Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #61 a new feature for the weekend ... introduction

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday December 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Meteorological seen winter is starting on December 1st, so reason for me to create a new CDHK Weekend Meditation logo for Winter. I hope you like it.
As you all know the hospital were I was working has gone in bankruptcy, so that gave me some time to create a few new features. One of them I announced already (Basho's School), but today I have another beautiful feature for you all. Let me give you the title of this new feature and an explanation of it. It's a long title (sorry):

Carpe Diem Dives Into The Classical Literature and asks "is it possible to create haiku, tanka or other form of Japanese poetry from it?"

What is the goal of this new feature for our weekend meditation? Every episode I will give you a piece of classical literature, for example Plato or Socrates, and tell you a little background. Your task is to create Japanese poetry inspired on the given text. A kind of "distillation" so to say.

For this first episode I have chosen a nice part of Plato's "The Republic":

[...] "I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is--I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,--are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on--Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter."[...] (Plato's The Republic)

Plato (427 BC - ?)

A nice piece of literature I think, but can you distil haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form from it? I am looking forward to your responses.

This episode is open for your submissions next Sunday December 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 9th at noon (CET).

From today I will use the new linking widget of Mr.Linky. Please respond within 7 days, because this new linking widget has no start or end - date, that's the only thing I don't love about this Mr Linky, so please respond within the 7 days I always give you.

Have a great weekend.

Carpe Diem #1384 Afterlife ...?

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

If I had known how difficult it would be to create this month than I had given it a thought again, because it's difficult to create this month. I have read the Quran, as a wonderful book of wisdom, but I also experience a kind of doubtfulness, because I am a little sceptic about the idea that the Quran was given to Muhammed by God the Almighty. I for sure have doubts on that idea, because Islam is a very young religion (born in the 7th century CE) and there are to much similarities between the Quran and other holy books. But as I stated in earlier posts I respect the idea that the Quran was given to Muhammed.

Because of my doubts its very difficult to write these posts, but on the other hand I enjoy writing them. I think we have all the opportunity to question the things we experience or the books we read, or the believes around the globe. I am a spiritual being and I love everyone and everything unconditional, but sometimes ... well I think you all understand what I mean.

Today's episode is about the so called "afterlife". I ran through the Quran and found a few wonderful Ayah in several Surah about the idea of "afterlife". Maybe you can remember our special Theme Week about the "Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", or maybe you can remember what I wrote back in 2013 in that beautiful month about the Tarot. In those posts I already mentioned "afterlife" and "reincarnation". And I was a little bit surprised to read about the "afterlife" in the Quran. The ideas about "afterlife" are almost the same as I know them from the Bible, or from the Hindu and Buddhism ideas I have read about. So there is a source, a well, from which all those ideas flow and that makes the idea that Muhammed compiled the Quran from all other religions and philosophies a bit stronger. I even think that all known and unknown religions have the same roots ... nature and how mankind looked at it and learned from it. How mankind was honoring and praising nature, because isn't that the true religion ... nature?

Nature ... source of all religions

Well ... that was my introduction, let me now share the verses of the Quran that I mentioned above.

[...] "Until, when death comes to one of them, he says, “My Lord, send me back. That I may do right in what I have neglected.” By no means! It is just a word that he utters. And behind them is a barrier, until the Day they are resurrected. When the Horn is blown, no relations between them will exist on that Day, and they will not ask after one another. Those whose scales are heavy—those are the successful. But those whose scales are light—those are they who have lost their souls; in Hell they will dwell forever." [...](Source: Surah 23: Ayah 99-103)

What does this mean, I found a wonderful website that gave a nice explanation of these verses.

