Dhamma Quotes

[camerata]

Buddhism is the religion that promises nothing, and delivers.

- David Chadwick

[Redhannah]

Dhamma : Give the world the best you have, and the best shall come to you..

[Joop50]

Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the void.

They do not know that their own mind IS the void.

Huang Po

Edited August 20, 2010 by Joop50

[Joop50]

Self shining presence-awareness is not the result of effort.

There is no need to try to do something with the expectation that suddenly awareness will be there.

Presence-awareness is always here and now whether it is recognized or seemingly lost.

It is not something that can be created or destroyed.

Conceptual thinking is like the cloud that seemingly blocks the sun.

Bob Adamson

Edited August 22, 2010 by Joop50

[sabaijai]

Dhamma : Give the world the best you have, and the best shall come to you..

[Joop50]

Why are you unhappy?

Because 99.9 per cent

Of everything you think,

And of everything you do,

Is for yourself -

And there isn't one.

Wei Wu Wei

[Joop50]

As for the 'I', our understanding of its nature is also mistaken.

This doesn't mean that there is no person and no desire.

When Buddha rejected the existence of a self

He meant that the self we normally conceive is not existent.

Geshe Lhundrub Sopa

[Joop50]

"Furthermore, Subhuti, in the practice of compassion and charity a disciple should be detached. That is to say, he should practice compassion and charity without regard to appearances, without regard to form, without regard to sound, smell, taste, touch, or any quality of any kind. Subhuti, this is how the disciple should practice compassion and charity. Why? Because practicing compassion and charity without attachment is the way to reaching the Highest Perfect Wisdom, it is the way to becoming a living Buddha."

Diamond Sutra

chapter 4, First alinea

[Joop50]

"Theultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not theWay. The Way is wordless. Words are Illusions."

Bodhidharma

[dutchguest]

"How I Became a Madman

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen -- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives -- I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman." I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief".

A quote from the book "The madman" (1918) by Khalil Gibran.

What has this to do with Buddhism? It is in essence the same story as Buddha told: if you can drop, transcend your conditioning, your conditioned mind, you can experience something of nature, also your own nature, in a more direct, unfiltered way. See things "as they are".

If you want to read more from Gibran, you can find it on the following website:

[sabaijai]

Attainment does not come at the moment when we are making a conscious effort to attain, because at that time we have uddhacca-kukkucca, 'distraction and worry', but rather at the unexpected moment when we relax after an apparently fruitless effort.

--Ven. Ñanavira

[Joop50]

Everything that appears is the magical play of the mind and the whole magical play of the mind is unfounded and empty.

If you realize that all events are your own mind, all visual manifestations become to be the emptiness of Dharmakaya.

Phenomenons do not record anything. It is our attachment to it that we become bound.

Cut all paranoid attachment, children of my heart.

From "The flight of the Garuda", Shabkar Lama

[Joop50]

Not-knowing is itself. Before there canbe talk for knowing, first there must be space for it, a state ofnot knowing. ...

You and I constantly find ourselves in a state ofnot knowing, but our attention is focused on what we do know,

so weare not aware - and we do not want to be aware - of our not-knowing.

Not-knowing is what is not knowledged.

It is what not become perceived or experienced in any way, so onefind nothing.

It is open, unfilled, empty in a sense.

Peter Ralston - The book of not knowing

[Joop50]

Effortlessness is not something that can be attained by effort.

No-mind is not a state that can be achieved by the mind.

Peacecannot be achieved by striving.

Trying to be aware of 'just beingin the present moment' is a contradiction in terms;

being'self-consciously' aware of it takes you out of it.

You can't try to be happy any more than you can try to goto sleep or try to act naturally.

You only act naturally whenyou're not trying, not thinking, but simply going about life.

Just be yourself

David Carse

[camerata]

To let go is not to cut myself off, it's the realization that I can't control another.

To let go is not to try to change or blame another, it's to make the most of myself.

To let go is not to judge but to allow another person to be a human being.

To let go is to... fear less, and to love more!!

- Ven. Pandit

[Joop50]

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.

Buddha

[camerata]

“There are times when I suspect the mind has a mind of its own. It shows us pictures. Pictures of the past, and the might-one-day-be. This mind’s mind exerts its own will, too, and has its own voice.”

- character in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

[Joop50]

Pay no attention to the faults of others,

things done or left undone by others.

Consider only what by oneself is done or left undone.

