Buddhist Inspirational Quotes

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.

Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.

Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.

Behind every stressful thought is the desire for things to be other than they are.

Be grateful to everyone" is about making peace with the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected... If we were to make a list of people we don't like - people we find obnoxious, threatening, or worthy of contempt - we would discover much about those aspects of ourselves that we can't face... other people trigger the karma that we haven't worked out.

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane, there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of 911. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremist have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans.

True wisdom is being able to say 'it is what it is' with a smile of celebratory wonder on your face.

The sacred stillness of your brilliant heart has as the myriad wonders masqueraded. But if you knew this secret from the start, then you'd have quit this Game before you played it.

If you are a Buddhist, inspire yourself by thinking of the bodhisattva. If you are a Christian, think of the Christ, who came not to be served by others but to serve them in joy, in peace, and in generosity. For these things, these are not mere words, but acts, which go all the way, right up to their last breath. Even their death is a gift, and resurrection is born from this kind of death. (157)

The ox is slow, but the earth is patient.

You can argue with the way things are. You’ll lose, but only 100% of the time. —BYRON KATIE

No matter what activity or practice we are pursuing, there isn't anything that isn't made easier through constant familiarity and training. Through training, we can change; we can transform ourselves. Within Buddhist practice there are various methods of trying to sustain a calm mind when some disturbing event happens. Through repeated practice of these methods we can get to the point where some disturbance may occur but the negative effects on our mind remain on the surface, like the waves that may ripple on the surface of an ocean but don't have much effect deep down. And, although my own experience may be very little, I have found this to be true in my own small practice. So, if I receive some tragic news, at that moment I may experience some disturbance within my mind, but it goes very quickly. Or, I may become irritated and develop some anger, but again, it dissipates very quickly. There is no effect on the deeper mind. No hatred. This was achieved through gradual practice; it didn't happen overnight.' Certainly not. The Dalai Lama has been engaged in training his mind since he was four years old.

People may think you're giving up, when in fact you are simply giving in to the reality of your new life

We took a bus to the nearby monastery of one of the last great Tang dynasty Chan masters, Yun-men. Yun-men was known for his pithy “one word” Zen. When asked “What is the highest teaching of the Buddha?” he replied: “An appropriate statement.” On another occasion, he answered: “Cake.” I admired his directness.

Sir, if someone took a Buddhist holy book and flushed it down my toilet, the first thing I would do is call a plumber!

Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future.

Without the bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the universe?

sometimes a warrior’s task is to sit with defeat.

It is a fundamental human truth, transcending cultures and traditions, that the wisest response to situations that are beyond our control, circumstances that we cannot change, is noncontention.

It is very possible (and perfectly okay) for someone who is Catholic, Muslim, Atheist or Jewish, for example, to still find the Buddha’s teachings inspirational. You can love Jesus, repeat a Hindu mantra, and still go to temple after morning meditation. Buddhism is not a threat to any religion, it actually strengthens your existing faith by expanding your love to include all beings.

Truth changes with the season of our emotions. It is the shadow that moves with the phases of our inner sun. When the nights falls, only our perception can guess where it hides in the dark. Within every solar system of the soul lies a plan of what truth is--- the design God has created, in our own unique story. This is as varying as the constellations, and as turning as the tide. It is not one truth we live to, but many. If we ever hope to determine if there is such a thing as truth, apart from cultural and personal preferences, we must acknowledge that we are then aiming to discover something greater than ourselves, something that transcends culture and individual inclinations. Some say that we must look beyond ourselves and outside of ourselves. However, we don’t need to look farther than what is already in each other. If there was any great plan from a higher power it is a simplistic, repetitious theme found in all religions; the basic core importance to unity comes from shared theological and humanistic virtues. Beyond the synagogue, mosques, temples, churches, missionary work, church positions and religious rituals comes a simple “message of truth” found in all of us, that binds theology---holistic virtues combined with purpose is the foundation of spiritual evolution. The diversity among us all is not divided truth, but the opportunity for unity through these shared values. Truth is the framework and roadmap of positive virtues. It unifies diversity when we choose to see it and use it. It is simple message often lost among the rituals, cultural traditions and socializing that goes on behind the chapel doors of any religion or spiritual theology. As we fight among ourselves about what religion, culture or race is right, we often lose site of the simple message any great orator has whispered through time----a simplistic story explaining the importance of virtues, which magically reemphasizes the importance of loving one another through service.

The question is not “Can you make a difference?” You already do make a difference. It’s just a matter of what kind of a difference you want to make, during your life on this planet. (Taken from Black and Buddhist, thinking critically and teaching differently in the primary grades by Mary Cowhey)

To go into the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. —WENDELL BERRY A

Be the change, you seek from society

Success is not a summit to climb, It is an equilibrium where work and life are balanced

You aren't defined by your Qualification, Profession or Possession, but Character

The means and the results, the good and the bad, are within all of us who are aware and care.

