Quotes I Have Loved
(A work in progress)
"The journey itself it the goal." ...Osho
"Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved." Osho
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“Only a life lived for others is worth living.”
Albert Einstein
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You are not alone there, because all the time there are numberless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas surrounding you, everywhere loving you, guiding you, that is what they do.
~ Lama Zopa Rinpoche~
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"Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particles. The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing into mass. Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never-ending, forever newly created reality."
GARY ZUKAV
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. . everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.
Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket), Salish
Arguments gain little. The mental attitude and prayers gain much; for thoughts are things and their vibrations reach those in every sphere and walk of life as related to self and to others.
Edgar Cayce Reading 1438-2
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"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
Albert Einstein
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Zazen Wasan Song of Zazen, by Hakuin
From the beginning, all beings are Buddha;
Like water and ice, without water no ice,
Outside us, no Buddhas.
How near the Truth, yet how far we seek!
Like one in water crying, "I thirst",
Like the son of a rich man
Wandering poor on this earth,
We endlessly circle the Six Worlds.
From dark path to dark path
We've wandered in darkness.
How can we be free from the wheel of Samsara?
The Perfection of freedom is Zazen-Samadhi,
Beyond exaltation, beyond all our praises,
The pure Mahayana.
Observing the precepts, repentance and giving,
The countless good deeds, and the Way of Right Living,
All flow from this Zen.
Even one meditation extinguishes evil;
It purifies karma, dissolving obstruction.
Then where are the dark paths to lead us astray?
The Pure Lotus Land is not far away.
Hearing this Truth, heart humble and grateful,
To praise and embrace it, to practice its wisdom,
Brings unending blessings, brings mountains of merit.
But if we turn directly, and prove our True Nature,
That true Self is no-self,
Our own Self is no-self,
We stand beyond ego and past clever words.
Then the gate to the oneness of cause-and-effect is thrown open:
Not two, and not three,
Straight ahead runs the Way.
Now our form is no-form,
So in coming and going we never leave home.
Now our thought is no-thought,
So our dancing and songs are the voice of the Dharma.
How bright and transparent the moonlight of Wisdom!
What is there outside us, what is there we lack?
Nirvana is openly shown to our eyes.
This earth where we stand is the Pure Lotus Land,
And this very body, the body of Buddha!
"Be wise. Treat yourself, your mind, sympathetically, with loving kindness. If you are gentle with yourself, you will become gentle with others." - Lama Thubten Yeshe
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"Anything too stupid to be said is sung." Voltaire (1694-1778)
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Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
Chief Seattle
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Our species is again being given the chance to choose how it will learn, how it will evolve. This is a time for us as a species and as individuals to choose again. It is an opportunity for us as a species and as individuals to choose differently, to choose otherwise, to take the vertical path of clarity, of conscious growth and conscious life.
We are coming to the end of a phase of evolution that was written long before we existed. When the learning and evolution of our species was designed, it was designed to complement cycles, great cycles that work within the Universe, within our galaxy and within others. These cycles move within physical form at certain speeds, serving certain purposes and balances of energies.
The cycle that we are ending, and, beginning, is of a moment in which three cycles come to conclusion and begin again. These cycles act one inside of the other. Just as the moon orbits the earth which orbits the sun and there are orbits within orbits, so, too, there are cycles within cycles. We are coming to the close of a grand cycle astrologically, a two thousand year cycle, and an even grander cycle, where a twenty-five thousand year cycle is linking with a conclusion of a one hundred and twenty-five thousand year cycle. That is why these things, within this moment in our evolution, are happening now. This is when they were meant to be.
The negativity of the last two thousand year cycle is being collected now so that it can be discharged and transformed, so that the next cycle of two thousand years which starts with the next beginning cycle of twenty-five thousand years and the next beginning cycle of one hundred twenty-five thousand years, all three simultaneously, can begin afresh.
