Buddhism Possessions Quotes

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.

1. Accept everything just the way it is. 2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake. 3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling. 4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world. 5. Be detached from desire your whole life long. 6. Do not regret what you have done. 7. Never be jealous. 8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation. 9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others. 10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love. 11. In all things have no preferences. 12. Be indifferent to where you live. 13. Do not pursue the taste of good food. 14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need. 15. Do not act following customary beliefs. 16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful. 17. Do not fear death. 18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age. 19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help. 20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour. 21. Never stray from the Way.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

Shapeshifting requires the ability to transcend your attachments, in particular your ego attachments to identity and who you are. If you can get over your attachment to labeling yourself and your cherishing of your identity, you can be virtually anybody. You can slip in and out of different shells, even different animal forms or deity forms.

Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body.

The possessions themselves were not the problem, it was my relationship with possessing.

The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the Qur’an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of the universe – a secret that might yet be discovered by flesh-and-blood creatures.

Merchant: 'So you have lived on the possessions of others?' Saddhartha: 'Apparently. The merchant also lives on the possession of others.' Merchant: 'Well spoken...

Ironically, the more we crave to possess and dominate the world and others, the deeper and more unbearable becomes the chasm of our own emptiness.

Many Buddhist temple priests regard their parishioners as possessions and fear their departure as a diminishing of assets.

You drop your heavy luggage at departure airport and pick it up at your arrival airport. Being possessive about things and people will only deny you entry into flights of life. Trust the higher powers. What is yours will remain yours.

The meaning of man's life, as we have seen, is not measured by what he has, but by what he is. No matter how many possessions we have amassed, how much wealth we have accrued, how respected and secure our position is in society, how numerous the pieces of information we have accumulated, in moments of lucidity we may still abruptly perceive the dreadful futility of it all, the overwhelming emptiness and pointlessness of such a life.

Why are you keeping your fists clenched? Open them. Let what comes come. Let what goes go. You deserve much more than what your fists can hold.

It is only cowards who reduce the tremendously valuable capacity of wondering to questions. The really brave, the courageous person, leaves it as it is. Rather than changing it into a question, he jumps into the mystery. Rather than trying to control it, he allows the mystery to possess him.

There is something rejuvenating in the possession of Zen. The spring flowers look prettier, and the mountain stream runs cooler and more transparent. The subjective revolution that brings about this state of things cannot be called abnormal. When life becomes more enjoyable and its expense broadens to include the universe itself, there must be something in *satori* that is quite precious and well worth one's striving after.

Everyone wants to be happy, and there is a strong energy in us pushing us toward what we think will make us happy. But we may suffer a lot because of this. We need the insight that position, revenge, wealth, fame, or possessions are, more often than not, obstacles to our happiness. We need to cultivate the wish to be free of these things so we can enjoy the wonders of life that are always available — the blue sky, the trees, our beautiful children.

...The spiritual Oriental teachers say a person has three forms of mind,'' Beatrice was explaining to him once, while they were on break between one lesson and another at university, ''which are the dense mind, the subtle level and the ultra-subtle mind. Primary Consciousness, or the dense mind, is that existential, Sartrean mind which is related to our senses and so it is guided directly by human primitive instincts; in Sanskrit, this is referred to as ālaya-vijñāna which is directly tied to the brain. The subtle mind comes into effect when we begin to be aware of our true nature or that which in Sanskrit is called Ātman or self-existent essence that eventually leads us to the spiritual dimension. Ultimately there is the Consciousness-Only or the Vijñapti-Mātra, an ultra-subtle mind which goes beyond what the other two levels of mind can fabricate, precisely because this particular mind is not a by-product of the human brain but a part of the Cosmic Consciousness of the Absolute, known in Sanskrit as Tathāgatagarbha, and it is at this profound level of Consciousness that we are able to achieve access to the Divine Wisdom and become one with it in an Enlightened State.'' ''This spiritual subject really fascinates me,'' the Professor would declare, amazed at the extraordinary knowledge that Beatrice possessed.'' ''In other words, a human being recognises itself from its eternal essence and not from its existence,'' Beatrice replied, smiling, as she gently touched the tip of his nose with the tip of her finger, as if she was making a symbolic gesture like when children are corrected by their teachers. ''See, here,'' she had said once, pulling at the sleeve of his t-shirt to make him look at her book. ''For example, in the Preface to the 1960 Notes on Dhamma, the Buddhist philosopher from the University of Cambridge, Ñāṇavīra Thera, maintains those that have understood Buddhist teachings have gone way beyond Existential Thought. And on this same theme, the German scholar of Buddhist texts, Edward Conze, said that the possible similarity that exists between Buddhist and Existential Thought lies only on the preliminary level. He said that in terms of the Four Noble Truths, or in Sanskrit Catvāri Āryasatyāni, the Existentialists have only the first, which teaches everything is ill. Of the second - which assigns the origin of ill to craving - they have a very imperfect grasp. As for the third and fourth, which consist of letting go of craving, and the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to liberation from the cycle of rebirth in the form of Nirvāṇa - these are unheard of. Knowing no way out, the Existentialists are manufacturers of their own woes...

There is a discrepancy between our craving and the world we live in, between our expectations and the way things are. We want the world to be other than it is. Our craving is based on a fundamental misjudgement of the situation; a judgement that assumes that when our craving gets what it wants we will be happy, that when our craving possesses the objects of its desire we will be satisfied. But

The Dalai Lama has warned: ‘Too many people have the Dharma only on their lips. Instead of using the Dharma to destroy their own negative thoughts, they regard the Dharma as a possession and themselves as the owner.

But if God and immortality be repudiated, what is left? That is the question usually thrown at the atheist's head. The orthodox believer likes to think that nothing is left. That, however, is because he has only been accustomed to think in terms of his orthodoxy. In point of fact, a great deal is left. That is immediately obvious from the fact that many men and women have led active, or self-sacrificing, or noble, or devoted lives without any belief in God or immortality. Buddhism in its uncorrupted form has no such belief; nor did the great nineteenth-century agnostics; nor do the orthodox Russian Communists; nor did the Stoics. Of course, the unbelievers have often been guilty of selfish or wicked actions; but so have the believers. And in any case that is not the fundamental point. The point: is that without these beliefs men and women may yet possess the mainspring of full and purposive living, and just as strong a sense that existence can be worth while as is possible to the most devout believers.

