Batchelor on Beasts

More recent reading.

Susan’s behomoth brought this to mind….

 

“This leaking frame is an inescapable reminder of the fragility and impersonality of our condition:  its decay, smells, aches, seizures, and breakdowns a cruel mockery of the self-contained personality we struggle to preserve.

“‘If, possessed of such a body,’ said Buddha, ‘one thinks highly of oneself and despises others—that is due to nothing other than a lack of insight.  This carnal organism, born from a mother’s womb and destined to end as dust, is the great equalizer of beings.”

“That sense of being a cut above the rest is but a shimmering flicker on the surface of the sublime animal that we are.”

—–from ‘Living with the Devil’