This is what this present situation and moment upon Earth is about: the birth of very different opportunities, opportunities to release patterns that are no longer necessary. The more Light, literally, the more en-Lightened that you are, the more you will choose different ways.
Spiritual psychology will support the choice to learn through wisdom, the choice to release patterns of negativity, of doubt and fear, that are no longer appropriate to who we are and what we are becoming.
The Seat Of The Soul , Gary Zukav
pgs.204-205
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An American Indian elder described his own inner struggles this way: "Inside of me there two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time." When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, "The one I feed the most."
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We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with asleep . -- Shakespeare, The Tempest , Act IV.
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Existence
You are not accidental. Existence needs you. Without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. Thats what gives you dignity, that the whole existence will miss you. The stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth - everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you. This gives you a tremendous joy, a fulfillment that you are related to existence, and existence cares for you. Once you are clean and clear, you can see tremendous love falling on you from all dimensions... OSHO
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Buddhism Philosophy of Compassion: the Dalai Lama
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
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Be silent and listen
All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization...OSHO
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Religion has nothing to do with churches and temples and rituals: religion is born only when somebody pulsates with love. Each individual has to give birth to a religion -- and unless you have given birth to a religion in you, you are not religious. You cannot join an organization and become religious, remember -- religion is not an organization to belong to. To be religious you have to give birth to religion in your innermost core, in your very core: when religion is born THERE, only then are you religious. Not by becoming a Christian but by becoming a Christ, not by becoming a Buddhist but by becoming a Buddha, religion is born.
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Beyond Illusion
This is the only distinction between the dream and the real: reality allows you to doubt, and the dream does not allow you to doubt.... To me, the capacity to doubt is one of the greatest blessings to humanity. The religions have been enemies because they have been cutting the very roots of doubt, and there is a reason why they have been doing that: because they want people to believe in certain illusions that they have been preaching.... Why have the people like Gautam Buddha been so insistent that the whole existence - except your witnessing self, except your awareness - is just ephemeral, made of the same stuff as dreams are made of? They are not saying that these trees are not there. They are not saying that these pillars are not there. Dont misunderstand because of the word "illusion".... It has been translated as illusion, but illusion is not the right word. Illusion does not exist. Reality exists. Maya is just in between - it almost exists. As far as day-to-day activities are concerned, it can be taken as reality. Only in the ultimate sense, from the peak of your illumination, does it become unreal, illusory....OSHO
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I just read this Dalai Lama Quote of the Week, and laughed.
I would like to share it with you!
ANSWERS: Discussions with Western Buddhists
by the Dalai Lama, trans. & ed. by Jose Cabezon
Dalai Lama Quote of the Week:
How then does the mistaken idea, that things exist from their own side, operate? Whatever appears to the mind appears as if it existed truly from its own side. ...Now if the object existed as it appears to you, then, when you searched for it, you could actually find a real [object]. So, we must ask ourselves whether or not this object, when searched for, is to be found or not. If the object is not found when it is searched for, we must conclude that it does not exist from its own side, that when the label is applied to its basis, it is not so labeled because the basis somehow bears within it something which is the object. At this point, one must conclude that the object does not exist as it appears to, but then, one may wonder whether it exists at all.
Things, however, are not utterly non-existent. They do exist nominally. So things do exist, but they do not exist from the side of the basis of the label. And hence, though they do exist, because they do not exist within the object itself, they must exist only as they are labeled by the subject (the conceptual mind, for example). There is no other way for the object to exist apart from the way it is posited by conceptual thought. This is then what we mean when we say that all phenomena are merely labeled by conceptual thought. However, things do not appear to us as if they were mere conceptually labeled entities. Instead, they appear as if they existed from their own side. Therefore, it is a mistake to think that things exist as they appear.
--from Answers: Discussions with Western Buddhists by The Dalai Lama, edited by Jose Ignacio Cabezon, published by Snow Lion Publications
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