Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)
"The Sign and Emptiness," p. 9
The Sign and Its Children (2000), Sequence: “The Supreme Sign”
Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)
Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist
from: English Wikipedia, Joan Miró, 1958, as quoted in Twentieth-Century Artists on Art, ed. Dore Ashton, 1986
1940 - 1960
“In a full heart there is room for everything. In an empty heart there is room for nothing.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
En una alma llena cabe todo y en una alma vacía no cabe nada.
Voces (1943)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)
1960s, Memorial Day speech (1963)
Context: It is empty to plead that the solution to the dilemmas of the present rests on the hands of the clock. The solution is in our hands. Unless we are willing to yield up our destiny of greatness among the civilizations of history, Americans — white and Negro together — must be about the business of resolving the challenge which confronts us now.
“He who has seen everything empty itself is close to knowing what everything is filled with.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
Quien ha visto vaciarse todo, casi sabe de qué se llena todo.
Voces (1943)
“She was pointing into the empty, angel-less heavens beyond.
Everything else. The universe.”
Alastair Reynolds book Terminal World
Source: Terminal World (2010), Chapter 30 (p. 550; closing words)
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion.”
Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory
Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author
The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975) Part One : Ceylon / November 29 - December 6.
Context: Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. … The thing about this is that there is no puzzle, no problem, and really no "mystery."
All problems are resolved and everything is clear. The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya… everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. Surely with Mahabalipuram and Polonnaruwa my Asian pilgrimage has come clear and purified itself. I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise.
The whole thing is very much a Zen garden, a span of bareness and openness and evidence, and the great figures, motionless, yet with the lines in full movement, waves of vesture and bodily form, a beautiful and holy vision.