier houses, but broken homes.
It is a time when there is much in the show window, and nothing in the stockroom.

A time when technology can bring this letter to you,

And a time when you can choose,

Either to make a difference.... or just hit, delete.

Source: http://www.swaraj.org/paradoxdalai.htm