Natural scenery in a camera

"This is the hardest stuff in the world to photograph. You need a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree lens, or something. You see it, and then you look down in the ground glass and it's just nothing. As soon as you put a border on it, it's gone."

- Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig 

On how a beautiful natural scenery cannot be completely captured in a camera.

Maintaining Personality

"Each machine has its own, unique personality which probably could be defined as the intuitive sum total of everything you know and feel about it.  This personality constantly changes, usually for the worse, but sometimes surprisingly for the better, and it is this personality that is the real object of motorcycle maintenance. The new ones start out as good-looking strangers and, depending on how they are treated, degenerate rapidly into bad-acting grouches or even cripples, or else turn into healthy, good-natured, long-lasting friends."

- Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

If somene's ungrateful

"If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything."

- Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

Difference between @Autowire and @Resource

1. @Resource is part of JSR-250. @Autowire is part of Spring framework.
2. @Resource can inject by name only(to inject into a field named "xyz" look for a bean named "xyz"). @Autowire can inject by name, type(to inject into a field/parameter of type "Abc", look for a unique bean of type "Abc") and many more.
3. @Resource can inject into a field only. @Autowire can inject into field, constructor and method parameters.
3. @Resource can inject List, Map and other Collection types. @Autowire cannot.

Sources: [1] [2]

Wave and water

" To represent the two dimensions of reality, we use the images of the wave and water. Looking at the dimension of the wave, the historical dimension, we see that the wave seems to have a beginning and an end. The wave can be high or low compared with other waves. The wave might be more or less beautiful than other waves. The wave might be there or not there; it might be there now but later not there. All these notions are there when we first touch the historical dimension: birth and death, being and nonbeing, high and low, coming and going, and so on. But we know that when we touch the wave more deeply, we touch water. The water is the other dimension of the wave. It represents the ultimate dimension.
...

If the wave is capable of touching the water within herself, if the wave can live the life of water at the same time, then she will not be afraid of all these notions: beginning and ending, birth and death, being or non-being; non-fear will bring her solidity and joy. Her true nature is the nature of no-birth and no-death, no beginning and no end. That is the nature of water."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

I have arrived, I am home

"I have arrived, I am home
In the here, in the now
I am solid, I am free
In the ultimate I dwell.

...
You can recite the poem above as you breathe in and out. You can practice this poem when you drive to your office. You may not have arrived at your office, but even while driving you have already arrived at your true home, the present moment. When you arrive at your office, this is also your true home. In your office, you are also in the here and now. Just practicing the first line of the poem, “I have arrived, I am home,” can make you very happy."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

We cannot enjoy life if we worry

"We cannot enjoy life if we spend our time and energy worrying about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow. If we’re afraid all the time, we miss out on the wonderful fact that we’re alive and can be happy right now. "

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Our real home is peace.

"This house you’re living in: You and your husband built it. Other people can build houses, too, making them large and lovely. Those are outer homes, which anyone can build. The Buddha called them outer homes, not your real home. They’re homes only in name.

Homes in the world have to fall in line with the way of the world. Some of us forget. We get a big home and enjoy living in it, but we forget our real home. Where is our real home? It’s in the sense of peace. Our real home is peace."

- Ajahn Chah Subhaddo

Gifts of time and love

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.

- Peg Bracken

Motives Leading to a Poor Conversations

1. "Wanting to win. (The) desire to win is built into our very fiber before we're old enough to know what's going on... Unfortunately, as we grow older, most of us don't realize that the desire to win is continually driving us away from healthy dialogue. We start out with the goal of resolving a problem, but as soon as someone raises the red flag of inaccuracy or challenges out correctness, we switch purposes in a heartbeat"
2. "Seeking revenge. Sometimes, as our anger increases, we move from wanting to win the point to wanting to harm the other person... (response is) Everyone immediately clams up and looks at the floor."
3. "Hoping to remain safe... Rather than add to the pool of meaning, and possibly make waves along the way, we go to silence. We're so uncomfortable with the immediate conflict that we accept the certainty of bad results to avoid the possibility of uncomfortable conversation. We choose... peace over conflict.(the objective of the conversation is not met)"

- "Crucial Conversations - Tools for talking when stakes are high"

Maintaining Composure Under Fire

To maintain composure under fire ask yourself "what do I really want here?"

"What do I really want?... it's not to make the other person squirm or to preen in front of a crowd. I want " your actual objective of having the conversation (such as cut cost).

"When we ask ourselves what we really want,... the problem solving part of our brain recognizes that we are now dealing with intricate social issues and not physical threats."

"Once you've asked yourself what you want, add one more equally telling question:

How would I behave if I really wanted these results?"

- "Crucial Conversations - Tools for talking when stakes are high"

Work on Me First

'Although it's true that there are times when we are merely bystanders in life's never-ending stream of head-on collisions, rarely are we completely innocent... People who are best at dialogue understand this simple fact and turn it into the principle "Work on me first."...As much as others may need to change, or we may want them to change, the only person we can continually inspire, prod, and shape--with any degree of success--is the person in the mirror...People who believe they need to start with themselves...become the most skilled at dialogue. It's the most talented, not the least talented, who are continually trying to improve their dialogue skills.'

- "Crucial Conversations - Tools for talking when stakes are high"

Difficulty with Crucial Conversations

"We either anticipate a crucial conversation or are in the middle of one and we're at our absolute worst -- we  yell; we withdraw; we say things we later regret... That's because emotions don't exactly prepare us to converse effectively. Countless generations of genetic shaping drive humans to handle crucial conversations with flying fists and fleet feet, not intelligent persuasion and gentle attentiveness... Tow tiny organs seated neatly atop your kidneys pump adrenaline into your bloodstream. You don't choose to do this. Your adrenal glands do it, and then you have to live with it... Your brain diverts blood... (and) the higher level reasoning sections of your brain get less (blood). As a result, you end up facing challenging conversations with the same equipment available to a rhesus monkey."

- "Crucial Conversations - Tools for talking when stakes are high"

When Talking Turns Tough

When talking turns tough, do we pause, take a deep breath, announce to out innerselves, "Uh-oh, this discussion is crucial. I'd better pay close attention" and then trot out our best behavior(minding one's Ps and Qs)?

- "Crucial Conversations - Tools for talking when stakes are high"

Pattern of Behavior in Conversations

"If you handle even a seemingly insignificant conversation poorly, you establish a pattern of behavior that shows up in all of your crucial conversations."

- "Crucial Conversations - Tools for talking when stakes are high"

Effects of Communication Failure

"The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison,drivel(Silly nonsense) and misrepresentation.
-- C. Northcote Parkinson"

- "Crucial Conversations - Tools for talking when stakes are high"

Appealing for not being famous

"It is a kind of nowhere, (place where the author is riding his bike) famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that "

- Robert M. Pirsig in "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance"

Work to become, Not to Acquire

"Work to become, Not to Acquire"

- Elbert Hubbard

"Real peace of mind must come through inner mental strength."

"Money is the top most important (thing) for value of our life. This is, I think, wrong. The material facility can provide only physical comfort. Through physical comfort mental satisfaction is false, delusion. Real peace of mind must come through inner mental strength."


- Dalai Lama

When the could of danger hovers, then its shadow dims the mind

"When the could of danger hovers, then its shadow dims the mind."
- Toru Dutt