After this examination there are still gaps of doubt and apparent contradiction. And it is natural that it be so, because the Eternal Return is an experience. There lies its importance: in the fact of being. The Eternal Return is not the reincarnation as it has been spread in our days. Original Buddhism, on the other hand, could be pointing to something similar. Buddha was a shastriya, that is, a prince of the warrior caste, not a brahman, or priest, and his Doctrine was also for heroes and warriors. Then, it has been transformed by the monks. Buddha, like Nietzsche, talks about a reincarnation without mentioning the soul. What is it that reincarnates, then? As in Nietzsche it could be that 'atom-seed', or 'all those conditions that determine its existence and that they come back to give themselves', in the turn of the Energy, or of the Light that finds the old image. The Buddhist would want to be liberated, to leave the Circle; that's why it kills desire, that makes return. The Will to Power, as we have seen, returns to its 'archive', wishes to possess again its 'non-existence'. The difference: Nietzsche wants to return eternally, incorporates the Will and considers Nirvana a dream of decadents, of warriors who have become priests, monks. However, we do not know what Buddha really thought, because he did not talk about these things, nor did he explain Nirvana. Maybe, he just wanted to get out of this Circle to enter to fight in another wider Circle, that is more immense.

Shin’ichi then touched on the history of India, the reign of King Ashoka, and the principles of Buddhism that served as a cornerstone for peace. He said: “Ashoka was able to create an ideal government by basing himself on Buddhism, which teaches that all people possess the Buddha nature, the supreme and incomparable life state of Buddhahood. This principle is not only the foundation for respecting the dignity of life but also a teaching of human equality. It gives rise to a philosophy that values peace and humanism.” The two men agreed that they would need much more time to explore the various issues that they had raised in their discussion and decided to meet again for a dialogue that could provide insights for shaping the twenty-first century.

It is the cultures of the great world religions which have shaped the course of civilization, and these possess a kind of supercultural position. (...) The three great religions of the East - Confucianism, Brahmanism and Buddhism - and the three world religions in the West - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - have been the great unifying factors in the civilization of the world. They are, as it were, the spiritual highways, which have led mankind through history from remote antiquity down to modern times. (...) In the past all these world religions with the exception of Judaism have been what I have termed supercultures - common forms of faith and moral order which embraced and united large numbers of previously existing cultures with their own languages and histories.

Mind is spontaneously present from the beginning. Like the sun, it is free from any basis for the darkness of ignorance. Like a lotus flower, it is untainted by faults. Like gold, it doesn't alter its own nature. Like the ocean, it is unmoving. Like a river, it is unceasing. Like Mount Sumeru, it is utterly unchanging. Once you realize that this is how it is [and stabilize it], that is called 'possessing the view of realization.

Although we are in samsara, we can still see proof of the existence of buddha nature permeating all living beings. [One] way in which we can discern whether beings have buddha nature is rik (Wyl. rigs; Skt. gotra), in other words the quality we perceive in one who possesses this buddha nature. […] All beings have buddha nature because all beings have within themselves what we call the essence of the buddha, this ju (Wyl. rgyu; Skt. hetu), this seed, which can blossom into a buddha and which constitutes our potential for enlightenment.

The desire for romantic love is so strong in our society that it could be seen as having displaced religion as the main source of ‘spiritual’ fulfilment and, indeed, almost displaced it as the means to personal salvation. ‘Saved by the love of a good woman’ may be a cliché but, in many instances, it is only the love of another person, man or woman, that gives some people a sense of worth or any meaning to their lives. This way of thinking, however, also leads to the expectation that one’s partner will – nay, should – make one truly happy. This puts an intolerable strain on many relationships, as it is unrealistic to demand that one’s partner provide a continuous supply of Rapture when permanence and stability are the very qualities the world of Rapture simply does not possess. Perhaps this is one reason why so many marriages break down these days. The

The central figure of Buddhism is not a god but a human being, Siddhartha Gautama. According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama was heir to a small Himalayan kingdom, sometime around 500 BC. The young prince was deeply affected by the suffering evident all around him. He saw that men and women, children and old people, all suffer not just from occasional calamities such as war and plague, but also from anxiety, frustration and discontent, all of which seem to be an inseparable part of the human condition. People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want two million. Those who have two million want 10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it? At the age of twenty-nine Gautama slipped away from his palace in the middle of the night, leaving behind his family and possessions. He travelled as a homeless vagabond throughout northern India, searching for a way out of suffering. He visited ashrams and sat at the feet of gurus but nothing liberated him entirely – some dissatisfaction always remained. He did not despair. He resolved to investigate suffering on his own until he found a method for complete liberation. He spent six years meditating on the essence, causes and cures for human anguish. In the end he came to the realisation that suffering is not caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. Rather, suffering is caused by the behaviour patterns of one’s own mind. Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied and restless. This is very clear when we experience unpleasant things, such as pain. As long as the pain continues, we are dissatisfied and do all we can to avoid it. Yet even when we experience pleasant things we are never content. We either fear that the pleasure might disappear, or we hope that it will intensify. People dream for years about finding love but are rarely satisfied when they find it. Some become anxious that their partner will leave; others feel that they have settled cheaply, and could have found someone better. And we all know people who manage to do both.

Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the Qur’an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of the universe – a secret that might yet be discovered by flesh-and-blood creatures. Ancient traditions of knowledge admitted only two kinds of ignorance. First, an individual might be ignorant of something important. To obtain the necessary knowledge, all he needed to do was ask somebody wiser. There was no need to discover something that nobody yet knew. For example, if a peasant in some thirteenth-century Yorkshire village wanted to know how the human race originated, he assumed that Christian tradition held the definitive answer. All he had to do was ask the local priest.

The basic foundation of the practice of morality is to refrain from ten unwholesome actions: three pertaining to the body, four pertaining to speech, and three pertaining to thought. The three physical non-virtues are: (1) killing: intentionally taking the life of a living being, whether a human being, an animal, or even an insect; (2) stealing: taking possession of another’s property without his or her consent, regardless of its value; and (3) sexual misconduct: committing adultery. The four verbal non-virtues are: (4) lying: deceiving others through spoken word or gesture; (5) divisiveness: creating dissension by causing those in agreement to disagree or those in disagreement to disagree further; (6) harsh speech: verbally abusing others; and (7) senseless speech: talking about foolish things motivated by desire and so forth. The three mental non-virtues are: (8) covetousness: desiring to possess something that belongs to someone else; (9) harmful intent: wishing to injure others, whether in a great or small way; and (10) wrong view: holding that such things as rebirth, the law of cause and effect, or the Three Jewels8 do not exist.

