All beings tremble before violence.
All fear death.
All love life.

See yourself in others.
Then whom can you hurt?
What harm can you do?

He who seeks happiness
By hurting those who seek happiness
Will never find happiness.

For your brother is like you.
He wants to be happy.
Never harm him
And when you leave this life
You too will find happiness.

Never speak harsh words
For they will rebound upon you.

Angry words hurt
And the hurt rebounds.

Like a broken gong
Be still, be silent.
Know the stillness of freedom
Where there is no more striving. Continue reading →

Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something
outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious
is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family.
Every minute should be enjoyed and savored. ~Earl Nightingale

Your own interests and your own life will be balanced only when they include both the well-being of yourself and others. Any wholesome undertaking necessarily includes a desire to benefit others. If an undertaking is egocentric and full of self-cherishing, then that balance will be extremely difficult to find and maintain. ~ 17th Karmapa

Beauty isn’t in the clothes you wear, or the way you look.
It’s in your eyes, your smile, and your laugh. It’s the way
you breathe in life. Beauty is living in spite of everything
out there that tries to pull you down. ~Unknown

‘No matter how long we listen to a teacher talk about the truth we won’t know or see that truth just from listening. If we did it would be only through guesswork or conjecture.’

‘Even though simply listening to the Dhamma may not lead to realization, it is beneficial. In the Buddha’s time there were those who arrived at the highest realization while listening to a discourse. But those people were already highly developed. It’s like a football. When a football is pumped up with air it expands. Now the air in that football is all pushing to get out, but there’s no hole for it to do so. As soon as a no needle punctures the football the air comes bursting out.’

‘Don’t be in a hurry to judge whether this teaching is right or wrong. Just listen to it first. If I were to give you all a fruit and tell you it’s delicious, you should take note of my words, but don’t believe me offhand, because you haven’t tasted it yet. The teaching I give you today is the same. If you want to know whether the fruit is sweet or sour you have to slice a piece off and taste it. Then you will know its taste for yourself.’ ~Ajahn Chah

Dragonflys. Photo credit: Randy Neufeldt

Buddha once saw a jackal, a wild dog, run out of the forest where he was staying. It stood still for a while, then it ran into the underbrush, and then out again. Then it ran into a tree hollow, then out again. Then it went into a cave, only to run out again. One minute it stood, the next it ran, then it lay down, then it jumped up. The jackal had the mange. When it stood, the mange would eat into its skin, so it would run. Running, it was still uncomfortable, so it would stop. Standing, it was still uncomfortable, so it would lie down. Then it would jump up again, running to the underbrush, the tree hollow, never staying still. The Buddha said, “Monks, did you see that jackal this afternoon? Standing, it suffered. Running, it suffered. Sitting, it suffered. Lying down, it suffered. It blamed standing for its discomfort. It blamed sitting. It blamed running and lying down. It blamed the tree, the underbrush, and the cave. In fact, the problem was with none of those things. The problem was with his mange.” We are just the same as that jackal. Our discontent is due to wrong view. Because we don’t exercise sense restraint, we blame our suffering on externals. Whether we live in Thailand, America or England, we aren’t satisfied. Why not? Because we still have wrong view. Just that! So wherever we go, we aren’t content. But just as that jackal would be content wherever it went as soon as its mange was cured, so would we be content wherever we went once we rid ourselves of wrong view. ~Ajahn Chah

17th Karmapa

I want to be clear that seeking your own understanding does not mean rejecting all established spiritual paths. Many people feel that organized religions are problematic – or even hopelessly flawed. They might even think that they could assemble a better religion for themselves by picking and choosing bits they like from different religions. I do not think this is realistic. It simply does not work as we think it might. Instead of something holistic that transforms us, it just yields a patchwork that pleases us. This can become a kind of spiritual consumerism.

Worse, it can be dangerous. Bits that you thought would be beneficial for you can turn out to be ineffective or even harmful if you apply them out of context. When you extract practices from a gradual path of transformation, they might not have the same effect outside of their intended sequence. Our spiritual path has to unfold organically – and we have to be receptive to going where it leads us, step-by-step. ~17th Karmapa