[...] "This ayah describes the end of worldly life as we know it and the immediate thing that will happen afterwards. The end of this life will begin with the blowing of Horn. Once the Horn is blown, it will stand as a signal for the start of Judgment procedure and what happens afterwards is the weighing of the deeds of a person. The ones who have deeds heavy than their sins are the ones who are successful and will go on to the heaven and the ones who are on the contrary will go to hell. It is the latter, who will then beg to Allah to send them back to world so that they could do good deeds, but by then it will be too late for them and they will have nothing but the eternal life of damnation." [...] (Source: Qurantutor)

Higher Self

In addition to the life after death that each and everyone of us will have, there is an exception as well. It is of the people who die in the name of God. Such Muslims are called ‘Martyrs’ and as per Islamic doctrines the martyrs don’t die once their worldly body ceases to breathe, rather they are the ones who keep on living even before the Judgment day forever. Regarding them, God says in Quran:

[...] "Do not consider those killed in the cause of God as dead. In fact, they are alive, at their Lord, well provided for."[...] (Source: Surah 4: Ayah 169)

[...] "The belief in the life of martyrs soon after death is another example that ascertains the belief of a Muslim that with the end of this life the life does not end, rather, we go into the next life and start living it. Therefore, a Muslim is never to grow skeptic of the life that comes after death, rather one needs to prepare for it and spend the hours and minutes of this life in performing good deeds so that when the Day of Judgment comes, the scale stays heavier on the good deeds and consequently Jannah (or paradise) is awarded to the Muslim.

The problem of what happens after the tomb is one of the absolute problems that has been haunting mankind since its existence. In this regard, perhaps the most satisfying answer is provided by Islam where it tells people that life does not end, rather a new life begins and that is the life that is in the environment which man is destined to live in, however, to achieve that a person has to do good with this life and spend it in the right way." [...] (Source: qurantutor)

Jannah (Paradise) (Persian miniature)

In these verses we can read that in Islam there is an idea about reincarnation, as we know it from Buddhism or Hinduism, when you didn't reach your life's goal as given to you by God, Spirit, Higher Self or what ever you call it. In the idea of "afterlife" I think all religions find eachother. Isn't that a great idea? Maybe ... just maybe all the religions and philosophies will once see that and will leave their differences and find eachother in the love of God.

fountain of life
eternal river of youth
paradise

© Chèvrefeuille

phoenix spreads its wings

after the dark cold winter night

finally spring

© Chèvrefeuille (2017-06)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 14th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on.

Carpe Diem #1315 Scheme of Things

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I will take a few days of, but of course I will not leave you without your daily dose of CDHK. I have created the last few episodes of this month and the first of December already and scheduled them for the right time of publishing. I have a very busy week to come and I just had to make a choice to were my priority is. This week that's at my work, so ...
Yesterday I gave you a short episode and the upcoming episodes will be short too. Only the quatrains and my own thoughts about them.

So here is our new episode titled "Scheme of Things":

Ah Love ! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits - and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire !

© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald)

A wonderful expression of how most of us feel!

Heart's Desire (René Bull)

desire
your heart beats
with mine

© Chèvrefeuille (experimental haiku)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 5th at noon (CET). I will publish (scheduled) our next episode later on. Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1306 The Secret Well of Life

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Haiku Kai were we are exploring the beauty of Omar Khayyam's "The Rubaiyat" as translated by FitzGerald. "The Rubaiyat" is a compilation of 100 quatrains, but as I told you earlier this month, "The Rubaiyat" is just a small part of Khayyam's quatrains, he created around 2000 quatrains.

Today's episode I have titled "The Secret Well of Life". In my opinion "the secret well of life" is similar with the "Elixer of Life" as was the goal for the Alchemists. They not only were searching for the "Stone" to create gold, but also for the "Elixer of Life". If this is true for this quatrain we will see.

As I was preparing this month I read "The Rubaiyat" and there were several quatrains in which Khayyam uses "earthen bowls" or "pots". In this quatrain that's also a theme.

Earthen Pots (this is one of the first logos I used by the way)

Let me give you the quatrain for today and after that the background (source: bob forrest):

Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmured - "While you live
Drink ! - for once dead you never shall return.

© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald)

Background:

This is the first of many references to earthen bowls or pots, which for Omar Khayyam are both drinking vessels and symbolic of people (via Adam being made from clay or earth; hence earth to earth, ashes to ashes etc.) In some cases, he pictures the Clay from which an Earthen Vessel is made as being that formed from the body of some long-dead person which has turned back into earth again. Here, in drinking from the bowl, the poet’s lip presses on the lip of the bowl. Here again we have Omar’s philosophy, repeated throughout the poem, but here expressed by the earthen wine bowl, “Drink! – for once dead you never shall return!”

The following lines by Hafiz involve not only the image of the cup of mortal clay touching the lips of the living, but also other Omarian images of the transience of Kings and of flowers growing from the dust of the dead or from their spilt blood. The translation is from Gertrude Bell's Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (1897), poem 26:

...Time's revolving sphere
Over a thousand lives like thine has rolled.
That cup within thy fingers, dost not hear
The voices of dead kings speak through the clay?
Kobad, Bahman, Djemshid, their dust is here.
'Gently upon me set thy lips!' they say.

What man can tell where Kaus and Kai have gone?
Who knows where even now the restless wind
Scatters the dust of Djem's imperial throne?
And where the tulip, following close behind
The feet of Spring, her scarlet chalice rears,
There Ferhad for the love of Sherin pined,
Dyeing the desert red with his tears.

© Hafiz

(The forbidden love between the lowly Ferhad and the princess Sherin is an old Persian love story. Ferhad killed himself in the desert when he was tricked into believing that Sherin was dead. Hearing of Ferhad's death, Sherin also killed herself, and subsequently the two were buried together.)

Ferhad and Shirin (a Persian lovestory)

The Persian love-story about Ferhad and Shirin is similar with that tragedy created by Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. It's a forbidden love, because Shirin is a princess and Ferhad is just a low-ranked man. As Ferhad dies, Shirin takes her own life, because she cannot live with Ferhad.

The title of this episode is extracted from the quatrain used and it can also refer to that strong love as mentioned in the story of Ferhad and Shirin. Isn't love the secret well of life?

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 22nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1299 Snow On The Desert

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy to create another episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai, the place to be if you like to write and share Japanese poetry. This month it's all about the beauty of quatrains created by Omar Khayyam, a 12th century poet and scholar from Persia (nowadays Iran). I remember that we had a whole month full of beautiful Persian poetry and it was really a joy to create that month. I hope (of course) that this month about another great Persian poet will be as succesful.

"The Rubaiyat" is a compilation of about 100 quatrains, but Khayyam wrote around 2000 of those quatrains, but this month we will look only at "The Rubaiyat". I will try to give you some background (with the use of several sources) on the quatrains we will read and I hope I can inspire you.

Snow On The Desert

Todays episode I have titled "Snow On The Desert", and as every title this month, it's extracted from the quatrain I use. "Snow On The Desert", seems extraordinary, because it will not occur very often I think, but as I sought for images to use I ran into several images with "snow on the desert", so it seems that this is more often the case than I thought.

Okay ... time for a new quatrain to work with ... and I hope I have made the right choice for your inspiration.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes – or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two – is gone

© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald)

Background:

The aims of Worldly Hope are fleeting, no matter whether that hope ends in failure (burnt to Ashes) or success (for even success is like Snow, it melts and is gone all too soon.) Everything is transient.

The insignificance of human “Worldly Hope” was famously captured by Keats in his poem “When I have fears that I may cease to be” (1818), in the closing lines:

....then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Longfellow was one of few poets who had a slightly more optimistic approach. In “A Psalm of Life” (1838) he wrote:

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Omar Khayyam (image found on Pinterest)

There are two views of Fame. Fame in its posthumous aspect is seen by some as one of the few ways of living on in this world after physical death, the most famous example of this view being Petrarch’s poem “The Triumph of Fame over Death”. The Roman poet Martial was not so sure of such a view. Posthumous fame is all very well, he felt, but you have to be dead to get it! In the Christian tradition, of course, “all is vanity”, so the quest for posthumous fame becomes a sin. Not only that, but in the long term even posthumous fame must fade and die with time, and so in this sense Death must ultimately triumph over Fame,

Omar Khayyam was a famous mathematician in his time for his outstanding contributions in algebra, but he wasn't renown as a poet in his time. Almost 100 years after his dead his poetry became renown, so in a way his fame for his poems was posthumous fame as described above, in the background of this quatrain.