Whatever a person frequently thinks and ponders upon, that becomes the inclination of his mind …

Rich or poor, married or single, employed or unemployed, young or old, male or female, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, or Buddhist, you are the soul coming to know the Essential Self as love.

If this medication helps, that will be great. If it doesn’t, no blame. It wasn’t what my body needed.” “If this doctor turns out to be responsive, that will be nice. If he or she doesn’t, that’s okay. Any given doctor is going to be how he or she is going to be. It’s not in my control.

Life is suffering” is misleading for at least two reasons. First, the Buddha used an ancient Indian language similar to Sanskrit called Pali, and the word he used in Pali for the first noble truth, dukkha, is difficult to translate. Dukkha is too multifaceted and nuanced a term to be captured in the one-word translation “suffering.” And second, the fact of dukkha in our lives doesn’t mean that life is only dukkha.

The religious faith that we are born into is largely determined by the region where we live and the ethnic background of our family. In my case, I was born to an African American family in the southern region of the United States. Like most families of our description, we embraced the Baptist religious tradition. Although I went from Baptist to Buddhist, I’ve honored my family’s heritage and cherish the similarities between these two paths. Baptist teachings encouraged me to work toward attaining admission into a heavenly paradise, while Buddhism inspires me to attain the enduring and enlightened life condition of Buddhahood. Although the goals of these two spiritual paths may sound somewhat different, both focus on creating a state of indestructible, eternal happiness. To me, that is an important similarity. I’ve met people from all over the world, from many cultures and faiths, and I believe that all religious traditions share the same basic aspirations at their core—to experience everlasting joy by aligning with the positive forces of the universe. We may describe this ultimate reality as Jehovah, God, Allah, Jesus, Hashem, Tao, Brahma, the Creator, the Mystic Law, the Universe, the Force, Buddha nature, Christ consciousness, or any number of other expressions.

Zeena Schreck is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist, author, musician/composer, tantric teacher, mystic, animal rights activist, and counter-culture icon known by her mononymous artist name, ZEENA. Her work stems from her experience within the esoteric, shamanistic and magical traditions of which she's practiced, taught and been initiated. She is a practicing Tibetan Buddhist yogini, teaches at the Buddhistische Gesellschaft Berlin and is the spiritual leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement (SLM).

...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...

With empathetic joy, as your ability to share others’ joy grows stronger, you’ll feel better yourself.

Anna used to say that the Buddhists meditate about reactions. That we cannot control WHAT happens to us, only how we react to it.

The cleanest feet in the universe are positive thoughts walking through your mind.

You are the sky. Everything else–it’s just the weather. PEMA CHÖDRÖN, BUDDHIST

When time is not in your favor, be in favor of time

Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard

Pain does not differentiate between rich and poor or Christian and Buddhist. It brings the same feelings to everyone.

When we leave this place we will find each other again. I promise.

One day you will awaken and when you do you will realize this has all been a dream.

You will go, and you will forget. We all do. It’s part of our way. To be thoughtless. To simply pass through beauty, and leave it behind.


At an emotional level, we feel that things should be happy and when things are difficult or painful, something is wrong. According to the Buddhist teachings this is what causes suffering.

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane -- as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout -- there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremists have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. Faith-based violence was present long before Osama bin Laden, and it ill be with us long after his demise. Religious zealots like bin Laden, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara, and Dan Lafferty are common to every age, just as zealots of other stripes are. In any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly. One has to look no further than individuals who feel compelled to devote their lives to becoming concert pianists, say, or climbing Mount Everest. For some, the province of the extreme holds an allure that's irresistible. And a certain percentage of such fanatics will inevitably fixate on the matters of the spirit. The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end -- wealth, fame, eternal salvation -- but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or her) infatuation, existence overflows with purpose. Ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic's worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture. Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those inclined by temperament or upbringing toward religious pursuits. Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common sense is no match for the voice of God...

I Have Learned So much from God That I can no longer Call Myself A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, A Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself With me That I can no longer call myself A man, a woman, an angel,

Religions are metaphorical systems that give us bigger containers in which to hold our lives. A spiritual life allows us to move beyond the ego into something more universal. Religious experience carries us outside of clock time into eternal time. We open ourselves into something more complete and beautiful. This bigger vista is perhaps the most magnificent aspect of a religious experience. There is a sense in which Karl Marx was correct when he said that religion is the opiate of the people. However, he was wrong to scoff at this. Religion can give us skills for climbing up on onto a ledge above our suffering and looking down at it with a kind and open mind. This helps us calm down and connect to all of the world's sufferers. Since the beginning of human time, we have yearned for peace in the face of death, loss, anger and fear. In fact, it is often trauma that turns us toward the sacred, and it is the sacred that saves us.

The blessings of the Mangala Sutta are not achieved through fleeting moments of inspiration but through intentional design—structuring our environment, habits, and mindset in a way that allows wisdom, detachment, and peace to arise naturally.

Active addiction is a kind of hell. It is like being a hungry ghost, wandering through life in constant craving and suffering. Refuge Recovery, the Buddhist-inspired approach to treating addiction, offers a plan to end the suffering of addiction.

