Any Favorite Buddhist Words of Wisdom?

One of mine:

Nichiren writes, "If you light a lantern for another, it will also brighten your own way."

I like the sutra: "If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present."

I probably live by this adage though: "Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned" and, "The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis" both from the Dalai Lama.

a monk was being chased across the field by a tiger... he came to the edge of a cliff with no where to go but down.... the tiger leaped, the monk leaped.... getting tangled on a branch some 15 feet for the top.... one puple and pink blossom bloomed on the branch... the monk looked at the blossom and said .. 'i have never seen such beauty'

existence is like a flowing river which comes to a waterfall.. the group of humans are like the water.. flowing together in the river and falling from the ledge they seperate and think they are individuals for the short time til they reach the pool below where they come together again....

life is the waterfall....

I love the waterfall image...tis beautiful NWTR

"In fact, everything we encounter in this world with our six senses is an inkblot test. You see what you are thinking and feeling, seldom what you are looking at." ~ Shiqin

Does your room really have a view,
Or even a window to look through?
All I want is for you to look inside of you.
Don't be afraid to walk through the door.
Believe it or not, you've opened it.

- Chris Cormack, 1992
Source: Mind Moon Circle Quarterly, Autumn 1992, pp.21

Barn's burnt down... Now I can see the moon. --Masahide

Leap and the net will appear.

There is no refuge other than a meaningful life....

By Longchenpa...

SNAKE IS THE ROPE
Now the teaching does not deny the existence of the person taken as a psycho-physical complex. What it denies is that the person exists as a 'self', as a lasting, simple ego-entity.

The person exists, but the person is anatta. The individual is a complex of five aggregates, and to say that a person exists is to say that this unified compound of the five aggregates exists. To say that a person is Anatta is to say that no inner nucleus of selfhood can be found within or behind the personality made up of the five aggregates.

Perhaps one can make this point clearer with an example. Suppose we are walking down the country road at night. We look down at the ground and suddenly we see a snake and become frightened. Then we turn our flashlight on it. We look again and we see that there is only a rope, no snake. The rope was there all along, never a snake, but the rope appeared to us to be a snake because our sight was obscured by the darkness, because we did not focus our light on it. As a result of seeing a snake we became filled with fear and worry. When we found that it was only a rope, the appearance of the snake dissolved. We can compare the snake to the idea of self or ego, the flashlight to wisdom, and the rope to the complex of five aggregates.

liked that one Bowzz : ) .... along the lines of 'ego' then ....

"There is no gnosis without pain. One must come to know dressage, not just with the mind, but also with the flesh. Intimate, uninhibited contact between horse and rider is a prerequisite. The rider must become comfortable expressing unconditional love for his/her horse. The pain of destroying personal ego cannot be imagined or described: it is beyond words. The dressage artist must surrender the very core of his/her own private being, the sense of self. There is no anguish like that of relinquishing one's individuality, one's sense of control. For dressage to come into its rightful place as an art de vivre, the boundaries of personality must dissolve."

Zen in the Art of Dressage.... Sherry Ackerman

Rainbowzz, Nowheretoturn

I'm not that bright...i'm half understanding what you both wrote but mostly not. Some of the words you used i'm not familiar with. I'd love to understand more though. If you have the time please could you explain again to me? Or do i need to do some real reading to understand?

take care.

what words do you need help with abbey? : )

Abby, see if this helps:

http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses..._sadananda.htm

why the urrls to say what you need to??

woah thanks perna - profound! i got halfway through and i started to worry that i wouldn't get it and i'd have to hide my head in shame but by the end i was actually thinking 'woah this is exactly what i've been thinking recently'

"""This establishes one fact: experience alone is not the basis of the reality of the object. Therefore, because we experience the plurality of the world does not mean that we can conclude that the world is real. """

My thoughts - is my perception of reality what reality actually is or just my perception of it, and does that even matter?!

How bizarre that this has been posted now - nice to know i'm not alone thinking this (does anyone ever have a unique thought haha!).

I'm enjoying this thread - learning lots!

Nowheretorun - thanks for taking the time to explain.

'there is no gnosis without pain'
One must come to know dressage'

There is a zen to the art of dressage???

no problem Abby : ) i love this kind of conversation : )

'gnosis' in this case refers to growth... anything which grows or changes or even exists for that matter, solid or liquid or imaginary... all are subject to gnosis (think of diagnosis)

imagine an object and its current 'gnosis' (state of being)

it is assumed that sedation can create stagnation in this example and so 'change' must occur for a 'new' gnosis.... (with me so far?)

growth is a process of change... change can be difficult at times... sometimes if a thing/object/being requires change to avoid stagnation, the 'process' can be painful... particularly if moving from a state of depression or obsession..... there is an assumption the the 'uprooting' of the old will cause the exterior of the place to tremble and shake.... for example.. removing a crystal from the earth, or a healing process thru the darkness of depression....

that describes 'there is no gnosis without pain'

the second line 'One must come to know dressage' refers to that actual process of 'dressing' the horse and rider as one together....

the rider will first understand the 'sanctity' of dressage... to do that, the person must remove obstacles which would interfere in the connection between the horse, the rider, and the dressage of both..

the sense of 'self' or the personal 'ego' is considered an obstacle in the sense that the rider would project his/her own personal thoughts, images, beliefs or emotions onto the 'sanctity' of the dressage process..

for the horse/rider/dressage connection to be ultimately clear and pure and thus the ultimate of the art, the ego self must be placed aside to ensure the highest performance desired of the art expression as taught by the masters from ancient historical times... the purity of the essence is the dressage students highest goal..

i am positive that Sherry Ackerman would present this description in her own way....