Fame ... isn't that something we all strive for? As I started writing haiku I couldn't have dreamed that my haiku would be renown around the globe and that I would have a daily haiku meme, or better said, a daily meme on Japanese poetry. Does that mean that I have found what I was striving for? I don't know. Of course I am proud and happy that my haiku became famous, but fame? I am just a humble guy and I love to be your host and I love that my haiku became famous, but that will never change me as a person.

new life sprouts

Being famous is awesome, but it all will fade away some day and that's maybe my (new / other) goal to strive for ...

conquest of death
as snow melts away in the early spring
new life sprouts

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 13th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, another beautiful quatrain by Khayyam, later on. For now ... have fun!

(Source: wikipedia; bob forrest web)

Carpe Diem #1280 Wheel of Creation

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Let us go further on our trip along memory lane. We enter a new year in this trip and have arrived at 2015. 2015 Was a wonderful year in which we started to read more and more to seek for the Peace Within. The Peace Within was the reason why we started to read the Bhagavad Gita that wonderful chapter of the Hindu "bible", the Mahabaratha. We started reading in April 2015 and it was a real journey through Hinduism. We disputed Hinduism as the Mother of all Religions, of course just hypothetical.

The Bhagavad Gita is a really wonderful story to read. It's the heart of Hinduism. It gives a report from a conversation that Arjuna had with Krishna at the start of a great war between good and evil. Arjuna dares not to start the war, because he sees friend, relatives and family between the army of the enemy. He doesn't want to kill his beloved ones. Than Krishna teaches him the path of life.

During that month we explored nt only Hinduism, but we also tried to find connections between religions and philosophies from all around the world. We even could find connections with the Tarot and the Kabbalah.

Tree of Life (Kabbalah)

We are on our way to find Peace of Mind and Heart ... and I hope you have found that while we were reading the Bhagavad Gita.

Haiku is not only the poetry of nature, but it is also a way to find that peace. While strolling through nature we become one with nature, become part of nature (as it was once meant to be) and than we experience the beauty of our Earth. We have to cherish her beauty, Earth is the only source to find peace of mind and heart. Isn't that what we all see as our goal?

cherry blossom
long cold night
reborn

© Chèvrefeuille (experimental haiku)

Well ... I hope I didn't sound like a preacher, this was not a sermon, only a flow of thoughts ...

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until October 23rd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Suzuran, later on. Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1233 Geometric patterns

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I had planned to make an episode about geometric patterns, and I am going to do that, but another piece of art than I first had chosen. Today I have a wonderful painiting, with a lot of geometric paintings created by Dana Gordon. Let me tell you first a little bit about it:

One of the great challenges for good painters is to make bad pictures. When an artist shared this observation with me, it sounded so wrong, I realized it must be right. Most of us, of course, are simply bad painters. The great challenge for us would be to paint well, if we even paint at all. Even if we know, or think we know, what a painting should look like, we have little ability to summon up the elusive processes and talents to get there.

For good painters, the challenge is not so much how to reach some visual destination, but rather how not to reach it too quickly—or too easily. For good painters, facility can become facile. The shortcuts of the brush can miss the joys of the journey and the discoveries along the way.

Good painters therefore look for ways at redirection. They will put up roadblocks, obstruct their path, make formulas to complicate their progress. And, perhaps most importantly, once they find they can paint in a certain mode too well, they will simply stop doing it—realizing that pictorial success, overly pursued, will ultimately lead to failure.

Dana Gordon is just such an artist who matches painterly intuition with a philosophical awareness of the great history of art in which he takes part. I can think of few painters who are able to write effectively on the legacy of Camille Pissarro, as Dana has done—or have a history in creating avant-garde film, and sculpture. Dana is one of those creative originals.

Dana Gordon, Light Years (2015-16)

Look at this beautiful painting. I love the geometric patterns which Dana has used, but I also like the colors. this painting is titled "light years" and I think that's a nice title, because of the beauty it is light years away from the beauty of other modern paintings, just because he used these nice colors.