All the suffering that is in the world arises from wishing ourselves to be happy. All the happiness there is in the world arises from wishing others to be happy. That's this old Buddhist dude's way of saying you should always think about other people.

But even though there´s no more hope, again there´s no need to harm yourself, despite your feeling as if there´s no ground beneath you and no choice in any direction. But when we do let go, how wonderful. We discover that the darkness is actually full of light.

But don’t chase these mystical experiences or feelings of light. They are meant to be rungs on a ladder. And like most things they will change. They will disappear. They aren’t meant to stay. They are meant to be teachers. They show us what is possible, and give us hope that we can find our way home.

They lied to you.

You are not this body.
You are in fact a part of every single thing in this universe.

You are the cosmos.
You gave brith to the stars.

Now if you only knew how infinite you are.

One day you will drop this body and live on,
and at that time this will all just be a dream you once had.

I pray for Nun Hiền often. Not only did she save my life, and Thuận’s life, but she also rescued my soul. Inspired by her, I became a Buddhist. I’ve been practicing Nhẫn, the principle of patience, which teaches me how to love other human beings. Only through love can we drive away the darkness of evil from this earth.

When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremists have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. Faith-based

I can’t even look at the sun now without thinking of you. Every star, every cloud, every beautiful thing I see means nothing to me if you are not here. What is that? That thing that makes the world less important without you? Come and find me when we leave this place. When we wake from this dream. I am sure that I will still be in love with you.


Appriciating that this oneness is the divine creative power and life of the universe, moving and breathing in the people we meet and the objects we encounter, we will spontaneouly treat everyone and everything with respect, and what Buddhists call "loving kindness." based on the acceptance and acknowledgement of this ultimate commonality, compassion will arise naturally.

Write what you know," my ass. Now, I'm not suggesting that you write about my ass. But although you do not, in fact, know my ass, I give you permission to write about it. And if you think you need my permission to write about my ass ("What right do I have, as a male, twenty-something, single, childfree, immigrant Indonesian Buddhist, to pretend to understand the ass of an Anglo American middle-aged married female Freethinker?") or about anything, then you lack the courage, curiosity and imagination to write good fiction, so please find something else to do.

This is where renunciation enters the picture--renunciation of the hope that our experience could be different, renunciation of the hope that we could be better. The Buddhist monastic rules that advise renouncing liquor, renouncing sex, and so on are not pointing out that those things are inherently bad or immoral, but that we use them as babysitters. We use them as a way to escape; we use them to try to get comfort and to distract ourselves. The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are. Renunciation is a teaching to inspire us to investigate what's happening every time we grab something because we can't stand to face what's coming.

In the Buddhist teachings on compassion there’s a practice called “one at the beginning, and one at the end.” When I wake up in the morning, I do this practice. I make an aspiration for the day. For example, I might say, “Today, may I acknowledge whenever I get hooked.” Or, “May I not speak or act out of anger.” I try not to make it too grandiose, as in, “Today, may I be completely free of all neurosis.” I begin with a clear intention, and then I go about the day with this in mind. In the evening, I review what happened. This is the part that can be so loaded for Western people. We have an unfortunate tendency to emphasize our failures. But when Dzigar Kongtrül teaches about this, he says that for him, when he sees that he has connected with his aspiration even once briefly during the whole day, he feels a sense of rejoicing. He also says that when he recognizes he lost it completely, he rejoices that he has the capacity to see that. This way of viewing ourselves has been very inspiring for me. He encourages us to ask what it is in us, after all, that sees that we lost it. Isn’t it our own wisdom, our own insight, our own natural intelligence? Can we just have the aspiration, then, to identify with the wisdom that acknowledges that we hurt someone’s feelings, or that we smoked when we said we wouldn’t? Can we have the aspiration to identify more and more with our ability to recognize what we’re doing instead of always identifying with our mistakes? This is the spirit of delighting in what we see rather than despairing in what we see. It’s the spirit of letting compassionate self-reflection build confidence rather than becoming a cause for depression. Being

If to a person religion means reading books and obeying every single word from it without the slightest bit of reasoning, then such perception would only bring destruction upon the person and the world. Also there are people who use the words from those books to justify their own filthy actions. Let’s take a conservative Muslim, for example. Say, the conservative Muslim male Homo sapiens (I won’t call such creature a human, regardless of the religion, since his action here shows no sign of humanity) is found to be beating his wife. Now, if someone says to him “this is wrong”, he would naturally reply, “this is a divine thing to do, my book says so”. Now, if a Christian says “my book is older, so you should stop obeying your book and start obeying mine”, there will come the Buddhist, and say, “my book is much older still, obey mine”. Then will come the Jew, and say, “my book is even older, so just follow mine”. And in the end will come the Hindu and say “my books are the oldest of all, obey them”. Therefore referring to books will only make a mess of the human race and tear the species into pieces.

