The parallels with the story of the young Prince Siddhartha 2500 years earlier are clear. As childhood with its certainties (if we are lucky) and its securities, moves into adolescence and then maturity, we are all confronted with the opportunity of opening up to the world (and ourselves) and exploring it, or turning away from it and trying to restore the gilded cage we once lived in…
To think ‘I am screwed up’, is a value judgement, isn’t it? ‘Screwed up’ makes the ‘I am’.
‘Oh, it’s not finished yet,’ replied the senior. ‘Now do the same practise, but this time think about, and try to understand, yourself.’
The medicine which cures the disease is the knowledge and practice that gives birth to emptiness. When emptiness has appeared it will be the cure of the disease and alter recovery from the disease there will be nothing save emptiness, the state void of Dukkha and. void of the mental defilements that are the cause of Dukkha
If there’s someone to sweep them and look after them, they’re beautiful. They’re not dirty — because there’s someone to look after them. It’s because there’s someone looking after them that they can be beautiful…
One comes to see that the real agony would be to lie not on dozens of spikes, but on just one big spike!
A moment of realisation about the way we operate in the world can open doors in our mind for the light to come in and bring insight. It may cause us to cringe a bit when we reflect on how we’ve been in the past, a very uncomfortable feeling. On the other hand…
‘Buddha’ means ‘The Awakened One’. The Buddha was a man who discovered practical methods that enabled him to become permanently awake — hence his name…
Buddhism now 