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发表于 2009-2-18 00:42
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When you do something evil, you always look around to see whether you have been spotted.
It matters little whether someone else has seen your action.
Your heart sees and you can’t run away from your heart.
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If your actions are virtuous, there is no need to wish for heavenly blessings.
If they are evil, there is no use praying for blessings.
When you retire to your bed tonight, you can’t be sure that there will be a tomorrow for you.
Whatever you have done wrong today, make it right now.
There might not be time for that tomorrow.
When someone does something we dislike, we often hate that person as if hatred is our weapon for revenge. It takes a lot of energy to hate a person. That hatred is a heavy burden and it hurts you every moment you carry it.
Yet it does not affect the person you hate at all.
So why bother?
How do you feel when you are angry? Not good? Why carry it around when it is of no use either to you or to others and it is too heavy to be carried anywhere!
Life is only a number of short years.
Who is worth your anger and hatred?
You should be busy with many other more important things than this— surely!
Somebody said that you can not afford to lose your temper if you are wrong and you do not need to lose it if you are right.
That is what I call wisdom.
If you lose your temper every time someone says something unpleasant to you, you are giving them power.
In turn, anyone but yourself will become the master of your mind and you have become enslaved.
If you like to be in control, first take control of your own mind.
No one yells at a rock because the lack of emotional reactions discourages the offender.
Be still and non-reacting, the one who insults you will get bored sooner or later and leave you alone.
When you face a hostile person, think about this: he is simply having a hard time trying to find happiness and avoid suffering. It just so happens that when he was going about doing so, you got in the way.
See yourself in him and your anger will melt away.
When meeting an unreasonable person, know that he is only behaving so because he is intoxicated with desire and attachment. Think that he is your best friend who is now drunk and cannot control himself.
In this way you will develop compassion for him instead of anger.
You are upset by hostile people only because they awaken your own hostility.
Your hatred is in reaction to theirs.
When there is no hostility inside you anymore, it is not so bad running into hostile people.
In fact, you will no longer perceive them as hostile at all.
The way other people treat us with hostility is usually beyond our control.
However, we can definitely control ourselves and not to be upset by it.
A hostile person is your teacher of tolerance.
Rejoice when you meet one.
It is not every day that you meet a perfect opportunity to practise your patience.
It is funny how people talk about finding peace of mind.
It has always been there. You only have to realise it.
People go to all sorts of places to find peace of mind.
If you do not have it within yourself, you can go to the end of the world and yet never find it.
If you do not have happiness in your heart, you will be unhappy no matter where you go.
If you do have happiness in your heart, you can be sitting in the dirtiest toilet in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com[img][/img]India, and yet be happier than the person spending thousands of dollars to sit on the beach in Hawaii.
The birds sing and the dogs bark.
The birds just sing and the dogs just bark.
These are just sounds, nothing more and nothing less.
They are neither pleasant nor unpleasant.
It is only when your deluded mind starts to comment: ‘This is pleasant’,
and ‘That is annoying’, that problems arise.
To be a happy person, it is enough just to notice the dogs are barking and the birds are singing.
There is little need to preach widely to make the world a better place. Work on becoming the embodiment of love and compassion.
You will become a lamp that lights up the lives of the people around you.
Those lives you have touched will in turn light up many more.
It is pretty easy really.
Some people care very much about their heroism.
In history, many fought to defeat others but were themselves defeated in the end.
In the path of wisdom, it is attachment, anger and ignorance that we fight.
A real hero is one who has defeated these internal enemies.
A person who has no attachment, no anger and is full of wisdom can never be defeated.
Any action fuelled by hatred cannot be a solution to a conflict based on hatred.
People talk about inner peace and world peace as if they were two separate things.
They are not.
When every being has gained inner peace, outer peace manifests naturally.
Even if there are only two people without inner peace, the world at large would not see real peace.
In a war, a battle, a fight or even a domestic quarrel, both parties are guilty of disturbing the harmony.
