BUDDHIST WISDOM

[Pravin Kumar]

Desires achieved increase thirst like salt water.

- Milarepa, "Drinking the Mountain Stream"

Q: I can observe anger and work with greed, but how does one observe delusion? A: You're riding a horse and asking "Where's the horse?" Pay attention.

- Ajahn Chah

Let alone seven years, monks, whoever practices on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness for six, five, four, three, two years, one year, or one month, can also expect one of two fruits-either the highest understanding in this very life or can attain the fruit of no-return. Let alone a month, monks, whoever practices the Four Establishments of Mindfulness one week can also expect one of two fruits-either the highest understanding in this very life or the fruit of no-return.

- Adapted from Satipatthana-sutta, translated by Thich Nhat Hanh and Annabel Laity


The essential truth of suffering is that neither individual nor social problems are due chiefly to external conditions.

- B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

- The Dalai Lama


From this point on you really know. This is called the pinnacle of Zen, the sovereignty of Zen. It is also called knowledge of what is knowable; it produces all the various states of meditation, and anoints the heads of all spiritual princes. In all fields of form, sound, fragrance, flavor, feeling, and phenomena, you realize complete perfect enlightenment. Inside and outside are in complete communion, without any obstruction at all.

- Pai-chang, "The Sphere of the Enlightened"