Ethics

In Buddhist ethical understanding, every person's behavior should be controlled by the person him or herself.

Buddhists don't hold a dogmatic style of ethics where one only behaves in a manner delineated by supreme beings.

Practice, Instead of Words

If anyone talks about the Whole it will be only with words, and words do not contain its essence. Therefore, if people rely on words that do not contain the essence of anything, it creates deep suspicion or doubt. Thus empty words do not give a state of awareness.

---Samyukta-Agama---

The Truths of the Realistic World

In Buddhism, the Teachings are not used to support any revelations. Buddhism does not posit the theory of a creator deity. Buddhists do not believe in theories of transcendentalism.

Buddhists only believe in the truths of the realistic world that are made perceivable by one's own sensations or through the observation of one's perceptions.

To All Beings

The Buddha's Teachings are deeply rooted in people's ordinary, everyday lives. The Buddha's Teachings focus on realistic views that people can adopt as guidelines for their lives.

The Buddha always stressed with his disciples that the Teaching has to pertain to people. The Buddha said over and over that his were not simply scholastic teachings.

The Buddhist Practitioner lives to bring happiness and prosperity to all Beings.

Equality

The Teachings of the Buddha are based on the absolute equality of all sentient beings.

The Buddhist Way

It is the Buddhist understanding and teaching that anyone who lacks benevolence and compassion can never become a buddha.

It is the Buddhist Way is to rescue people who are under stress, ignorance, discomfort in the mundane world.

Ignorance

The Buddha discovered the main source of stress, discomfort, dukkha is ignorance. Not stupidity, ignorance. Ignorance is not knowing. Ignorance is not being aware of a thing.

Ignorance can be eliminated by coming to know, coming to understand.

If any human being eliminates ignorance, they eliminate stress, discomfort, dukkha.

Freedom

The key, during both life and death, is to recognize illusions as illusions, projections as projections, and fantasies as fantasies. In this way we become free.

---Lama Thubten Yeshe---

Happiness

Always

Buddhist Scripture

We must remember that scriptures in Buddhism are not intended to present doctrines to be accepted or rejected as dogma but have as an important function the provocation of thought and reflection.

---Thomas Cleary---

Stop Waiting

Mutual Interaction and Development

Buddhism, systematized some two and a half thousand years ago, is one of the oldest religions on earth. Subsequently spreading over Asia through numerous cultural spheres, it became, more than a philosophy, a body of many philosophical systems embracing a wide variety of beliefs and practices. Generally speaking, however, it may be said that all forms of Buddhism comprise three spheres of learning: ethics, concentration methods, and analytic insight. These three spheres of learning support, enhance, and complete one another, and it is through their mutual interaction and development that Buddhism aims to realize human potential. Corresponding to these three spheres of learning, Buddhist literature includes three general types of material: precepts, scriptures, and philosophical treatises. Because of the interweaving of the three fields of learning, scriptures and treatises include ethical material as well as meditation and analytic principles. Scriptures are presented as the teaching emerging from the meditations of the Buddha.

---from the Preface of Entry Into the Inconceivable: An Introduction To Hua-Yen Buddhism, by Thomas Cleary---

Pacifying the Heart

The Master was silent and said nothing.

Emmon suddenly rose and asked, “What is called the heart? And how is the heart pacified?”

The Master answered, “You should not assume a heart, then there is no need to pacify it. That is called pacifying the heart.”

---The Ceasing of Notions---

To Become a Buddha

There is a simple way to become a Buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Seek nothing else.

---Master Dogen---

Myriads of Objects

Long ago a monk asked a master, "When hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done?"

The master replied, "Don't try to control them."

---Master Dogen---

The Lion's Roar

Get Off Your Ass

Buddhism is not a passive tradition.

You do not sit and experience quiet and stillness and profound personal peace.

You get off your ass and you share quiet and stillness and profound peace.

Poems Exchanged Between Ryokan and His Brother Yoshiyuki

"I hear you play marbles with the brothel girls."

The black robed monk
Sports with
Pleasure girls-
What can be
In his heart?

---from Yoshiyuki


Sporting and sporting,
As I pass through this floating world:
Finding myself here,
Is it not good
To dispel the bad dreams of others?

---from Ryokan


Sporting and sporting
While passing through this world
Is good, perhaps,
But don't you think of
The world to come?