In this very life may they possess longevity, good health, and abundant wealth and excellence! May all their sickness and evil influences, misdeeds and obscurations, transgressions, mistakes and misfortunes, their outer and inner obstacles, and all evil and discordant forces be pacified! May they abide by the Dharma in thought, word and deed, and, while enjoying the flawless words of the victorious ones, may they have all their wishes fulfllled, just as if they possessed the wishfulfllling powerful king of precious stones! When the time of death arrives, may they not suffer the misety of the life-force being interrupted, but may all conceptual states of disturbing emotions subside, and may they joyfully and delightfully remember their guru and the Three Jewels! May they be completely protected by the wisdom mind of all noble beings endowed with great compassion who are the unsurpassable objects of refuge! May they not undergo the fear and terror of the bardo, and may all the doors to the lower realms of existence be closed! As the ultimate, may they soon attain the precious state of unexcelled, true and complete enlightenment! (p. 123)

Good friendship, in Buddhism, means considerably more than associating with people that one finds amenable and who share one's interests. It means in effect seeking out wise companions to whom one can look for guidance and instruction. The task of the noble friend is not only to provide companionship in the treading of the way. The truly wise and compassionate friend is one who, with understanding and sympathy of heart, is ready to criticize and admonish, to point out one's faults, to exhort and encourage, perceiving that the final end of such friendship is growth in the Dhamma. The Buddha succinctly expresses the proper response of a disciple to such a good friend in a verse of the Dhammapada: 'If one finds a person who points out one's faults and who reproves one, one should follow such a wise and sagacious counselor as one would a guide to hidden treasure' If we associate closely with those who are addicted to the pursuit of sense pleasures, power, riches and fame, we should not imagine that we will remain immune from those addictions: in time our own minds will gradually incline to these same ends. If we associate closely with those who, while not given up to moral recklessness, live their lives comfortably adjusted to mundane routines, we too will remain stuck in the ruts of the commonplace. If we aspire for the highest — for the peaks of transcendent wisdom and liberation — then we must enter into association with those who represent the highest. Even if we are not so fortunate as to find companions who have already scaled the heights, we can well count ourselves blessed if we cross paths with a few spiritual friends who share our ideals and who make earnest efforts to nurture the noble qualities of the Dhamma in their hearts. When we raise the question how to recognize good friends, how to distinguish good advisors from bad advisors, the Buddha offers us crystal-clear advice. In the Shorter Discourse on a Full-Moon Night (MN 110) he explains the difference between the companionship of the bad person and the companionship of the good person. The bad person chooses as friends and companions those who are without faith, whose conduct is marked by an absence of shame and moral dread, who have no knowledge of spiritual teachings, who are lazy and unmindful, and who are devoid of wisdom. As a consequence of choosing such bad friends as his advisors, the bad person plans and acts for his own harm, for the harm of others, and the harm of both, and he meets with sorrow and misery. In contrast, the Buddha continues, the good person chooses as friends and companions those who have faith, who exhibit a sense of shame and moral dread, who are learned in the Dhamma, energetic in cultivation of the mind, mindful, and possessed of wisdom. Resorting to such good friends, looking to them as mentors and guides, the good person pursues these same qualities as his own ideals and absorbs them into his character. Thus, while drawing ever closer to deliverance himself, he becomes in turn a beacon light for others. Such a one is able to offer those who still wander in the dark an inspiring model to emulate, and a wise friend to turn to for guidance and advice.

The contemporary Christian Church, precisely, has understood them in this' 'wrong way, to the letter, 'like the Jews,' exoterically, not esoterically. Nevertheless to say 'like the Jews' is an error. One would have to say 'as the Jews want.' Because they also possess an exotericism, for their masses, represented by the Torah and Talmud, and an esotericism, in the Cabala (which means: 'Received Tradition'), in the Zohar ('brightness'), the Merkaba or Chariot being the most secret part of the Cabala which only initiated rabbis know and use as the powerful tool of their magic. We have already said that the Cabala reached them from elsewhere, like everything else, in the Middle Ages, even though they tell us otherwise, using and transforming it in concordance with their Archetype. The Hasidim, from Poland, represent an exclusively esoteric sect of Judaism. Islam also has its esoteric magic, represented by Sufism and the sect of the Assassins, Hassanists, oflran. They interpret the Koran symbolically. And it was because of contact with this sect of the 'Old Man of the Mountain' that the Templars felt compelled to secede more and more from the direction of Rome, centering themselves in their Esoteric Kristianity and Mystery of the Gral. This was also why Rome destroyed them, like the esoteric Cathars (katharos = pure in Greek), the Bogomils, the Manichees and the gnostics. In the Church of Rome, called Catholic, there only remains a soulless ritual of the Mass, as a liturgical shell that no longer reaches the Symbol, which no longer touches it, no longer puts it into action. The Nordic contribution has been lost, destroyed by prejudice and the ethnological persecution of Nordicism, Germanism and the complete surrender to Judaism. Zen Buddhism preserves the esotericism of Buddha. In Japan Shinto and Zen are practiced by a racially superior warrior caste, the Samurai. The most esoteric side of Hinduism is found in Tantrism, especially in the Kaula or Kula Order. So understood, esotericism is what goes beyond the exterior form and the masses, the physical, and puts an elite in contact with invisible superior forces. In my case, the condition that paralysed me in the midst of dreaming and left me without means to influence the phenomena. The visible is symbol of invisible forces (Archetypes, Gods). By means of an esoteric knowledge, of an initiation in this knowledge, a hierarchic minority can make contact with these invisible forces, being able to act on the Symbol, dynamizing and controlling the physical phenomena that incarnate them. In my case: to come to control the involuntary process which, without knowing how, was controlling me, to be able to guide it, to check or avoid it. Jung referred to this when he said 'if someone wisely faces the Archetype, in whatever place in the world, he acquires universal validity because the Archetype is one and indivisible'. And the means to reach this spiritual world, 'on the other side of the mirror,' is Magic, Rite, Ritual, Ceremony. All religions have possessed them, even the Christian, as we have said. And the Rite is not something invented by humans but inspired by 'those from beyond,' Jung would say by the Collective Unconscious.