Protests, petitions, conferences! What use are these if you yourself do not give up hatred and attachment, here and now! Why should you expect others to do so? World peace is never attainable as long as we have these in us.
To attain world peace, just work on realising your own inner peace.
Give up hatred completely and the world will be peaceful to you.
When every being has achieved that you will see your world peace.
Nuclear disarmament is not the way to world peace.
People can always return to using stones and spears if they are determined to have a good time killing each other.
Only disarming our hatred can bring real peace.
We probably can do little about nuclear disarmament except, perhaps, for shouting slogans violently, but we can disarm our hatred. It is something you can do right now, right here.
All you have to do is say: ‘Hey hatred! I don’t want you around anymore!’
Do that now!
You need to work from the inside out. Working from, working on and working with our heart is the only logical way to achieve personal and world peace.
Many countries try to bring peace by war.
I am told these decisions are made by top brains in the world.
I have a friend who is seriously retarded.
Even he pointed out this complete lack of logic and we laugh about it a lot.
It is never possible to defeat or avoid all enemies, but if you have got rid of the concept of enemy inside you, you will be protected.
Because of internal conditions, wherever you go you will never see others as the enemy.
If you observe people with wisdom you will find everyone is your teacher.
A kind person teaches you kindness. A hostile person teaches you patience. And if you observe with a critical mind, you will only find a world full of idiots.
The religious people go thousands of miles on pilgrimages to serve their gods without realizing that serving the hungry and the needy right at their doorsteps probably pleases the gods a lot better.
If the gods are truly present everywhere, they must also be present right here at your doorstep!
When you give to someone, you are giving to yourself.
When you harm someone you are harming yourself as well.
Everything, everyone is connected.
I don’t understand why people enjoy fishing and hunting.
In what way is your life enhanced by the termination of other lives?
How would you feel if someone were to grab your children by their hair while they were harmlessly walking by, humiliate them by toying with their bodies for a while before finally killing them?
Just so that he or she had something to do on a Sunday afternoon?
I don’t think you would like that.
I don’t know why you call fishing a hobby. It is just unnecessary killing.
It is sad if you make killing your hobby!
A fish breathes; you breathe. A fish eats when hungry; you eat when hungry.
A fish struggles when in danger; you struggle when in danger.
A fish bleeds when cut; you bleed when cut.
Some people say animals and human are not the same in that animals do not have feelings or consciousness, and so it is okay to kill them as we please.
I say this is stupid.
Sometimes I take a walk on the wharf where people fish for fun.
I pay some money to the fishermen to take the dying fish from their buckets and put them back in the water.
Some of them think I am stupid, but it really makes me happy to see the fish swimming away.
I have never tried fishing but I imagine that what I do is a lot more fun than fishing.
How is that for a hobby?
I think you Westerners complain about your problems a lot.
It is easy to solve your problems.
Take a look at the suffering in the Third World then you will know that what you call your ‘problems’ are nothing.
Sickness and problems are only symptoms.
Physical sickness, suffering and problems only arise from your attachment, hatred, ignorance and jealousy.
The ultimate healing is to heal your mind.
Otherwise there is no end to your problems.
A person can not help but be happy if his mind is free of anger and hatred.
A physical medicine may cure a sickness of the body; wisdom and compassion, the medicines of the heart, cure all your sufferings.
When suffering expires we experience happiness.
When happiness ends suffering arises.
Life is just that …, a series of ups and downs.
So, why are you agitated when things are not going well?
And why are you so confident only because things have gone smoothly of late?
When you are aware of this cycle, instead of being upset when things go badly, you will observe the changes and say, perhaps even with amusement, ‘Ah-huh, another one!’
We cry and laugh and feel when we see movies.
But what are they? Just blue, red and green lights projected onto a plain screen with some sounds. Yet we feel so much that the movies are real and that they matter so much.
Similarly our life of pleasures and sufferings is like that.
Just a series of scenes lasting for a short while.