While most of us go through life feeling that we are the thinker of our thoughts and the experiencer of our experience, from the perspective of science we know that this is a distorted view. There is no discrete self or ego lurking like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. There is no region of cortex or pathway of neural processing that occupies a privileged position with respect to our personhood. There is no unchanging “center of narrative gravity” (to use Daniel Dennett’s phrase). In subjective terms, however, there seems to be one — to most of us, most of the time. Our contemplative traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) also suggest, to varying degrees and with greater or lesser precision, that we live in the grip of a cognitive illusion. But the alternative to our captivity is almost always viewed through the lens of religious dogma. A Christian will recite the Lord’s Prayer continuously over a weekend, experience a profound sense of clarity and peace, and judge this mental state to be fully corroborative of the doctrine of Christianity; A Hindu will spend an evening singing devotional songs to Krishna, feel suddenly free of his conventional sense of self, and conclude that his chosen deity has showered him with grace; a Sufi will spend hours whirling in circles, pierce the veil of thought for a time, and believe that he has established a direct connection to Allah. The universality of these phenomena refutes the sectarian claims of any one religion. And, given that contemplatives generally present their experiences of self-transcendence as inseparable from their associated theology, mythology, and metaphysics, it is no surprise that scientists and nonbelievers tend to view their reports as the product of disordered minds, or as exaggerated accounts of far more common mental states — like scientific awe, aesthetic enjoyment, artistic inspiration, etc. Our religions are clearly false, even if certain classically religious experiences are worth having. If we want to actually understand the mind, and overcome some of the most dangerous and enduring sources of conflict in our world, we must begin thinking about the full spectrum of human experience in the context of science. But we must first realize that we are lost in thought.

The Buddha famously said that life is suffering. I’m not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss. That’s just nature. Each specific life comes with its own personalized portion of pain. It’s coming for you. You can’t stop it. And you know it. In response, most of us are programmed to seek comfort as a way to numb it all out and cushion the blows. We carve out safe spaces. We consume media that confirms our beliefs, we take up hobbies aligned with our talents, we try to spend as little time as possible doing the tasks we fucking loathe, and that makes us soft. We live a life defined by the limits we imagine and desire for ourselves because it’s comfortable as hell in that box. Not just for us, but for our closest family and friends. The limits we create and accept become the lens through which they see us. Through which they love and appreciate us. But for some, those limits start to feel like bondage, and when we least expect it, our imagination jumps those walls and hunts down dreams that in the immediate aftermath feel attainable. Because most dreams are. We are inspired to make changes little by little, and it hurts. Breaking the shackles and stretching beyond our own perceived limits takes hard fucking work—oftentimes physical work—and when you put yourself on the line, self doubt and pain will greet you with a stinging combination that will buckle your knees.

As I meditate, I leave my attachments and definitions behind, finding myself in a place of stillness, a place that only exists between the last word of a sentence… and the period.

Our manifesting mission is a White Op, a term based on the military black op, or black operation, a clandestine plot usually involving highly trained government spies or mercenaries who infiltrate an adversary‘s position, behind enemy lines and unbeknownst to them. White Op, coined by my best friend Bunny, stands for what I see needing to happen on the planet: a group of well-intentioned, highly trained Bodhisattva warriors (appearing like ordinary folk), armed with the six paramitas and restrained by ethical vows, begin to infiltrate their relationships, social institutions, and industries across all sectors of society and culture. Ordinary Bodhisattvas infusing the world with sacred view and transforming one mind at a time from the inside out until a new paradigm based on wisdom and compassion has totally replaced materialism and nihilism. The White Op is in large part how I envision the work and intention of my colleagues and me at the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science; we aspire to fulfill it by offering a Buddhist-inspired contemplative psychotherapy training program, infused with the latest neuroscience, to therapists, health-care workers, educators, and savvy business leaders. (p. 225)

Our limited insight into our own nature is part of the human condition, and leads us into confusion and suffering time and again. From a Buddhist viewpoint, our fundamental ignorance of the nature of reality leads us to circle endlessly in the cycle of death and rebirth. While we lack the insight to free ourselves from this cycle of existence, the teacher can offer us a way to break free of our ignorance and suffering. The Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions consider the guru to be the root of the path, the source of realizations and the one who liberates us from the bondage of ignorance. The tantric teachings of guru yoga say that the guru should be considered synonymous with the Buddha, and emphasize that without the guru the student cannot proceed. Because the role of the guru is given such emphasis, it is important to examine it closely, and in recent vicars awareness has grown of the hazards involved in the guru-disciple relationship. When students meet a teacher who touches them deeply, the experience can be overwhelming. They might become aware of their potential in a way they have never recognized previously. Disciples still captivated by the inspiration of their teacher often speak as if they have fallen in love, full of wonder and admiration. The teacher has opened their eyes, and they see him or her as fundamental to that experience. What empowers this experience is partly the quality of the teacher, who acts as a catalyst to awaken an inner quality that was unconscious.

Once parents mourn the loss of the life they wished for their child, they can accept and meet their child where he or she is today.