Buddha

[Joop50]

Form is none other than emptiness, emptiness none other than form.

Feeling, thought and consciousness itself are like this.

Heart Sutra

[IMA_FARANG]

:jap:

As a single slab of rock won't budge in the wind,

So the wise are not moved by praise, or by blame.

Like a deep lake, clear, unruffled, and calm;

So the wise become clear, and calm,

On hearing the words of the Dhamma.

Dhammapada, 6, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Note: edited only for punctuation and capitalisation.

Edited October 23, 2010 by IMA_FARANG

[IMA_FARANG]

:jap:

Daily Buddhist Wisdom

Non-violence means dialogue, using our language, the human language. Dialogue means compromise; respecting each others rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

:jap:

[IMA_FARANG]

:jap:

The Lord (Buddha) taught a holy life not based on tradition; for restraint and abandoning, leading to and merging in Nibbana. This is the path followed by the great, (and) pursued by the lofty sages. Those who enter that course as taught by the Enlightened One, (and) heeding the Teacher's instruction, will make an end of suffering.

Itivuttaka

--------------------------------------

Note: edited for capitalization and punctuation and with a few words (added) by me to aid clarity. (I think).

:jap:

[IMA_FARANG]

:jap:

Daily Buddhist Wisdom

Sakka asked: "What is the cause of self-interest?"

The Buddha answered: "It is perception of the world as one's object."

"How does one overcome this perception of the world as apart from oneself?"

"By acting for the increase of goodness and happiness. It is in this way that the world ceases to be one's object."

- Digha Nikaya

:jap:

[camerata]

To solve the problems of life is neither to multiply the quantity nor to escape; it is to search for their causes. Having found the cause, the problem is half-solved.

- Luang Pu Chan, Wisdom of Ven Phra Thepkavi

[camerata]

"It can be better to print sutras and distribute them than just to build more statues of the Buddha. What we need is teaching, study of the Dharma, and statues do not teach us. Rather than building a grand monastery, it's sometimes better to build a learning center, going to the roof of things. The 21st century Buddhist must have full knowledge of science and secular matters, and full knowledge of Buddhism, too."

- The Dalai Lama

[IMA_FARANG]

:jap:

Daily Buddhist Wisdom

All (those) states that can be returned to (i.e. are derived from) external causes are obviously not you, but that (state) which cannot be returned to anywhere, if it is not you, (then) what is it?

Therefore, you should know that your mind is fundamentally wonderful, bright, and pure and that because of your involvement with the things of the world you have covered it up and lost it.(Just as the storm clouds cover the Sun). In this way you are caught on the endless wheel of becoming this or (becoming) that, sinking and floating in that sea of endless becoming. (Therefore) Awaken yourself now to your own bright mind. (and in that way end the cycle).

- Surangama Sutra

Edited November 9, 2010 by IMA_FARANG

[sabaijai]

On Marinus’ desk is folio volume: Osteographia by William Cheselden.

“See who’s waiting inside for you,” says the doctor.

Jacob contemplates the details, and the devil plants a seed.

What if this engine of bones — the seed germinates — is a man’s entirety …

Wind wallops the walls like a dozen tree trunks tumbling.

… and divine love is a mere means of extracting baby engines of bones?

Jacob thinks about Abbot Enomoto’s questions at their one meeting.

“Doctor, do you believe in the soul’s existence?”

Marinus prepares, the clerk expects, an erudite and arcane reply. “Yes.”

“Then where” —Jacbon indicates the pious, profane skeleton— “is it?”

“The soul is a verb.” He impales a lit candle on a spike. “Not a noun.”

— The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell (p. 146)

[IMA_FARANG]

:jap:

How boundless and free is the sky of Awareness! How bright the full moon of wisdom! Truly, is anything missing now? Nirvana is right here, before our (very) eyes; this very place is the Lotus Land; this very body, the Buddha.

Hakuin Zenji, "Song of Zazen"

Comment: And this very mind is the Buddha Mind, your nature the Buddha Nature!

[Joop50]

Although there are countless teachings that instruct how to obtain enlightenment in a future life,

almost all of them are nothing more than expedients.

As the ultimate instruction there is simply no teaching that is superior to the true practice of the awakening to one's own nature.

Hakuin, what a great teacher.......

[lungmi]

What is the sense of life, Master?

Zen-Master: Wait, I have to go to toilet.