BUDDHIST WISDOM

[Pravin Kumar]

When you try to get rid of dear or anger, what happens? You just get restless or discouraged and have to go eat something or smoke or drink or do something else. But if you wait and endure restlessness, greed, hatred, doubt, despair, and sleepiness, if you observe these conditions as they cease and end, you will attain a kind of calm and mental clarity, which you will never achieve if youre always going after something else.

- Ajahn Sumedho, "The Mind and the Way"


Hearing the above, another questioner, Jatukkani, asked: "Like the sun which controls the world with its heat and light, you, Master, seem to control desire and pleasure. I have only a little understanding. How can I find and know the way to give up this world of birth and aging?" The Buddha  answered: "Lose your greed for pleasure. See how letting go of the world brings deep tranquility. There is nothing you need hold on to and nothing you need push away. Live in the present but do not cling to it and then you can go from place to place in peace. There is a state of greed that enters and dominates the individual. But when that greed has gone, it is like poison leaving a body and death will have no more terror for you."

- Sutta Nipata


This mind is an uncertain thing. This body is uncertain. Together they are impermanent. Together they are a source of suffering. Together they are devoid of self. These, the Buddha  pointed out, are neither being, nor a person, nor a self, nor a soul, nor us, nor they. They are merely elements: earth, water, fire and wind. Elements only!

- Ajahn Chah, "Bodhinyana"




Clearly, buddha-dharma is not practiced for one's own sake, and even less for the sake of fame and profit. Just for the sake of buddha-dharma you should practice it. All buddhas' compassion and sympathy for sentient beings are neither for their own sake nor for the sake of others. It is just the nature of buddha-dharma.

- Dogen, "Moon in a Dewdrop"



Detach from all mental objects, stop all thoughts: do not let either good or bad thoughts enter your thinking, do not keep either Buddhist teachings or worldly phenomena in mind.

- Huai-t'ang