But the title of this episode, is more ... philosophical. At first I thought of the so called "sacred geometry" a philosophy who says that all and everything is the same as we look at the deeper hidden patterns. Maybe you have heard from Drunvalo Melchizedek, an ascended master, who wrote two wonderful books on "sacred geometry" titled "The Flower of Life". Several years ago, I even think back in the last century, I read his books and they were really amazing. Let me give you an idea about "The Flower of Life".

This will be a revelation, but I need a lot of words to explain it. I hope you don't mind.

Sacred Geometry (spiritual science)

What is Sacred Geometry?

Sacred geometry involves sacred universal patterns used in the design of everything in our reality, most often seen in architecture, art, and nature. The basic belief is that geometry and mathematical ratios, harmonics and proportion are also found in music, light, cosmology. It is the invisible patterns that animate our physical world much as spiritual traditions believe that the soul animates the body.

Shapes, patterns, and visual compositions have the capacity to seduce our eyes while captivating our imagination. Whether from masterful works of art or in nature, this entrancement can be so emotionally moving and awe-inspiring that people naturally associate it with transcendence, the super-natural, or spiritual. Beneath these patterns are relationships that can be measured, numbered, replicated, and defined. This mathematical yet esoteric realm of inquiry and observation known as sacred geometry will enlighten and mystify you while inviting you to change the way you look at the world.

The Golden Ratio

Also known as Phi, the Golden Mean, or the Golden Section, the Golden Ratio was revered as the mathematical law or representation of beauty by the Greeks. It is the numerical representation of infinity and an unreachable approximation. This begs one to contemplate the possibility of a transcendent number. From the Golden Rectangle comes the Fibonacci Spiral which is seen in flowers, snail shells, pinecones, and other parts of nature. The Golden Rectangle and Fibonacci Spiral are used in the crafting of musical instruments like cellos, violins, and the tones of musical scales are created using these same mathematical formulas. These formulas have been used in design and architecture going back at least 4,000 years and are seen in historic buildings like the Greek Parthenon.

The Golden Ratio (Nautilus shell)

The Flower of Life

Another very powerful symbol that is found all over the world dating back over 6,000 years and up to 10,000 years is the Flower of Life. This symbol is made of evenly-spaced, overlapping circles with six fold symmetry like a hexagon and looks like a flower, hence the name. It can be found in Egypt at the Temple of Osiris; the Forbidden City of China, synagogues in Galilee, Israel; in temples across India; in la Mezquita, Spain; Turkey, Japan and elsewhere. Leonardo da Vinci spent much time playing with and contemplating the Flower of Life’s form and used its mathematical properties in his art. Just by gazing at the symbol, or trying to count the circles will play tricks on your mind, and there is no wonder that people from ancient times to now are enamored with the Flower of Life.

Within the Flower is the Seed

The Seed of Life is a symbol found within the Flower of Life, as well as many other symbols of great significance including Metatrons Cube. These shapes called polygons are defined by having sides of equal length. This includes the cube, tetrahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron, octahedron and they represent what Plato called the 5 platonic solids. These are visible within the flower of life when straight lines are drawn to connect the center of various circles within it. It is amazing to see all of this symmetry unfold in one succinct pattern which is created by math. Since many traditions believe that circles and curves represent the feminine, while corners and straight lines represent the masculine, this symbol also shows a divine balance of both.

Sacred Geometry (an overview of all sacred geometric patterns)

Spirituality and Sacred Geometry

Higher frequencies of energy and awareness are transmitted through sacred geometry. Sacred geometry reveals that there are mathematical, or abstract patterns beneath everything that we see in the physical world. How might this relate to our own personal journey of integrating science and spirituality? Our internal beliefs create patterns that slowly ripple outward from us and manifest into real world experiences. The invisible informs the visible. Sacred geometry is a visualization and metaphor of the connectedness of all life, the interface between abstraction and physical reality. When we change the mathematical formulas, the relationships, we also change physical form. This is the teaching of many mystics. (Source: uplift)

nature
in its simple form
full of light
geometric patterns grow
everything around us

© Chèvrefeuille

Sorry for the length of this episode, but I just had to follow my heart to tell you a little bit more about the sacred geometry, as part of modern art our theme for this month. I hope you enjoyed the read and of course I hope that I have awakened your muse.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 14th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, waves, later on. For now .... have fun!

