buddhism

The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

These... things, householder, are welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world:Long life is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.Beauty is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.Happiness is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.Status is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world....Now, I tell you, these... things are not to be obtained by reason of prayers or wishes. If they were to be obtained by reason of prayers or wishes, who here would lack them? It's not fitting for the disciple of the noble ones who desires long life to pray for it or to delight in doing so. Instead, the disciple of the noble ones who desires long life should follow the path of practice leading to long life. In so doing, he will attain long l

From the Buddhist perspective, the only lasting way to bring about change is for people themselves to change.

All the repetitions in the pattern were superficial; the moment was always new. It had to be lived, and then the next moment embraced as it arrived.

Once upon a time,there was a Zen signat every small railway crossing in AmericaStop. Look. And listen.

Death would be an extremely bad thing like most of us paint it, if being dead were painful.

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 __ne word_ Zen. When asked __hat is the highest teaching of the Buddha?_ he replied: __n appropriate statement._ On another occasion, he answered: __ake._ I admired his directness.

The light in meonly wants toreach the darkness in you.

Because of the Dharma, my mind was more free in prison than worldly people experience in the best of circumstances.

There is a yearning that is as spiritual as it is sensual. Even when it degenerates into addiction, there is something salvageable from the original impulse that can only be described as sacred. Something in the person (dare we call it a soul?) wants to be free, and it seeks its freedom any way it can. ... There is a drive for transcendence that is implicit in even the most sensual of desires.

It is not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for all of mankind.

I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I'm definitely not religious, and I'm very tired of the preachiness and obsession with other people's behavior characteristic of many religious people in the United States. As far as I could tell, there's nothing preachy about Buddhism. I was in a lot of temples, and I still don't know what Buddhists believe, except that at one point Kunio said 'If you do bad things, you will be reborn as an ox.'This makes as much sense to me as anything I ever heard from, for example, the Reverend Pat Robertson.

Everyone we interact with has the capacity to surprise us in an infinite number of ways. What can first open us up to each of our innate capacities for love is merely to recognize that.

Equanimity can be hard to talk about.

The more we surrender to what cannot be, the better we control what can be.

To just be--to be--amidst all doings, achievings, and becomings. This is the natural state of mind, or original, most fundamental state of being. This is unadulterated Buddha-nature. This is like finding our balance.