Lotuses from the mud of usenet - 2007 part 2 of 4
- From: "Evelyn Ruut" <evelyn.ruut@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 09:58:53 -0500
Lotuses of Wisdom from muddy usenet part 2 of 4
*****
Profanity is the attempt of a weak mind to make a strong statement. - unknownyou don't need to wait for some special moment, like death and what follows death, to make
*****
"Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion." -Dalai Lama
*****
"If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to ry." -The Dalai Lama
****
Krishnamurti says that meditation is a violence upon your real nature of pure serenity. nisargadatta maharaj says that meditation is a lower state.
Meditation is a great violence to your underlying nature of pure serenity, so to speak, but still quite necessary as a type of transitional state from an even greater violence as you accept and identify with your temporarily inherited human nature.
All activity, no matter how noble it may appear to be, is a great violence upon the true imperturbability which rests in your heart. Even love and compassion are a great violence to that state. - Lee Frank
******
Brevity is the soul of Zen.
Zen is a direct, immediate,
and sudden realization of
what our life is all about.
Any more questions? -- Stumper
****
The thought that one suffers in delusion is what it is that is suffering in delusion. The witness to suffering is the one who creates suffering, to himself, in closed circle. When one calms down and quiesces thought, gently and not forcibly, there is no suffering, and
there is nobody who notices that fact either. The circle is broken, merely by not building it. -- Tang Huyen
*****
"The most important thing is learning to learn. There are so many books, so many original Buddhist teachings, so many commentaries on them, and so many arguments. In the past, doctrinal conflict was settled by argument and debate. At the end, there was always a winner and a loser. All that is unnecessary practice, because anything we define as the truth is simply intellectual fabrication. We are just putting on more labels, more words. The most important thing is really to study the law of karma. With that, if one has a very good understanding of the complexities of the law of karma, Buddhism becomes very easy. Buddhism has very elaborate empowerments, rituals, prayers-none of them is needed. If you want to understand karma, then become like a lawyer who is well trained and knows the consequence of breaking the law. Keeping the law of karma in mind, one should cultivate loving-kindness and compassion in order to develop relative and ultimate bodhicitta. That's all that is needed." -- Garchen Rinpoche
*****
Mark Twain said that Adam made the first joke. Eve remarked how marvelous a waterfall was. Adam said it would be even more marvelous if the water fell up.
(Blind Realists say, "Show me a miracle.") My advice to everyone is "stop making sense". Let it all vanish in wonder and laughter. If one doesn't assume, one may discover. - Keynes
****
Sutras should be read not as objective truths
but just as guidelines for practice.
I believe you would agree to that. -~Stumper
******
"Water which is too pure has no fish." -- Ts'ai Ken T'an
*****
You've fooled yourself into an identification with your temporarily inherited human agenda, and have become convinced that that agenda is not awake but can become so. It may be just a matter of semantics, but you are already awake, yet you are clouding it by this identification, that's ll. - Lee Frank
*****
Love the Earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mother of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency, not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. -- Walt Whitman 1819-1892
*****
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false,
and by rulers as useful." - Seneca the Younger
*****
"Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternative." - Barry Goldwater, US Republican politician (from a speech in 1981)
*****
"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."
--- Thomas Paine
*****
"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion & morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple & doesn't require religion at all. ... 'Don't do unto anybody else what you wouldn't like to be done to you.'" - Arthur C. Clarke
*****
"Religion is for those who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for those who've been to hell & don't want to go back." - Unknown
*****
"Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
--- James Madison
*****
There is no enlightened 'person'. 'Person' is a construct of the ego in need of identity based on security and survival addictions. To state that a 'person' is enlightened is an erroneous statement. Enlightenment may occur but there is no person involved.
--Lee Frank
****
Marpa cried and grieved profusely at his son's death, which angered his disciples. "Haven't you been telling us that this world and all beings within it are an illusion? How can you cry at the death of your on?" ."You are right," Marpa said, "that my son was just an illusion. But he was such a beautiful illusion that I can't help but weep." --shared by Robert Epstein
*****
Awakening has nothing to do with good and evil, justice and injustice. It is in itself, and refers to nothing outside of itself, like compassion and infallibility, which tend to be linked to it a priori. It is indifferent to compassion, though some awakened are compassionate, and infallibility is impossible to humans (therefore can be linked to
awakening only in delusion, but people just love to do so). --Tang Huyen
*****
My friend from Vermont tells me they have a saying up there, "Don't talk unless you can improve the silence." - Lee Rudolph
*****
Without the backdrop of infinite and eternal silence, that monkey mind, with its constant fluctuations begging for your attention, couldn't arise. You are more the silence than the noise but the noise is flashier and gets your attention and that attention that it gets, is actually a subsequence of that silence to begin with. - Lee Frank
*****
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so. -- Mark Twain
*****
The only difference between fiction and reality is that fiction needs to be credible - Mark Twain
*****
Evil is not a quality which one can attribute to an entity such as the devil, Satan or Lucifer. It is a quality which can be attributed to works. Aggression is evil action. The way to fight the darkness is by being a source of light. The way to fight the evil actions is by being the source of good actions. -- H. Moe
*****
"Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day." - Ching Ning Chu
*****
The reality is, because you are. Grasp this point firmly. If you are not for you, where is the reality? You must exist first for there to be a reality. Without it, what then are
you? - L Frank
*****
Apparently routes can be found around damaged neural pathways, different parts of the brain can be coerced into doing tasks not originally 'assigned' them, though these things are automatic (it's certainly been found in stroke patients). Maybe the depressive can rewire their neural pathways if meditation can produce 'normalcy' without drugs. Who knows for sure? It's possible to re-write your past and walk years down a new path without ever treading it, to arrive at this moment. No destination in mind.. Serendipitous epiphanies are happening to people who are just standing there; walking to the shops; washing up the dinner plates; sitting in waiting rooms maybe even digging the garden. Will this moment ever end? No, it won't! Everyone has all the time in the world.
--Shirley Knott
*****
It's like you're talking to everyone. Or no one.
He is talking to his Self. It is a very expansive Self; it includes multitudes. It is a Self-raping Self. Luckily, it is also a Self-lubricating Self. It scrubs itSelf and washes
itSelf. It is never narrow, never shrill. It is the perfectly generous Self and shares itSelf endlessly with itSelf. It cuts off its own top and regenerates from its own root. It
is perfectly empty and perfectly full, perfectly hysterical and perfectly sterile. Its eyes burn bright and its teeth are, individually and collectively, exemplars of their kind.
It is the perfect Leader and the perfect Follower. When it farts, the world is reborn.
-- Lee Rudolph
*****
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
--Atisha
*****
The fool thinks he has won a battle when he bullies with harsh speech, but knowing how to be forbearing alone makes one victorious.
Samyutta Nikaya I, 163
*****
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
.
- Prev by Date: Lotuses from the mud of usenet 2007 - part one
- Next by Date: Lotuses from the mud of usenet - 2007 part 3 of 4
- Previous by thread: Lotuses from the mud of usenet 2007 - part one
- Next by thread: Lotuses from the mud of usenet - 2007 part 3 of 4
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
