Two ways we avoid obligations
Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 04:12PM With the idea of obligation in mind I recently echoed a thought of Mark Twain's on the difference between work and play; here Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying has a few vaguely similar thoughts regarding the nature of laziness:
“There are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practised in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time at all to confront the real issues. This form of laziness lies in our failure to choose worthwhile applications for our energy.”

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