This science of bringing incarnations was alive in adi shaiva tradition and even in tibetan buddhist tradition. Reincarnation is neither theory nor philosophy nor concept. It is a science.

팔팔정구매 ✹ 홈피 : via3.co.to ✹ 카톡 : ppt33 ✹ 라인 : pxp32 ✹ Almost every child will complain about their parents sometimes. It is natural, because when people stay together for a long time, they will start to have argument. But ignore about the unhappy time, our parents love us all the time. No matter what happen to us, they will stand by our sides. We should be grateful to them and try to understand them. 팔팔정구입방법 팔팔정구매방법 팔팔정판매 팔팔정복용법 팔팔정부작용 팔팔정약효 팔팔정효과 팔팔정후기 팔팔정가격 팔팔정구입하는곳 팔팔정구매하는곳 팔팔정판매하는곳 Your negative emotions can also be controlled and directed. PMA and self-discipline can remove their harmful effects and make them serve constructive purposes. Sometimes fear and anger will inspire intense action. But you must always submit your negative emotions--and you positive ones--to the examination of your reason before releasing them. Emotion without reason is a dreadful enemy. love everyone who walks into our life.It must be fate to get acquainted in a huge crowd of people... I feel, the love that Osho talks about, maybe is a kind of pure love beyond the mundane world, which is full of divinity and caritas, and overflows with Buddhist allegorical words and gestures, but, it seems that I cannot see through its true meaning forever... Here are several reasons why you should train yourself for success like a champion boxer!

Can new inspiration spring from Buddhist cosmology's ashes? Let us look first at the idea of transmigration. Many modern people view it as outmoded, but I believe that it has many points relevant to the world today. The body of a dead worm returns to the earth, and its constituents change and become grass. This grass is eaten and becomes part of a cow, and eventually people eat the cow. Then they, too, return to the earth and become worms. If we pursued a single atom of nitrogen, we would probably find that it circulated among Gosāla's 1,406,600 kinds of living beings. People are born, and people die. They experience a variety of emotions such as anger, love, and hate, and die with their minds unsettled. They are followed, in turn, by others beginning their lives of anger, love, and hate. Human life is thus full of delusions, which actually have no absolute existence. Transmigration is the intuitive expression of this meaningless round of birth and death.

One of the implications of this sutra is not only that ordinary lay life is an acceptable role for dedicated Buddhists but also that this form of life is well positioned for a range of practices inspired by the bodhisattva vow of wise, compassionate involvement in the world.

We are not trapped in the identity of success or failure, or in any identity at all, neither in terms of how others see us nor in how we see ourselves.

Loving speech brings joy and happiness to ourselves and the people we love and relieves their suffering. We practice loving speech by being truthful and only saying words that inspire love, self-confidence, joy, and hope. We only spread news about things we are certain and refrain from criticizing and condemning things that we are not sure of. We avoid saying things that cause our family or community to break.

what we struggle against all our lives can be acknowledged as ordinary experience.

Stillness is followed by movement, movement flows back into stillness.

Acknowledging that we are all churned up is the first and most difficult step in any practice. Without compassionate recognition that we’re stuck, it’s impossible to liberate ourselves from confusion.

theirs. So make the whole world your meditation seat. You’ll find that meditation on the big seat and the little seat will strengthen each other.

When an intention is rooted in clarity, and positive emotions like joy and enthusiasm, life can transform in miraculous ways.

In recent years the number of Chinese (and particularly Taiwanese) pilgrims visiting the Buddhist holy sites in India has reached unprecedented heights: today at Bodh Gaya pilgrims from China and Taiwan now outnumber all the others put together. On arrival, they are greeted by a large statue of Xuanzang, striding towards Nalanda with a backpack full of scrolls, a small memorial to an often forgotten time when the Chinese looked towards India for guidance and inspiration.

I love a mysterious underground and have exploited this in many of my books: the ice tunnels of Greenland, the volcanic tubes of Iceland, the mysterious passageways beneath an ancient African hillside or a Buddhist monastery in central China. And of course, London's famous tube system, setting for my book LONDON UNDERGROUND. It's a funny sort of fixation, especially given my mother's claustrophobia, which I saw her deal with on many occasions. We once lined up to take a tour into the Lascaux Caverns in France to see the ancient cave paintings. My mother didn't make it past the first quirky turn into the depths, and she sent me on by myself. Given her interest in history and archaeology, which she used as the basis for a series of mysteries she published and which inspired my own writing, it always surprised me she still loved to write about places she could never visit.

