No God

Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. ~Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking

January 8, 1942, Oxford, United Kingdom - March 14, 2018, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Freedom of Thought

The freedom of thought allowed by the Buddha is unheard of elsewhere in the history of religions. This freedom is necessary because, according to the Buddha, man's emancipation depends on his own realization of Truth, and not on the benevolent grace of a god or any external power as a reward for his obedient good behaviour.

Mind

Mind is only a faculty or organ like the eye or the ear. It can be controlled and developed like any other faculty.

~Walpola Rahula, in What the Buddha Taught

No Distinction

The Noble Eightfold Path, which is the Buddhist way of life, is meant for all, without distinction of any kind.

~Walpola Rahula, in What the Buddha Taught

The Practice

The common belief that to follow the Buddha's teaching one has to retire from life is a misconception. It is really an unconscious defense against practicing it.

~Walpola Rahula, in What the Buddha Taught

Unwholesome

War, class oppression, racism, and environmental pollution are affronts to the Buddha. They are affronts to the Buddha precisely because they assault and insult the buddha-nature in people and give rise to totally unnecessary suffering.

~~Gene Reeves, in The Stories of the Lotus Sutra

Reality

Words and thoughts are not clung to as ultimate arbiters of reality.

~Thomas Cleary, in Entry Into the Inconceivable

The Universe

The universe is beyond views, without emotions, profusely evolving myriad of forms.

~Thomas Cleary, in Entry Into the Inconceivable

Expressing Reality

Words and thoughts are not clung to as ultimate arbiters of reality.

~Thomas Cleary, in Entry Into the Inconceivable

There Is No True Benefit For One Group Alone That Is Won At The Cost Of Another

It is generally characteristic of Mahayana or universalistic Buddhism that the mundane welfare of beings is considered a legitimate, if not ultimate, aim of bodhisattva activity, and many aspects of the ethical and practical life of bodisattvas may be seen in this light. While psychological and physical well-being is not considered the ultimate goal, it might appropriately be thought of as an elementary stage in the realization of humanity, a removal of conflicts and anxieties to free more energy for higher development. It is axiomatic, based on the world view of Buddhism, that since all people and indeed all creatures share in each other's existence, there is no true benefit for one group alone that is won at the cost of another.

~Thomas Cleary, in Entry Into the Inconceivable

The Liberation and Enlightenment of All Beings

The ethic of the Hua-yen teaching is based on this fundamental theme of universal interdependence; while the so-called bodhisattva, the person devoted to enlightenment, constantly nourishes aspiration and will going beyond the world, nevertheless the striving for completion and perfection, the development of ever greater awareness, knowledge, freedom, and capability, is continually reinvested, as it were, in the world, dedicated to the liberation and enlightenment of all beings.

~Thomas Cleary, in Entry Into the Inconceivable

The Hua-yen School

The Hua-yen doctrine shows the entire cosmos as one single nexus of conditions in which everything simultaneously depends on, and is depended on by, everything else. Seen in this light, then, everything affects and is affected by, more or less immediately or remotely, everything else; just as this is true of every system of relationships, so it is true of the totality of existence. In seeking to understand individuals and groups, therefore, Hua-yen thought considers the manifold as an integral part of the unit and the unit as an integral part of the manifold; one individual is considered in terms of relationships to other individuals as well as to the whole nexus, while the whole nexus is considered in terms of its relation to each individual as well as to all individuals.

~Thomas Cleary, in Entry Into the Inconceivable

The Walrus

One of the core ideas in Buddhist philosophy is that subject and object are one. Or, as John Lennon said in "I Am the Walrus," "I am he as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together." That's actually a very coherent Buddhist statement. The Rutles' parody of this song (Piggy in the Middle") begins, "I know you know what you know, but you should know by now that you're not me." This is also straight-up Buddhism. I'm not kidding.

~Brad Warner, in It Came From Beyond Zen

What's Going On

We often don't really enter the present moment because we're too bound up with ideas about. . .well, about a whole bunch of things. We're stuck in our concepts about what's going on and we miss what's actually going on.

~Brad Warner, in It Came From Beyond Zen

Just a Trick of Thought

Life, the universe, and everything are exactly what they are. When we think we're trying to understand them, what we usually end up doing instead is trying to find foolproof ways to describe them to ourselves rather than just fully experiencing them. We try to make symbolic representations of them in our brains. But it doesn't work because the representation in never the thing it represents.

Dogen and other Buddhist teachers suggest, instead, allowing the mind to be like a mirror that reflects clearly the world it encounters without trying to reduce it into something else. If you can do this, you start to see that the division you think exists between yourself and the rest of the universe is really just a trick of thought. It has some usefulness for communication purposes, so that you can describe that one unit of the universe you image yourself to be. But it's not real. The universe is more you than the "you" that you've created could ever be.

~Brad Warner, in It Came From Beyond Zen

The Moon on Waves

There is only one moon, but as it sets into the sea, each wave reflects it a little differently. It's the same way with us human beings and the truth. "The truth is only one," as Nishijima Roshi used to say. But each of us reflects that truth a bit differently.

~Brad Warner, in It Came From Beyond Zen

The Noble Art of Living

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

~Lin Yutang

Be Here

"Where shall I look for Enlightenment?"

"Here."

"When will it happen?"

"It is happening right now."

"Then why don't I experience it?"

"Because you do not look."

"What should I look for?"

"Nothing. Just Look."

"At what?"

"Anything your eyes alight upon."

"Must I look in a special kind of way?"

"No. The ordinary way will do."

"But don't I always look the ordinary way?"

"No."

"Why ever not?"

"Because to look you must be here. You're mostly somewhere else."

~Anthony De Mello

At Your Table

Man at the Table by Gabriele Munter

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

~Franz Kafka