We who play the game of life so desperately for temporal stakes might be playing at love with God for higher stakes—our selves, and his. We play against one another for possessions, who might be playing with the King who stakes his throne and what is his against our lives and all we are: a game in which the more is lost, the more is won.

The light which could dispel this darkness and give liberation from suffering was proclaimed by Gotama Buddha as the knowledge of the Four Noble Truths: The pain of embodied existence, caused by constantly recurring births and deaths. The cause of these sufferings lies in ignorance, in the thirst for self-gratification through earthly possessions which drag after them the perpetual repetition of imperfect existence. The cessation of sufferings lies in the attainment of a state of enlightened all-inclusiveness, thus creating the possibility of conscious interception of the circle of earthly existence. The path to cessation of these pains consists in gradual strengthening of the elements necessary to be perfected for the annihilation of the causes of earthly existence and for approaching the great truth. The path to this truth was divided by Gotama into eight parts: Right understanding (that which concerns the law of causes). Right thinking. Right speech. Right action. Right living. Right labor. Right vigilance and self-discipline. Right concentration.

Queen Mahapajapati was not like other women in the palace. She frequently told Yasodhara that women possessed as much wisdom and strength as men and needed to shoulder the responsibilities of society also. While women did possess a special ability to create warmth and happiness in their families, there was no reason for them to remain only in the kitchen or in the palace. Gotami found in her daughter-in-law a woman with whom she could share true friendship, for like herself, Yasodhara was thoughtful and independent. Not only did the queen offer Yasodhara her approval, but she worked alongside Yasodhara as well.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.” -

But when the agricultural villages of the Neolithic expanded into larger towns that grew to more than two thousand inhabitants, the capacity of the human brain to know and recognize all of the members of a single community was stretched beyond its natural limits. Nevertheless, the tribal cultures that had evolved during the Upper Paleolithic with the emergence of symbolic communication enabled people who might have been strangers to feel a collective sense of belonging and solidarity. It was the formation of tribes and ethnicities that enabled the strangers of the large Neolithic towns to trust each other and interact comfortably with each other, even if they were not all personally acquainted. The transformation of human society into urban civilizations, however, involved a great fusion of people and societies into groups so large that there was no possibility of having personal relationships with more than a tiny fraction of them. Yet the human capacity for tribal solidarity meant that there was literally no upper limit on the size that a human group could attain. And if we mark the year 3000 BC as the approximate time when all the elements of urban civilization came together to trigger this new transformation, it has taken only five thousand years for all of humanity to be swallowed up by the immense nation-states that have now taken possession of every square inch of the inhabited world. The new urban civilizations produced the study of mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, history, biology, and medicine. They greatly advanced and refined the technologies of metallurgy, masonry, architecture, carpentry, shipbuilding, and weaponry. They invented the art of writing and the practical science of engineering. They developed the modern forms of drama, poetry, music, painting, and sculpture. They built canals, roads, bridges, aqueducts, pyramids, tombs, temples, shrines, castles, and fortresses by the thousands all over the world. They built ocean-going ships that sailed the high seas and eventually circumnavigated the globe. From their cultures emerged the great universal religions of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Hinduism. And they invented every form of state government and political system we know, from hereditary monarchies to representative democracies. The new urban civilizations turned out to be dynamic engines of innovation, and in the course of just a few thousand years, they freed humanity from the limitations it had inherited from the hunting and gathering cultures of the past.

What binds Buddhism, Sufism, and Quaker practices together is a belief in our interconnectedness; profound respect for others; being guided by a greater good beyond material possessions, status, and image; valuing silence and stillness of the mind; acceptance of differences; developing inner awareness of one’s perceptions and motivation; commitment to service; and seeking guidance from within.

Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. (279-80) These traditions may have claimed to know all that was essential to salvation and peace of mind, but that kind of knowledge had nothing whatsoever to do with pre-modern traditions of science. In Europe this meant Aristotle and Greek natural philosophy but about which, astonishingly, Harari has nothing at all to say anywhere in his book.

No, emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is a type of existence. You must use this existential emptiness to fill yourself.” His words were very enlightening to me. Later, after I thought about it a bit, I realized that it wasn’t Buddhist philosophy at all, but was more akin to some modern physics theories. The abbot also told me he wasn’t going to discuss Buddhism with me. His reason was the same as my high school teacher’s: With my sort, he’d just be wasting his time. That first night, I couldn’t sleep in the tiny room in the temple. I didn’t realize that this refuge from the world would be so uncomfortable. My blanket and sheet both became damp in the mountain fog, and the bed was so hard. In order to make myself sleep, I tried to follow the abbot’s advice and fill myself with “emptiness.” In my mind, the first “emptiness” I created was the infinity of space. There was nothing in it, not even light. But soon I knew that this empty universe could not make me feel peace. Instead, it filled me with a nameless anxiety, like a drowning man wanting to grab on to anything at hand. So I created a sphere in this infinite space for myself: not too big, though possessing mass. My mental state didn’t improve, however. The sphere floated in the middle of “emptiness”—in infinite space, anywhere could be the middle. The universe had nothing that could act on it, and it could act on nothing. It hung there, never moving, never changing, like a perfect interpretation for death. I created a second sphere whose mass was equal to the first one’s. Both had perfectly reflective surfaces. They reflected each other’s images, displaying the only existence in the universe other than itself. But the situation didn’t improve much. If the spheres had no initial movement—that is, if I didn’t push them at first—they would be quickly pulled together by their own gravitational attraction. Then the two spheres would stay together and hang there without moving, a symbol for death. If they did have initial movement and didn’t collide, then they would revolve around each other under the influence of gravity. No matter what the initial conditions, the revolutions would eventually stabilize and become unchanging: the dance of death. I then introduced a third sphere, and to my astonishment, the situation changed completely. Like I said, any geometric figure turns into numbers in the depths of my mind. The sphereless, one-sphere, and two-sphere universes all showed up as a single equation or a few equations, like a few lonesome leaves in late fall. But this third sphere gave “emptiness” life. The three spheres, given initial movements, went through complex, seemingly never-repeating movements. The descriptive equations rained down in a thunderstorm without end. Just like that, I fell asleep. The three spheres continued to dance in my dream, a patternless, never-repeating dance. Yet, in the depths of my mind, the dance did possess a rhythm; it was just that its period of repetition was infinitely long. This mesmerized me. I wanted to describe the whole period, or at least a part of it. The next day I kept on thinking about the three spheres dancing in “emptiness.” My attention had never been so completely engaged. It got to the point where one of the monks asked the abbot whether I was having mental health issues. The abbot laughed and said, “Don’t worry. He has found emptiness.” Yes, I had found emptiness. Now I could be at peace in a bustling city. Even in the midst of a noisy crowd, my heart would be completely tranquil.

The Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism came to fruition during this extremely violent, war-ridden age, hence, its naturally sharp and vigorous spirit. Its special emphasis on independence from words came from its denial of the empty ideas and words cherished by the intelligentsia. And its insistence on thorough insight into one’s original self-nature alludes to its protest against the intellectuals who spent their time repeating and criticizing second and third-hand theories without possessing any philosophy of their own formulation. At any rate, it may be safely said that the characteristic of the Rinzai Sect lies in its emphasis on the spontaneous operation of the spirit of Zen, arising from the standpoint of the awakened Self. Regarding the Soto sect, it is stated in Ninden Ganmoku:

Clean Love Can you imagine love without jealousy, without possessiveness—love washed clean of all its clinginess and desperation? Let’s try. We can take some thoughts from Buddhism: What would it be like to love without attachment, to open our hearts to someone with no expectations, loving just for the joy of it, regardless of what we might get back? Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better. Imagine seeing someone in a clean light of love—without enumerating the ways in which that person does and does not match up to the fantasy we carry around of our perfect mate or dream lover. Imagine meeting another person in the freedom and innocence of childhood and playing together without plotting how to make this person give us the kind of love we wish we could have gotten in our actual childhood. But…but…but. What if you open your heart to someone, and you don’t like what happens next? Suppose that person gets drunk or treats your open affection with scorn? What if this person doesn’t fulfill your dreams? What if this one turns out just like the last one? Suppose all those things do happen. What have you lost? A little time, a brief fantasy. Let it go, learn from it, and walk away a little wiser. Love doesn’t much take to being stuffed into forms, which is what everybody’s fantasies and imaginings are: custom-built plans for a constructed individual they’ve created to solve all their problems. Your authors have dream lovers, too—but people are not made of clay or stone, and it won’t work well to approach them with a chisel. How many times have you rejected the possibility of love because it didn’t look the way you expected it to? Perhaps some characteristic was missing you were sure you must have, some other trait was present that you never dreamed of accepting. What happens when you throw away your expectations and open your eyes to the fabulous love that is shining right in front of you, holding out its hand? Clean love is love without expectations. Washing your love clean doesn’t require advanced spirituality or weekly psychoanalysis. You’ll probably never let go of every single attachment—at least we’ve never managed it. But maybe you can let go just for an instant: your history, worries, frets, and yearnings will still be there to come back to when you need them. Just for now, take a look at the wonderful person who is standing right in front of you.

Clean Love Can you imagine love without jealousy, without possessiveness—love washed clean of all its clinginess and desperation? Let’s try. We can take some thoughts from Buddhism: What would it be like to love without attachment, to open our hearts to someone with no expectations, loving just for the joy of it, regardless of what we might get back? Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better.

More so even than the followers of other "world religions," devout Buddhists are believed to pay scant attention to economic considerations. They give and receive selflessly, with their virtuosos—the monastic renunciates—owning only a minimum of possessions. Disconnected from the economies within which they operate, they rely instead on the laity's alms, donations, and general goodwill. A spirit of calculation is absent when believers give what they can spare while monks and nuns make do with what they receive, unbound by any sense of obligation. Economic matters are a secondary concern in a religion dedicated to the pursuit of enlightenment and compassion.

So far we have seen a universe with inhabitants living on the earth, in hells, in the realm of the hungry spirits, and in heavens. It shares many elements with the cosmologies of other religions. Buddhism, though, is perhaps unique in positing an additional realm of dhyāna practitioners above the realm of gods. This consists of the "realm of form" (rūpa-dhātu) and the "realm of formlessness" (ārūpya-dhātu). Form (rūpa) is that which has shape and is characterized by constant change and destruction. Rūpa-dhātu, therefore, is where those having form dwell. Of course the possession of form is a condition shared also by those who occupy the realm of desire (kāma-dhātu). Nevertheless when we speak of the realm of form we do not include the realm of desire, for those who dwell there have gained release from all desires, so that only their physical bodies remain. This is the realm of those who practice dhyāna ("meditation"), which includes the two practice softball "quieting the mind" and "observing the nature of things." Buddhist priests, and indeed we ourselves, may climb to a realm higher than that inhabited by the gods by pursuing the practice of meditation to its limits.

all living creatures are entitled to respect in their own right, not simply because of the utility they may possess for other humans.

We can contemplate the following poem on the sufferings of growing old, written by the scholar Gungtang:     When we are old, our hair becomes white,     But not because we have washed it clean;     It is a sign we shall soon encounter the Lord of Death.     We have wrinkles on our forehead,     But not because we have too much flesh;     It is a warning from the Lord of Death: ‘You are about to die.’     Our teeth fall out,     But not to make room for new ones;     It is a sign we shall soon lose the ability to eat human food.     Our faces are ugly and unpleasant,     But not because we are wearing masks;     It is a sign we have lost the mask of youth.     Our heads shake to and fro,     But not because we are in disagreement;     It is the Lord of Death striking our head with the stick he holds in his right hand.     We walk bent and gazing at the ground,     But not because we are searching for lost needles;     It is a sign we are searching for our lost beauty and memories.     We get up from the ground using all four limbs,     But not because we are imitating animals;     It is a sign our legs are too weak to support our bodies.     We sit down as if we had suddenly fallen,     But not because we are angry;     It is a sign our body has lost its strength.     Our body sways as we walk,     But not because we think we are important;     It is a sign our legs cannot carry our body.     Our hands shake,     But not because they are itching to steal;     It is a sign the Lord of Death’s itchy fingers are stealing our possessions.     We eat very little,     But not because we are miserly;     It is a sign we cannot digest our food.     We wheeze frequently,     But not because we are whispering mantras to the sick;     It is a sign our breathing will soon disappear.