the practitioner perceives the inner activity of the body as the manifestation of numerous energy currents (rlung). The term rlung literally means “moving air,” such as the “wind,” or the “breath.” Here it refers to subtle energy currents that move throughout the body. They move in channels (rtsa), which become increasingly discernible with experience. The quality of movement of these currents as well as their direction are correlated with both the rhythm of the breath and the flow of events within the mental continuum. The more chaotic the elaboration of thought within the mental continuum, the greater the disorganization of energy flow within the body. There are five main channels (rlung lnga) as well as numerous subsidiary ones (yan lag gi rlung) described in the Buddhist tantras. Each of the five main channels is associated with one of the five elements (’byung ba lnga), one of the five conflicting emotional states (nyon mong), one of the coarse bodily functions, and one of the body points. Table 6 gives these correlations. TABLE 6: CORRELATION OF ENERGY CURRENTS WITH BODY POINTS AND PHYSIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONSa Name of Energy Current Related Body Points Physiological Function 1. Inspiration (thur sel) Crossed legs Excretion 2. Expiration (kyen rgyu) Hands in equipose Speaking 3. Firelike (me mnyam) Spine and upper trunk Digestion 4. All-pervasive (khyab byed) Neck and tongue Muscular activity 5. Vital force (srog ’dzin) Gaze Breathing a

Thein Pe was the political writer par excellence. His very first work of fiction wove a nationalist message into a romance partly inspired by Romeo and Juliet.52 Khin Myo Chit is the story of a Burmese Muslim girl who is unable to give up her religion to marry the young Buddhist she loves. Nor can she ask the young man to convert to her religion as this would have an adverse effect on his nationalist activities. The couple decide to part and the girl dies of a broken heart, leaving a letter urging the young man to carry on with the struggle for Burma’s independence. Thein

To the representatives of theoretical Islam, i.e. Islamic fundamentalists, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Buddhists and all other humans who are not Muslims, are not just object of extreme detestation, they are, at the worst, lesser humans of false religions. This is not religion my friend. This is primitiveness at its worst.

From the standpoint of karma, being present is all about trust—trusting vulnerability. Being vulnerable doesn’t always feel like seeing an inspiring painting or taking a walk in nature. It is often a much more painful and awkward experience, the

The early Wittgenstein and the logical positivists that he inspired are often thought to have their roots in the philosophical investigations of René Descartes.9 Descartes’s famous dictum “I think, therefore I am” has often been cited as emblematic of Western rationalism. This view interprets Descartes to mean “I think, that is, I can manipulate logic and symbols, therefore I am worthwhile.” But in my view, Descartes was not intending to extol the virtues of rational thought. He was troubled by what has become known as the mind-body problem, the paradox of how mind can arise from nonmind, how thoughts and feelings can arise from the ordinary matter of the brain. Pushing rational skepticism to its limits, his statement really means “I think, that is, there is an undeniable mental phenomenon, some awareness, occurring, therefore all we know for sure is that something—let’s call it I—exists.” Viewed in this way, there is less of a gap than is commonly thought between Descartes and Buddhist notions of consciousness as the primary reality. Before 2030, we will have machines proclaiming. Descartes’s dictum. And it won’t seem like a programmed response. The machines will be earnest and convincing. Should we believe them when they claim to be conscious entities with their own volition?

Maybe I was just too young to know how to hold all these balls in the air at once without wanting to cry.

One of his most remarkable reforms is to state unequivocally that religion should not oppose itself to science. “Where Buddhist teachings contradict science, science should prevail,” he has said.

Seeing people who have the courage to point out the truth about an oppressive regime, for instance, even at the cost of their personal safety, is very inspiring, and one’s response of admiration is a form of faith in this Buddhist sense.

Buddhist philosophy is an interpretation of ordinary human experience, but an interpretation which is not revealed by God nor discovered in the access of inspiration nor seen in a mystical light. Basically, Buddhist metaphysics is a very simple and natural elaboration of the implications of Buddha’s own experience of enlightenment. Buddhism does not seek primarily to understand or to “believe in” the enlightenment of Buddha as the solution to all human problems, but seeks an existential and empirical participation in that enlightenment experience. It is conceivable that one might have the “enlightenment” without being aware of any discursive philosophical implications at all.

The more you ask, the more you get, but it takes practice to get good at it. success is a numbers game. As the Buddhist sages observed, “Every arrow that hits the bull’s eye is the result of one hundred misses.” Flex your “asking muscles” by asking for a better table at your favorite restaurant, for a free second scoop at your local ice cream shop or for a complimentary upgrade on your next airline flight. you might be surprised at the abundance that will flow into your life when you just ask sincerely for the things you want.

From the women in this book, I realized that I had been broken open by becoming a mother, and it was time to build myself back up, and discover the new version of who I was becoming. I think I may be recognizing myself again, if only in short glimpses from a reflection in the glass window. By researching this book, I was inspired by the theory of metta, which is described in some Buddhist circles as mother love. Similar notions of mother love may be found in Christianity, as seen through the stories and sculptures of Mary embracing Jesus. Metta is unlike any other type of love. Because it is metta, it brings out the very best and the very worst in us. Metta is forever—there is no “happily ever after,” and there is no finish line.

