BUDDHIST WISDOM

[Pravin Kumar]

Fields are spoiled by weeds; people, by passion. So what's given to those free of passion bears great fruit. Fields are spoiled by weeds; people, by aversion. So what's given to those free of aversion bears great fruit.

- Dhammapada, 24, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

He goes to hell, the one who asserts what didn't take place, as does the one who, having done, says, "I didn't." Both—low-acting people— there become equal: after death, in the world beyond.

- Dhammapada 306, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

It is not by the amount that giving is productive of reward but rather by the generous impulse behind it. Therefore even so little as a handful of rice flour given with a pure heart becomes something that will bring great reward.

- Vimana Vatthu

Everywhere, truly, those of integrity stand apart. They, the good, don't chatter in hopes of favor or gains. When touched now by pleasure, now pain, the wise give no sign of high or low.

- Dhammapada, 6, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

What is meant by nonduality, Mahatmi? It means that light and shade, long and short, black and white, can only be experienced in relation to each other; light is not independent of shade, nor black of white. There are no opposites, only relationships. In the same way, nirvana and the ordinary world of suffering are not two things but related to each other. There is no nirvana except where the world of suffering is; there is no world of suffering apart from nirvana. For existence is not mutually exclusive.

- Lankavatara Sutra