Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.
While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?’
One of the monks replied: ‘From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind.’
‘Your head must feel very heavy’, observed Hogen. ‘if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind.’
Boundaries are the invisible lines and limits we set to define what’s acceptable in our relationships, protecting our physical, emotional, and mental well-being by establishing rules for our space, time, feelings, and resources, helping build trust, safety, and respect while maintaining self-care and personal autonomy. They can be physical, emotional, material, or time-based, allowing us to say “no” and control our own lives without being overly rigid or too porous in interactions with others.
“In a recent Ditch the Label study, we spoke to 7,347 people about bullying. We asked respondents to define bullying and then later asked if, based on their own definition, they had ever bullied anybody. 14% of our overall sample, so that’s 1,239 people, said yes. What we then did was something that had never been done on this scale before; we asked them intimate questions about their lives, exploring things like stress and trauma, home lives, relationships and how they feel about themselves.”
Real Prosperity A rich man asked Sengai to write something for the continued prosperity of his family so that it might be treasured from generation to generation.
Sengai obtained a large sheet of paper and wrote: “Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.”
The rich man became angry. “I asked you to write something for the happiness of my family! Why do you make such a joke of this?”
“No joke is intended,” explained Sengai. “If before you yourself die your son should die, this would grieve you greatly. If your grandson should pass away before your son, both of you would be broken-hearted. If your family, generation after generation, passes away in the order I have named, it will be the natural course of life. I call this real prosperity.”
Word Series: Real Prosperity Poster. Size: 18 x 24 in. On a matte paper. Heavyweight stock.
Warren Buffett’s core principle is that you “can’t make a good deal with a bad person” because integrity and character are paramount; no contract can fully protect you from an unethical individual who enjoys loopholes and litigation, wasting time and energy, so it’s best to walk away from such partnerships to preserve peace of mind and focus on building lasting value with trustworthy, honest people.