---from Yoshiyuki


It is in this world,
With this body
That I sport:
No need to think
About the world to come.

---from Ryokan

Vow Number 41 of the 48 Bodhisattva Vows

I vow never to teach for the sake of profit.

Vow Number 21 of the 48 Bodhisattva Vows

I vow to abstain from violence and vengefulness.

Vow Number 14 of the 48 Bodhisattva Vows

I vow to abstain from acts, such as clear burning, that may injure or kill living creatures.

Avocado Sauce

1 avocado, pitted and removed from the husk
1 1/4 cups of plan Greek yogurt
3 tablespoons of sniped dill
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
A small pinch of a fine curry powder
Salt to taste
Fresh-ground black pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and process for 30 seconds.

Adjust the seasoning with the salt and the pepper.

Serve as a dip with raw vegetables.

With or Without End

If this world had an end, how could there be the other world? But if this world were without an end, how could there be the other world?

---Nagarjuna---

Neither Cessation Nor Origination

I salute the Fully Enlightened One, the best of orators, who taught the doctrine of dependent origination, according to which there is neither cessation nor origination, neither annihilation nor the eternal, neither singularity nor plurality, neither the coming nor the going [of any dharma, for the purpose of nirvana characterized by] the auspicious cessation of hypostatization.

---The Dedicatory Verse in Nagarjuna's Middle Way (The Mulamadhyamakakarika), translated by Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura---

Between Two Extremes

The Buddha told his disciple Katayayana that his is a middle path between the two extreme views of existence and nonexistence. This teaching has been interpreted as rejecting two views about the person: that there is a self, so persons exist permanently; and since there is no self, the person is annihilated or becomes nonexistent at the end of life, or even at the end of the present moment.

The middle path is that while there is no self, there is a causal series that is conveniently designated a person.

Family Pleasing Herb Butter Sauce

1/2 cup of cold water
A small bunch of equal quantities of tarragon and flat-leaf parsley, chopped
14 tablespoons of butter, chilled and diced
The juice of 1/2 a lemon
Salt to taste
Fresh-ground black pepper to taste

Put the water and the herbs in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

Turn the heat to very low, add the butter, whisking continuously.

Immediately, when the butter has melted, add the lemon juice, season to taste with the salt and pepper. Make sure it is well mixed.

Pass the sauce through a wire-mesh.

Use immediately.

Roll boiled baby potatoes or steamed small carrots in the sauce.

Wisdom From Some Mindful Friends

Goat-Cheese Sauce with Rosemary

1 cup of whole milk (If the cheese has a very soft consistency, you may need only 2/3 to 3/4 of a cup)
1/4 of a cup of fresh rosemary needles
3/4 of a pound of goat-cheese, softened with a spatula
Salt to taste
Fresh-ground black pepper to taste

In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. Add the rosemary needles, cover the pan, remove from the heat, and allow the milk to infuse until it has completely cooled to room temperature.

Strain the cooled milk, whisk it into the goat-cheese, and season to taste with the salt and pepper.

The sauce is now ready to use with a basket of raw vegetables or other cold foods.

There Is No Jailer Like Hate

There is no fire like lust, no jailer like hate, no snare like infatuation, no torrent like greed.

---The Buddha, in the Dhammapada---

Only You Can Purify You

Evil is done by oneself alone;
By oneself is one defiled.
Evil is avoided by oneself;
By oneself alone is one purified.
Purity and impurity depend on oneself;
No one can purify another.

---The Buddha, in the Dhammapada---

Purity

Monks, there are these three kinds of purity. What are the three? Purity of body, purity of speech, and purity of mind. These are the three.

---The Buddha, in the Itivuttaka---

Buster Keaton

We Create the Names

Everything is as it is. It has no name other than the name we give it. It is we who call it something; we give it a value. We say this thing is good or it's bad, but in itself, the thing is only as it is. It's not absolute, it's just as it is. People are just as they are.

---The Mind and the Way, by Ajahn Sumedho---

Seeing Your Nature

Buddhas of the past and future only talk about seeing your nature. All practices are impermanent. Unless they see their nature, people who claim to attained unexcelled, complete enlightenment are liars.

---Bodhidharma---

Buddha Nature

If you see your nature, you don't need to read sutras or invoke buddhas. Erudition and knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness. Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrine.

---Bodhidharma---