What you‘re experiencing now is conditioned and determined by your past; what you‘re doing now conditions and determines what you‘ll see in your future. When you can take responsibility for that causal process, you are on the first stage of the hero path. You change your piece of the world by changing your body and mind from that of an ordinary, deluded, sleepwalking, and afflicted human to that of a hero and eventually a Buddha – one who is utterly awake. Then you inspire others, until everyone‘s piece of the world is utterly, collectively transformed. (pp. 88 - 89)

We can sacrifice ourselves in order to save lives, to spread messages of freedom, hope, and dignity. That is our Buddha Nature, our Christ Nature – people who have embodied the principles of love and compassion and have taken extraordinary measures to change the world for the better. We call them heroes and heroines - for example, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Malala Yousafzai, along with the nameless aid workers, neonatal surgeons, and ordinary parents who make extraordinary choices in life-threatening circumstances. And we admire them. Those are the people who we want to occupy our Jewel Tree, letting their nectar rain down upon us in a shower of blessing and inspiration. They are the people who have discovered interdependence, wisdom, and compassion, have seen through the illusion of separation and come out the other side with the hero‘s elixir for the welfare of others. If we don‘t believe we can do it, if we don‘t have the confidence, that‘s the last hurdle. We believe there is something special about the hero and something deficient about us, but the only difference is that the Bodhisattva has training, has walked the Lam Rim, has reached the various milestones that each contemplation is designed to evoke, and collectively those experiences have brought confidence. Our natures are the same. It‘s in your DNA to become a hero. As heretical as it may sound to some, there is no inherent specialness to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is not inherently different from you. If you had his modeling, training, support, and devotional refuge, you too could be a paragon of hope and goodwill. Now, hopefully you will recognize cow critical it is for you to embrace your training (the Bodhisattva Path), so that we can shape-shift civilization through the neural circuitry of living beings. (pp. 139 - 140)

You must control and direct your emotions not abolish them. Besides, abolition would be antimissile task. Emotions are like a river. Their power can be dammed up and released under control and direction, but is cannot be held forever in check. Sooner or later the dam will burst, unleashing catastrophic destruction. 카톡☎ppt33☎ 〓 라인☎pxp32☎ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 Your negative emotions can also be controlled and directed. PMA and self-discipline can remove their harmful effects and make them serve constructive purposes. Sometimes fear and anger will inspire intense action. But you must always submit your negative emotions--and you positive ones--to the examination of your reason before releasing them. Emotion without reason is a dreadful enemy. 여성최음제구입,최음제구입,최음제구매,최음제판매,최음제가격,최음제파는곳,최음제구입방법,최음제구매방법,최음제복용법,최음제지속시간 What faculty provides the crucial balance between emotions and reason? It is your willpower, or ego, a subject which will be explored in more detail below. Self-discipline will teach you to throw your willpower behind either reason or emotion and amplify the intensity of their expression. 우선 클릭해서 감사드립니다.클릭한만큼 제품도 실망드리지 않습니다.정품진품으로 확실한 약효를 보여드리는곳입니다 팔팔정,구구정,네노마정,프릴리지,비맥스,비그알엑스,엠빅스,비닉스,센트립 등 많은 제품 취급합니다 원하신분들 지나가지 마시고 연락 주시구요,최선을 다해 단골님으로 모셔드리겠습니다 love everyone who walks into our life.It must be fate to get acquainted in a huge crowd of people... I feel, the love that Osho talks about, maybe is a kind of pure love beyond the mundane world, which is full of divinity and caritas, and overflows with Buddhist allegorical words and gestures, but, it seems that I cannot see through its true meaning forever...

Reflecting on our own goodness is considered a skillful means in Buddhist practice, because it opens our hearts and invigorates our faith in our spiritual unfolding. If we’re caught up in considering ourselves bad, we contract and hide. In contrast, if we trust our goodness, we open up to others, we feel inspired to help others, we move forward on our spiritual path with dedication and joy.

In the Khagga-Visāna-Sutta (24) of the Sutta-Nipāta, we read: One should associate with a friend who is learned, knows the teaching, has acquired and cultivates knowledge, has understood the meaning of things and has removed his doubts. The Hiri-Sutta (3) states: He who is constantly anxious and conflicted and always looks for flaws is not a friend. He who cannot be alienated from one by others, like a son from his father’s heart, is indeed a friend. Conventional friendship consolidates our conventional view of life, which is a flat perspective by contrast with the deep and unobstructed view inspired by spiritual friendship. Conventional friendship springs from and reinforces samsāra. Spiritual friendship is rooted in and promotes nirvāna. Beware also of dharma friends who bring worldliness to their spiritual practice. Their talk about spiritual matters is an occasion to brag, belittle others, or gain advantage—in other words, to cherish themselves. Their words are apparently about the path, but their mind is firmly entrenched in worldly matters. They are pretenders. Better to associate with a silent friend who is firmly on the path than a talkative friend who follows the pathways of the ego. Sat-sanga means “association with the virtuous or real.” Usually this refers to keeping the company of an adept, who embodies spiritual values, that is, connects us with that which is true, real, or virtuous (sat). In Buddhism, the word sangha or “community” suggests the same: the mutually beneficial association of those who follow the Buddha’s teachings (dharma). Members of the Sangha are by definition refuge holders, that is, they have sincerely taken refuge in the “three jewels” (tri-ratna): the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Taking refuge implies that we not merely believe in the “three jewels” but actively endeavor to follow in the footsteps of the Buddha and other great masters who have attained liberation or at least higher realizations by virtue of their own practice of the Buddha’s teachings. The greatest spiritual friend is one’s guru (Sanskrit) or lama (Tibetan). Some Buddhist schools consider him or her the fourth worthy object of refuge. He or she only has one’s best interest in mind, namely one’s ultimate freedom and happiness. The Buddhists call such a one kalyana-mitra or “beautiful friend.” He or she is “beautiful” because of his or her capacity and intent to beautify or ennoble others. Taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha is said to dispel all fear. Taking refuge in anyone or anything else does not have the same effect. It may postpone fear but cannot remove it altogether, because they do not lead us to our true nature, which is the Buddha nature beyond all possible worldly destinies. The Udāna-Varga (25.5) declares: People degenerate by relying on those inferior to themselves. By relying on equals, they stay the same. By relying on those superior, they attain excellence. Thus rely on those who are superior to yourself.

