#buddhism

Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be acheived unless we first establish peace within our own minds. We can send so-called 'peacekeeping forces' into areas of conflict, but peace cannot be oppossed from the outside with guns. Only by creating peace within our own mind and helping others to do the same can we hope to achieve peace in this world. ↗

— Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

#peace #life

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out. ↗

— Paul Newman

#environment #farmer #inspirational #sainthood #sustainability

Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken. ↗

— T. Scott McLeod

#buddhism #enlightenment #spiritual-journey #spiritual-journeys #spirituality

I don’t know where I’m going on this path. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. You had to be lost, before you could be found. These are the truths. You had to be confused, before you could find clarity; you had to suffer, before you could find peace. These were the only ways, life could happen. Of course you were confused before you found clarity. If you weren't confused, then you would already be clear. Of course you were lost before you were found. If you were already found, then you wouldn't be lost. Of course there would be suffering before peace. If there was already peace, then there wouldn't be suffering. One necessarily came before the other. ↗

— T. Scott McLeod

#buddhism #confusion #enlightenment #finding-one-s-way #meditation

Bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya: For the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world. ↗

— Gautama Buddha

#buddhism #compassion #greater-good #love #tolerance

Thinking we are only supposed to have loving & compassionate feelings can be a terrible obstacle to spiritual practice. ↗

— Sharon Salzberg

#compassion #inspiration #inspirational

The Buddha-nature which is ours from the very beginning is like the sun which emerges from the clouds, or like a mirror which, when rubbed, regains its original purity and clarity. (217) ↗

— Edward Conze

#buddhism #nature

The left-hand path adept seeks to liberate him/herself from passive subjection to the illusory nature of Maya, thus freeing the consciousness from the binds of self-created delusion. ↗

— Zeena Schreck

#jivanmukta #left-hand-path #materialism-versus-spiritualism #spiritual-transformation #nature

Many Buddhist temple priests regard their parishioners as possessions and fear their departure as a diminishing of assets. ↗

— Kentetsu Takamori

#japan #religion #temples #religion

It is recorded in the monastic rules that a monk once performed an abortion on a girl; the Buddha judged his action seriously wrong, which incurred him the highest offense in the monastic rule. A monk committing this kind of wrongful deed must be expelled from the monastic community. The Buddha considered the embryo to be a person like an adult, so the monk who killed the embryo through abortion was judged by Buddhist monastic rules as having committed a crime equal in gravity to killing an adult. In the commentary on the rule stated above, it is stated clearly that killing a human being means destroying human life from the first moment of fertilization to human life outside the womb. So, even though the Buddha himself did not give a clear-cut pronouncement about when personhood occurs, the Buddhist tradition, especially the Theravada tradition, clearly states that personhood starts when the process of fertilization takes place. ↗

— Soraj Hongladarom

#bioethics #buddhism #personhood #religion #equality