Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/31/2007

"If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity. If there's no relationship with nature then you become a killer; then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and man either for gain, for "sport," for food, or for knowledge. Then nature is frightened of you, withdrawing its beauty. You may take long walks in the woods or camp in lovely places but you are a killer and so lose their friendship. You probably are not related to anything to your wife or your husband."

~J. Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/30/2007

"The mind has to be empty to see clearly."

~J. Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/29/2007

"Do not think about yourself, but be aware of the thought, emotion, or action that makes you think of yourself."

~J. Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/28/2007

"If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation."

~J. Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/27/2007

Insight is not an act of remembrance, the continuation of memory. Insight is like a flash of light. You see with absolute clarity, all the complications, the consequences, the intricacies. Then this very insight is action, complete. In that there are no regrets, no looking back, no sense of being weighed down, no discrimination. This is pure, clear insight - perception without any shadow of doubt. Most of us begin with certainty and as we grow older the certainty changes to uncertainty and we die with uncertainty. But if one begins with uncertainty, doubting, questioning, asking demanding, with real doubt about man's behaviour, about all the religious rituals and their images and their symbols, then out of that doubt comes the clarity of certainty.

~J. Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/26/2007

The tao is both singular and universal. It is open to all with the resolve and inclination to walk it. Those who do, however, take a variety of disciplines in approaching it, for the tao extrapolates from the specific to the general.

~Dave Lowry

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/25/2007

Without the tao, Kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice; Faith and trust are supplanted by ritual and ceremony.

~Lao Tzu

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/24/2007

In the history of Chinese civilization, no significant scientific advances came as a result of Confucian studies. They were scholastics, and a scholastic in those times was one who went by the book, who believed what the ancient text or the ancient scriptures said, and who studied them and became proficient in them like a rabbi or a Christian theologian.
But mystics have never been very interested in theology. Mystics are interested in direct experience, and therefore - although you may laugh at them and say they are not scientific - they are empirical in their approach. And the taoists, being mystics, were the only great group of ancient Chinese people who seriously studied nature. They were interested in its principles from the beginning, and their books are full of analogies between the taoist way of life and the behaviour of natural forces seen in water, wind, or plants and rocks.

~Alan Watts

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/23/2007

Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple.

~Edward De Bono

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/22/2007

Kindness should become the natural way of life, not the exception.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/21/2007

Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/20/2007

When something has happened, Do not talk about it. it is hard to collect spilled water.

~Proverb

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/19/2007

However young, The seeker who sets out upon the way Shines bright over the world.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/18/2007

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

~Martin Luther King

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/17/2007

Great knowledge is broad, small knowledge is petty. Great talk is powerful, small talk is loquacious.

~Chuang Tzu

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/16/2007

People will not compete with you if you don't make much of your own cleverness...

~Cleary

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/15/2007

The things we touch have no permanence. My master would say: there is nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we truly possess what is real.

~Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/14/2007

There is seldom any rational reason for having regrets about past deeds or events. Because the past does not exist in any way other than in your memory.

~Paul Wilson

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/13/2007

Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

~Confucius

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/12/2007

In motion be like water... at rest, like a mirror. resound like the echo; be subtle, as though nonexistent.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/11/2007

When you are lacking in faith, Others will be unfaithful to you.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/10/2007

It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act also.

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Buddha Garden Statues

Buddha Big Happy Buddha for garden statues and other Buddism related products.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/9/2007

Just remember, when you should grab something, grab it; when you should let go, let go.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/8/2007

We make a vessel from a lump of clay; It is the space inside the vessel that makes it useful. ... Thus, while the tangible has advantages, It is the intangible that makes it useful.









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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/7/2007

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/6/2007

What is in the end to be thrown down, Begins by being first set on high.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/5/2007

The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are key to an understanding of Buddhism and the Buddha's teaching. The first noble truth is suffering, the condition that all living beings experience in various forms. The cause of suffering is craving or selfish desire. However, there is a state which transcends suffering which the Buddha referred to as Nirvana, the third moble truth. The fourth noble truth is the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha's teaching on the way to attain Nirvana.


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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/4/2007

The True Word

The Pali Canon is the closest we can get to the authentic word of the Buddha. They are the nearest in time to when he lived and though they can have a formulaic quality, this doesn't detract from the sense that these are the true teachings of the Buddha. Furthermore, there is a consistency throughout the different discourses that convinces us of their authenticity.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/3/2007

A Miracle?

The fact that the Pali Canon every came to exist in such a highly developed form is something of a miracle. After the Buddha's parinibbana - his death and final entry into nibbana - the Buddha's followers met at what was called the First Council, and a consensus was formed on what the Buddha's teachings actually were. There were then committed to memory and passed down orally from generation to generation. An amazing feat! It was not until the first century BCE that the Buddha's teachings were finally written down. The language used was Pali, the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism. The scriptures were written on palm leaves and stored in three baskets, hence the name Tipitaka.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/2/2007

The Three Baskets

The Pali Canon consists of three divisions, the Tipitaka (or Tripitaka in Sanskrit) which literally means the 'three baskets'. Each of these baskets has different concerns. First, there is the Vinaya Pitaka, the Book of Discipline, which includes the rules of monastic discipline given by the Buddha during his lifetime. The second division is the Sutta Pitaka, a collection of the Buddha's discourses. This has particular significance as it contains the essential teachings of the Buddha, accounts of his own enlightenment experience, and instructions on morality and meditation. The third division is the Abhidhamma Pitaka or Higher Teachings which offers an intricate analysis of the nature of mental and physical existence.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 3/1/2007

The Diamond Sutra

The Diamond Sutra takes the from of a dialogue between Sakyamuni Buddha and the disciple Subhuti. In it the Buddha expounds the notion that that the self and the world around us are ultimately illusory: 'The appearance of self is actually no appearance. The appearance of others, the appearance of living beings and the appearance of a life are actually not appearances'. The world that we think is real is no more than 'a dream, an illusion, a bubble or a shadow.'