On the other hand, if you spent those thirty years, or three thousand years, primarily studying mental phenomena, you might draw a different conclusion. The simple point here is that multiple theories, or multiple moments of awareness, may best be validated when they are brought into conjunction with moments of awareness or perspectives that are radically different. Whether our perspective is Christianity, Buddhism, the philosophy of Greek antiquity, or modern neurobiology, the way forward may be to overcome the illusions of knowledge by engaging deeply, respectfully, and humbly with people who share radically different visions. I think there’s a common assumption from a secular perspective that the religions of the world cancel themselves out in terms of any truth claims: Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism say many different things on many fronts, so when you shuffle them all together, they all collapse into nothing. In that view, the only moment of cognition that seems to be left standing is science, with nothing to bounce off of because religions have canceled each other out. It’s also often believed that the contemplative traditions feel they already know the answers. You set out on your contemplative path and are guided to the right answer. If you deviate from that, your teacher brings you back and says, “Not that way. We already know the right answer. Keep on meditating until you get to the right answer.” That is completely incompatible with the spirit of scientific inquiry, which seeks information currently thought to be unknown, and is therefore open to something fresh. As I put these various problems together in my mind, a solution seems to rise up, which is a strong return to empiricism and clarity. What don’t we know and what do we know? It’s very hard to find that out when we only engage with people who have similar mentalities to our own. As Father Thomas suggested, Christianity needs to return to a spirit of empiricism, to the contemplative experience, rather than resting with all the “right” answers from doctrine. The same goes for Buddhism. In this regard I’m deeply inspired by the words of William James: “Let empiricism once become associated with religion, as hitherto, through some strange misunderstanding, it has been associated with irreligion, and I believe that a new era of religion as well as philosophy will be ready to begin . . . I fully believe that such an empiricism is a more natural ally than dialectics ever were, or can be, of the religious life.”99 We may then find there are indeed profound convergences among multiple contemplative traditions operating out of very different initial frameworks: the Bible, the sutras, the Vedas, and so forth. When we go to the deepest experiential level, there may be universal contemplative truths that the Christians, the Buddhists, and the Taoists have each found in their laboratories. If there is some convergence, these may be some of the most important truths that human beings can ever access.

HH Dalai Lama: Some forms of meditation are very difficult. One of my close friends was a very good meditator who attempted to cultivate single-pointedness of mind. He had the experience of spending a few years in a Chinese prison, and he told me that the meditation was actually harder than being a prisoner. The point is that he had to be constantly aware and attentive without losing his attention even for a moment. A constant vigilance was required. One factor that needs to be taken into account is the intensity and quality of the meditator’s motivation. In the traditional Buddhist context, meditators are highly motivated individuals who have a deep appreciation of the framework of the Buddhist path and an understanding of its causes and effects: If I do this, this will happen. They understand the nature of the path and its culmination. There is a deep recognition that the fulfillment of one’s aspiration for happiness really lies in the transformation of one’s undisciplined state to a more disciplined state of mind. These individuals take into account all of this context, so when they engage in meditation, they have a tremendous sense of dedication, joy, a very strong motivation, and sustained enthusiasm. But if you just tell a child, with no context at all, to start meditating, there will be no incentive, no inspiration. Robert, you made the comment that in small doses, stress can actually raise dopamine levels, which we assume corresponds in the rat to a heightened sense of well-being or pleasure. I wonder whether there might be an analogue in meditation, specifically in the training of single-pointed attention, or samadhi, which is not uniquely Buddhist. As one trains incrementally in developing attention, a quality arises that is described as suppleness or malleability of the body and mind, and is often conjoined with a sense of well-being, perhaps even bliss. It happens very strongly when one achieves a high state of samadhi, but even incrementally along the path, there are many surges of this type of malleability together with a kind of bliss. This may be an interesting area of research, to see from the neurophysiological perspective what some of the unexpected events are that come out of such attentional training.