I began to recall my own experience when I was Mercutio’s age (late teens I decided, a year or two older than Romeo) as a pupil at a public school called Christ’s Hospital. This school is situated in the idyllic countryside of the Sussex Weald, just outside Horsham. I recalled the strange blend of raucousness and intellect amongst the cloisters, the fighting, the sport, and general sense of rebelliousness, of not wishing to seem conventional (this was the sixties); in the sixth form (we were called Grecians) the rarefied atmosphere, the assumption that of course we would go to Oxford or Cambridge; the adoption of an ascetic style, of Zen Buddhism, of baroque opera, the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, and Mahler; of Pound, Eliot and e. e. cummings. We perceived the world completely through art and culture. We were very young, very wise, and possessed of a kind of innocent cynicism. We wore yellow stockings, knee breeches, and an ankle length dark blue coat, with silver buttons. We had read Proust, we had read Evelyn Waugh, we knew what was what. There was a sense, fostered by us and by many teachers, that we were already up there with Lamb, Coleridge, and all the other great men who had been educated there. We certainly thought that we soared ‘above a common bound’. I suppose it is a process of constant mythologizing that is attempted at any public school. Tom Brown’s Schooldays is a good example. Girls were objects of both romantic and purely sexual, fantasy; beautiful, distant, mysterious, unobtainable, and, quite simply, not there. The real vessel for emotional exchange, whether sexually expressed or not, were our own intense friendships with each other. The process of my perceptions of Mercutio intermingling with my emotional memory continued intermittently, up to and including rehearsals. I am now aware that that possibly I re-constructed my memory somewhat, mythologised it even, excising what was irrelevant, emphasising what was useful, to accord with how I was beginning to see the part, and what I wanted to express with it. What I was seeing in Mercutio was his grief and pain at impending separation from Romeo, so I suppose I sensitised myself to that period of my life when male bonding was at its strongest for me.

The underlying cause of attachment is desire, which manifests in a multitude of ways; it can be desire for higher status, wealth, sexual gratification, popularity, food, comfort, more possessions of all kinds, to name just a few of the things that people desire.

It’s also not surprising that most Cambodians lack ambition or any hope for a better life. Their religion, Theravadist Buddhism, taught them to shun status and eschew material possessions because “contentment is wealth,” as the monks still say. In the pagoda schools, monks preached that children should be pleased with the lives they had and not aspire for more. Theravadist

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

Green will typically look at history, for example, and whenever it finds a society in which there is a widespread lack of green values, it assumes that these green values would normally and naturally be present were it not for the fact that they have been maliciously oppressed by the dominator hierarchies found in that society. All individuals would possess worldcentric green values of pluralism, radical egalitarianism, and total equality, except for the oppressive controlling powers that crushed those values wherever they appeared. […] The existence of strong and widespread oppressive forces cannot be doubted. The problem comes in the claim to know what their source and cause is. For green postmodernism, the cause of the lack of worldcentric green values in any culture is due to an aggressive and intensively active repressive and oppressive force (usually the male sex; or a particular race— white in most parts of the world, coupled with a rampant colonialism— and/or due to a particular creed—usually religious fundamentalism of one sort or another; or various prejudices—against gays, against women, against whatever minority that is oppressed). In short, lack of green values (egalitarian, group freedom, gender equality, human care and sensitivity) is due to a presence of oppression. […] The major problem with that view taken by itself is that it completely overlooks the central role of growth, development, and evolution. We’ve already seen that human moral identity grows and develops from egocentric (red) to ethnocentric (amber) to worldcentric (orange then green) to integral (turquoise; and this is true individually as well as collectively/historically). Thus, the main reason that slavery was present, say, 2000 years ago, is not because there was an oppressive force preventing worldcentric freedom, but that a worldcentric notion of freedom had not even emerged yet anywhere on the planet. It wasn’t present and then oppressed, as green imagines, it simply had not yet emerged in the first place—there was nothing to oppress. This is why, as only one example, all of the world’s great religions, who otherwise teach love and compassion and treating all beings kindly, nonetheless—precisely because they were created during the great ethnocentric Mythic Age of traditional civilization —had no extensive and widespread conception of the fundamental worldcentric freedom of human beings—or the belief that all humans, regardless of race, sex, color, or creed, were born equal—and thus not one of them strenuously objected to the fact that a very large portion of their own population were slaves. Athens and Greek society, vaunted home of democracy, had 1 out of 3 of their people who were slaves—and no major complaint on a culture-wide scale. Nor was there a widespread culturally effective complaint from Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism et al. It wasn’t until the emergence of the worldcentric Age of Reason that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” actually came into existence—emerged evolutionarily—and thus started to be believed by the average and typical member of that culture.

Loving and letting go are inseparable. You can’t love and cling at the same time. Too often we mistake attachment for love. In Buddhism, loving kindness, or metta, is considered a sublime state of being. A heavenly realm. It’s expansive, allowing, caring, and connective. Attachment masquerades as love. It looks and smells like love, but it’s a cheap imitation. You can feel how attachment grasps and is driven by need and fear. Love is selfless; attachment is self-centered. Love is freeing; attachment is possessive. When we love, we relax, we don’t hold on so tightly, and we naturally let go more easily.

In Zen there are fortunately none of those marvellously incomprehensible words as in Indian cults. Neither does Zen play about with complicated Hatha-yoha techniques which delude the physiologically thinking European with the false hope that the spirit can e obtained by sitting and by breathing. On the contrary, Zen demands intelligence and will power, as do all the greater things which desire to become real. Personal experience is everything in Zen. To get the clearest and most efficient understanding of a thing, it must be experienced personally. In the working of the Eastern mind there is something calm, quiet, silent, undisturbable, which appears as if always looking into eternity. The spirit of Buddhism has left its highly metaphysical superstructure in order to become a practical discipline of life. The result is Zen. In Zen are found systematized, or rather crystallized, all the philosophy, religion and life itself of the Far-Eastern people, especially of the Japanese. If I am asked, then, what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. The truth is, Zen is extremely elusive as far as its outward aspects are concerned. Unless you devote some years of earnest study to the understanding of its primary principles, it is not to be expected that you will begin to have a fair grasp of Zen. Anything that has the semblance of an external authority is rejected by Zen. Absolute faith is placed in a man's own inner being. For whatever authority there is in Zen, all comes from within. When Zen is thoroughly understood, absolute peace of mind is attained and a man lives as he ought to live. What more may we hope? What makes Zen unique as it is practiced in Japan is its systematic training of the mind. The great truth of Zen is possessed by everybody. Look into your own being and seek it not through others. The question: How can one always be with Buddha? called forth the following answer from a master: Have no stirrings in your mind, be perfectly serene toward the objective world. To remain thus all the time in absolute emptiness and calmness is the way to be with the Buddha. Zen thinks we are too much of slaves to words and logic. A quiet, self-confident and trustful existence of your own - this is the truth of Zen. The desire to possess is considered by Buddhism to be one of the worst passions with which mortals are apt to be obsessed. What in fact causes so much misery in the world is the universal impulse of acquisition.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

