One of the easiest human acts is also the most healing. Listening to someone. Simply listening. Not advising or coaching, but silently and fully listening.
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
I look like I'm not listening, but I'm actually listening. I like listening to everything, observing everybody, just taking everything in, and then, in my mind, figuring out what's good for me and what's bad for me.
I was listening to all those lyrics and trying to take in everything that was happening. I was completely excited. It was one of the greatest times that I had listening to music.
I start listening to something, or I'm seeing somebody a lot or seeing their art. And then I just really want to make a picture of them.
No longer in a relational universe, can we study anything as separate from ourselves. Our acts of observation are part of the process that brings forth the manifestation of what we are observing.
When you're listening to music, you listen to it with a friend one day and it sounds one way. You listen to it with another friend the next day, and it sounds a little different. Sometimes the greatest pleasure of listening is not the music that you're listening to; it's the person that you're listening to it with.
Science and art have in common intense seeing, the wide-eyed observing that generates empirical information.
The Gong Show was the greatest scam of all time. It was simple: We wanted to do a talent show. There weren't any venues for acts back then. We were gonna have a show of new, fresh, good acts. But we couldn't find any; they were all lousy. So rather than throw away the idea, I said, "Let's reverse it. Let's do lousy acts." Now, is that a scam? I'm telling you.
I'm listening to early Cash Money, I'm listening to Juvenile, I'm listening to Waka Flocka, I'm listening to Lil B, I'm listening to Brandy, Kanye - that's my home playlist.
The banishment for life of Pete Rose from baseball is a sad end if a sorry episode. One of the game's greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts. There is absolutely no deal for reinstatement.
Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
Listening is not merely hearing, it is receiving the message that is being sent to you. Listening is reacting. Listening is being affected by what you hear. Listening is letting it land before you react. Listening is letting your reaction make a difference. Listening is active.
Sometimes the greatest love is not found in the dramatic scenes that poets and writers immortalize. Often, the greatest manifestations of love are the simple acts of kindness and caring we extend to those we meet along the path of life.
In New York, you are forced into having very public lives and observing all types of people, what they sound like, what they're reading, what they smell like, what they are listening to, how they talk to their friends.
I began observing, making paintings of my surroundings, taking a vow of silence, listening, composing music, writing, and making time for formal education. Then I started telling stories.