Carpe Diem #678, Happiness

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy it was to see your first haiga submissions ... it makes me really happy that we also can explore this wonderful part of the Japanese poetry ... really awesome. Today our prompt is happiness and there is a lot to say about "happiness", but I have focused on the spiritual meaning of happiness ... I found a really awesome article about happiness at Wikipedia. I love to share a part of that here:

The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius, who 2300 years ago sought to give advice to the ruthless political leaders of the warring states period, was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the "lesser self" (the physiological self) and the "greater self" (the moral self) and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage-hood. He argued that if we did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one's "vital force" with "righteous deeds", that force would shrivel up (Mencius,6A:15 2A:2). More specifically, he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues, especially through music.

Credits: Happiness

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for its own sake, unlike riches, honor, health or friendship. He observed that men sought riches, or honor, or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy. Note that eudaimonia, the term we translate as "happiness", is for Aristotle an activity rather than an emotion or a state. Thus understood, the happy life is the good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way. Specifically, Aristotle argues that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity. He arrives at this claim with the Function Argument. Basically, if it's right, every living thing has a function, that which it uniquely does. For humans, Aristotle contends, our function is to reason, since it is that alone that we uniquely do. And performing one's function well, or excellently, is one's good. Thus, the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life. Aristotle does not leave it that, however. For he argues that there is a second best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity. This second best life is the life of moral virtue.

According to St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, man's last end is happiness: "all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness." Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that happiness cannot be reached solely through reasoning about consequences of acts, but also requires a pursuit of good causes for acts, such as habits according to virtue. In turn, which habits and acts that normally lead to happiness is according to Aquinas caused by laws: natural law and divine law. These laws, in turn, were according to Aquinas caused by a first cause, or God.

Credits: Happiness (2) Oil-painting Leonid Afremov

And, because of the Buddhist background of haiku I also love to share the ideas about happiness as stated from Buddhism:

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings. For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people. Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.

simple happiness
cherry blossoms bloom again -
spring is near

© Chèvrefeuille

No haiga by me this episode, but I hope that this post on "happiness" will inspire you all to create a beautiful haiga and share it with us all.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 5th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, light, later on.

Carpe Diem #533, Forest

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today we have another great "aphorism" by Khalil Gibran from his book "Sand & Foam". As I was creating this blogpost on forest there were a few things which came in mind:
First the movie Forest Gump
Second the GW-post by Managua Gunn (you can find that GW-post HERE) Managua Gunn is in my opinion a "real" forest guy, so you have to read his GW-post another time if you want to.

My hometown is surrounded by several forests, but I am not always in the mood to visit them. Several years ago my hometown became "the most green town of The Netherlands" and that says it all I think. It's really a good place to live.

One of the (many) parks in my hometown

Ok ... back to our prompt forest for today another nice aphorism by Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese philosopher.

[...] "We were fluttering, wandering, longing creatures a thousand thousand years before the sea and the wind in the forest gave us words. Now how can we express the ancient of days in us with only the sounds of our yesterdays?" [...]

A wonderful thought I think, the forest gives us words (as you can read between the lines in e.g. the post by Managua). So I hope, once again, that the forest will give you words to express your thoughts and feelings in an all new haiku.

listen to the wind
that moves through the forests -
buzzing mosquitos

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode, which I hope that it will inspire you, is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 9th at noon (CET). I will try to post our new episode, ancestors, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your inspired haiku with us all.
!! I post this episode earlier than I do normally, but I have a busy day ... so sorry that you have to wait a bit longer before you can post !!
!! By the way ... I am hopelessly behind with commenting I will catch up a.s.a.p. !!