A monk's day begins with cleaning. We don't do this because the temple is dirty or messy. We do it to eliminate the suffering in our hearts. We sweep dust to remove our worldly desires. We scrub dirt to free ourselves of attachments. The Zen sect of Buddhism is renowned for the cleaning practices of its monks, but cleaning is greatly valued in Japanese Buddhism in general as a way to "cultivate the mind". Daily housework is an opportunity to contemplate the self. The Japanese idea of not being wasteful is not just about avoiding waste - it also embodies a spirit of gratitude toward objects. People who don't respect objects don't respect people. Cleaning should be done in the morning. Cleaning quietly while the silence envelops you - before other people and plants awaken - refreshes and clears your mind. In the world of Buddhism, reusing items is a standard that guides our day-to-day lives. To remove impurities from your heart, be sure to keep the bathroom sparkling clean. Cleaning is training for staying in the now. Therein lies the reason for being particular about cleanliness. It is important to express gratitude at the changing of the seasons. Only those who do this truly know how to achieve closure in their feelings. In order to remove impurities from the heart, you must reduce wastefulness in your heart. People who endlessly chase after new things have lost their freedom to earthly desires. Only those who can enjoy using their imaginations when working with limited resources know true freedom. It is vital that you get rid of anything that you do not need. Hospitality starts with cleanliness. There is an old Zen teaching that says that if you haven't washed your face, everything you do throughout the day will be impolite and hasty. Succumbing to sleep gluttony is giving in to your wordly desires. Idly sleeping your days away is no way to live. Quite honestly, a life free of possessions is very comfortable. There are some things you start to realize when living the Zen life of simplicity, namely, that you only keep things of good quality. Conversely, if you are surrounded only by poor-quality objects that you don't care about, it is impossible to understand what it is to truly value something. There is an old Zen saying that goes: "Where there is nothing, there is everything." By letting go of everything, you can open up a universe of unlimited possibilities.

Your body is human but your mind is that of an animal. You, a human being, who possess an animal’s mind, please listen to my song.

How do old people get up? They get up as if they were heaving a stake out of the ground. How do old people walk about? Once they are on their feet they have to walk gingerly, like bird-catchers. How do old people sit down? They crash down like heavy luggage whose harness has snapped. We can contemplate the following poem on the sufferings of growing old, written by the scholar Gungtang: When we are old, our hair becomes white, But not because we have washed it clean; It is a sign we shall soon encounter the Lord of Death. We have wrinkles on our forehead, But not because we have too much flesh; It is a warning from the Lord of Death: ‘You are about to die.’ Our teeth fall out, But not to make room for new ones; It is a sign we shall soon lose the ability to eat human food. Our faces are ugly and unpleasant, But not because we are wearing masks; It is a sign we have lost the mask of youth. Our heads shake to and fro, But not because we are in disagreement; It is the Lord of Death striking our head with the stick he holds in his right hand. We walk bent and gazing at the ground, But not because we are searching for lost needles; It is a sign we are searching for our lost beauty and memories. We get up from the ground using all four limbs, But not because we are imitating animals; It is a sign our legs are too weak to support our body. We sit down as if we had suddenly fallen, But not because we are angry; It is a sign our body has lost its strength. Our body sways as we walk, But not because we think we are important; It is a sign our legs cannot carry our body. Our hands shake, But not because they are itching to steal; It is a sign the Lord of Death’s itchy fingers are stealing our possessions. We eat very little, But not because we are miserly; It is a sign we cannot digest our food. We wheeze frequently, But not because we are whispering mantras to the sick; It is a sign our breathing will soon disappear.

While not inherently "green" in the current sense of ecology, Zen evidences quite a number of core qualities and values that can be considered ecofriendly and help it serve as a model for new theories that address problems of conservation and pollution control. Traditional Japanese society is characterized by an approach based on healthy, efficient, and convenient living derived from a mental outlook that makes the most of minimal natural resources. Zen particularly endorses the values of simplicity, in that monks enter the Samgha Hall only with robes, bowls, and a few other meager possessions; thrift, by making a commitment to waste nothing; and communal manual labor, such that through a rotation of chores everyone contributes to the upkeep of the temple. The image of dedicated monks sweeping the wood floors of the hallways by rushing along on their hands in a semi-prostrate position is inspiring. Furthermore, the monastic system's use of human and material resources, including natural space, is limited and spare in terms of temple layout, the handling of administrative duties and chores, and the use of stock items. The sparse, spartan, vegetarian Zen cook, who prepares just enough rice gruel for his fellow monks but not a grain too much or too little, demonstrates an inherent—if not necessarily deliberate—conservationist approach. The minimalist aesthetic of rock gardens highlights the less-is-more Zen outlook that influenced the "Buddhist economics" evoked by E. F. Schumacher in Small Is Beautiful.

Mahāyāna thought posits not just one buddha, but many buddhas throughout the universe. . . . They possess their own lands, apart from the Sahā world, in which they teach. These are called buddha-lands, buddha-realms, or pure lands. Best known are the Realm of Profound Joy or Akṣobhya Buddha, the Pure Lapis-lazuli World of Bhaiṣajya-guru Buddha, and the Pure Land of Sukhāvati of Amida (Amitābha/Amitāyus). Resembling buddha-lands, though not strictly identical, is the Tuṣita heaven, one of the six heavens of the realm of desire and the dwelling place of bodhisattvas prior to their appearance on earth as buddhas. Śākyamuni descended to Jambudvīpa from there, and at present Maitreya, the future buddha, lives there. Another place resembling buddha-lands is Mount Potalaka, said to be located in the sea south of India, where Avalokitśvara Bodhisattva dwells. The Sahā world might seem to be the buddha-land of Śākyamuni; it is not, however, a "pure land," but rather a defiled realm, and thus is quite distinct from the buddha-lands. Śākyamuni, moreover, is a historical person and other buddhas are mythological or metaphysical beings.

The practice of radical self-transcendence can be described as conscious growth toward the transcendental or transpersonal Self-Identity, the ātman. Some call this “God-Consciousness.” The Self of Vedānta/Jnāna-Yoga is also completely different from the Self talked about by Jungian psychotherapists. The Jungian Self is the ego-transcending spiritual center of the mature human personality; it is not a superconscious transcendental Being. The Self, or ātman, of Vedānta is by definition beyond space-time and the whole body-mind complex. It is not a property of the individual person. Therefore, the Self is never “my” self, nor is Self-realization “my” Self-realization. When Self-realization happens, “I” am not there! So long as we believe that we are a particular man or woman, with a particular character and distinct tendencies, habits, or likes and dislikes, we live out of the ego-fiction. Then we necessarily fear the loss of what we consider to be our “own”—our various material and intellectual possessions as well as our social relationships. Above all, we fear the death of the individual we believe ourselves to be. But when there is genuine understanding or wisdom (prajnā), we begin to see a larger truth. We may even catch a glimpse of the Being-Consciousness-Bliss (sat-cid-ānanda) that is the underlying Identity not only of “me” but of all beings who, from the unenlightened point of view, appear to be separate entities. Even describing that Ultimate as Being (sat), Consciousness (cit), and Bliss (ānanda) is saying too much. Hence some sages, especially in Buddhism, have preferred to call it “Emptiness” (shūnyatā). The wisest among them have remained silent.

Liberation as Ever-Perfect does not refer to the liberation of a buddha that has occurred in the past, such as that of Buddha Sakyamuni, but to the way in which countless beings are liberated right now and will continue to be liberated in the future simply by realizing their primordial purity. The basis, the path, and the ultimate result in this system are all of a singular, undifferentiated nature: total, pure awareness. Thus, the primordial freedom that one seeks to attain by practicing the spiritual path is something that one already possesses. Intrinsic freedom is itself the path that leads to the actualization of the goal.

Do not waste a single moment, like a warrior who, pierced to the heart by an arrow, knows he has only few minutes to live. It is now, while we are in good health and in possession of all our physical and mental faculties, that we should practice dharma.

The disturbance of the soul cannot be ended nor true joy created either by the possession of the greatest wealth or by honour and respect in the eyes of the mob or by anything else that is associated with causes of unlimited desire

Being in love with someone is wanting his or her happiness. It is not wanting to possess him or her for our happiness. That’s possessiveness and desire for control. But when we’re really in love with others, we want only their happiness. We forget about our happiness, and then, therefore, ironically, we get very happy, because we temporarily stop worrying about how happy we are. When we forget about how happy we are, we become happy. That’s why people like to be in love, because when they’re in love, they focus only on the beauty and the happiness of the beloved other. (p. 127)

But modern science and theism—especially the sort that claims to be in possession of texts written by God—don’t, as it turns out, sit together comfortably. Buddhism, being intellectually deep, morally and spiritually serious, but non-theistic and non-doctrinal, sits well poised to be an attractor for the spiritually inclined.

Can you imagine love without jealousy, without possessiveness—love washed clean of all its clinginess and desperation? Let’s try. We can take some thoughts from Buddhism: What would it be like to love without attachment, to open our hearts to someone with no expectations, loving just for the joy of it, regardless of what we might get back? Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better. Imagine seeing someone in a clean light of love—without enumerating the ways in which that person does and does not match up to the fantasy we carry around of our perfect mate or dream lover. Imagine meeting another person in the freedom and innocence of childhood and playing together without plotting how to make this person give us the kind of love we wish we could have gotten in our actual childhood.

Logically, there is nothing in Buddhism that possess free will. If all ingredients in Buddhism are non-Selves that participate in an elaborate system of karmic determinism, then, just as with scientific atoms and the scientific forces that act on these atoms, there is no agent that has free will, hence no agent that can break out of this system (i.e. to attain "enlightenment"). Just as it is absurd for a scientific materialist to claim that a bunch of atoms under the direction of atomic forces could ever become "enlightened" (what could such an assertion possibly mean in relation to atoms and atomic forces?), so it is surely every bit as absurd for Buddhists to claim that non-Self entities and processes under the karmic law of "cause and effect" ever become "enlightened.

My first dharma teacher, Anagarika Munindra, used to ask us, “Where is the end of seeing, the end of tasting, the end of feeling?” There is, of course, nothing wrong in these experiences—they simply do not have the ability to satisfy our deep yearning for happiness. The wonderful paradox of the spiritual path is that all of these changing phenomena as objects of our desire leave us feeling unfulfilled, while as objects of mindfulness they become the very vehicle of awakening. When we try to possess and hold on to experiences that are transitory in nature, we are left feeling finally unsatisfied. Yet when we look with mindful attention at the constantly changing nature of these same experiences, we’re no longer quite so driven by the thirst of desire. By mindfulness I mean the quality of paying full attention to the moment, opening to the truth of change. So it is not a question of closing our senses and withdrawing from the world, but of opening our eye of wisdom and being free in the world.

Regarding the straying of the dwelling place, it is generally taught that in order to perfect ultimate realization of the view someone who has a temporary realization of it should go to a secluded open area, such as a mountain retreat or a charnel ground. You may temporarily possess the view, but in order to sustain it, you must stay in mountain hermitages. An unwholesome dwelling place may indeed cause your view to go astray.

The free man walks straight ahead; he has no hesitations and never looks behind, for he knows that there is nothing in the future and nothing in the past that can shake his freedom. Freedom does not belong to him; it is no more his property than the wind, and as he does not possess it he is not possessed by it. And because he never looks behind his actions are said to leave no trace, like the passage of a bird through air.

•You Have To Get Rid Of Any of Your Unnecessary Possessions

According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is untenable. All things and events, whether material, mental, or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective independent existence. To possess such independent, intrinsic existence would imply that things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely contained.

The first is known as the egoistic grasping at self-existence, within which there is the grasping at the thought “I am” or “me” on the one hand, and the grasping at “mine” as the possessions of that self on the other. Working from this basis we then extend the sense of self onto our belongings and so forth, such as “my house,” “my body,” and “my mind.” Afflictions like attachment and anger arise on the basis of these possessive thoughts. This is the causal dynamic process through which our afflictions—the cause of our suffering—come into being.

Buddhism clearly explains that suffering emerges in our hearts because we forget the principle of impermanence and believe that what we possess will last forever.

The principle of nonattachment in Hinduism and Buddhism fascinates my students, who think it’s cool not to be attached to material possessions—but they’re surprised about extending nonattachment to relationships as a way of freeing ourselves from suffering.