We have to play our parts but there is no need to be too serious about them.
People mistake wealth and fame for happiness.
Happiness does not arise from possessing things.
When you do not have something, you suffer from wanting it.
When you have it, you worry about losing it.
It is clear that happiness is not related to what you have or have not.
Yet everyone in the world spends his entire life chasing after things. Silly, isn’t it?
Your mind always tells you, ‘I need this.
I need that’. Pay no attention to its many desires. What you really need you already have.
What your mind wants though, you could never get enough of, and I assure you that your life will be quite all right without them.
Have you met a child who says he has got enough toys?
Your mind is like that too.
There is no end to the list to its desires.
You have to tell it to shut up and be quiet at times.
Life is full of uncertainties.
What is yours today you may lose tomorrow.
What is not yours today may come to you. Everything you want may come your way but suddenly you may fall dead and they lose their owner.
So why make a big fuss about accumulating wealth?
There is nothing in the world that will give you happiness unless you look for it in the right place — in your heart.
If you have happiness inside you, you have no need of wealth and fame.
If you have no happiness, you may have the entire array of wealth and fame in the universe and they will be of little use to you.
Find happiness inwardly, and when you have found it, your wealth and fame will be nice little bonuses in life, but a happy person would be pretty okay without them.
It is not that hard to be happy!
If you truly want to be happy all the time, just do not make your happiness dependent on what you have or do not have. See your house, your car, your wealth and all your possessions as loaned to you for only some years.
Enjoy them as much as you wish but do not be attached to them.
Instead of feeling sad because you do not have what you desire, feel grateful that you already have what you have.
People think the more they have the happier they will get.
The truth is the less you want, the happier you will be.
To attain happiness, you only need two things — a simple life and a contented heart.
It is desire and attachment that bind us to suffering.
It is almost impossible not to be happy if you are without them.
Happiness is bit like perfume; when you offer some to another person, it is hard not to catch a bit yourself in the process.
Happiness is also a bit like a flu; when you have it, it is difficult for those close to you not to catch it also!
A torch can light up other torches without losing its own flame.
Happiness is like that too.
You can give others a lot of happiness without in anyway sacrificing your own.
Arrogance does not make people respect you; humility does.
To be humble does not imply that you are weak.
In fact, it is one of the strongest powers in the world. To be arrogant or humble?
Which of the two do you think is easier?
True humility is when you are not only humble in the presence of another person, but even to a tree or an insect.
Everything is one in nature.
When you harm the earth, the water and the air, you are harming your own life.
The best medicine for jealousy is rejoicing.
When you rejoice over other people’s happiness, you will get a share of that too.
When a person does something beneficial for the world and you rejoice, you have in a way, taken part in that good work. When a person harms another being and you agree with his work, it’s the same as if you were harming another being yourself.
The ego is the source of your delusions and sufferings.
Self-grasping binds you to suffering.
When you have become selfless, nothing can bar you from complete freedom.
When you have no ego, you will have no enemies, no suffering, only peace.
It is impossible then, to experience anything but happiness.
Just as a rock is unmoved in storms, a person with no ego is never harmed by hostility.
A person who has transcended the notion of ‘I’ is a person free from anger, hatred, ignorance, jealousy and attachment.
This is a person enjoying real happiness, as it is no longer possible for any suffering to touch him.
Instead of lamenting that we can not extend the length of our life, why not work on deepening the meaning of it?
Thinking on the meaning of life is a start to making your life meaningful.
Whatever we do is to achieve happiness, but it is only when you give up all these efforts that you will experience true happiness.
Those who see the world as a mirage and a bubble will never be caught in the world of suffering.
Some people run away from their families, their cities and their problems, hoping to find inner peace in the forests or the mountains.
If it is inner peace that you desire, why go outside your heart to find it?
The key to a happy life is to learn to be grateful for everything.
Sickness gives you opportunities to appreciate health.
Problems give you challenges to find solutions.
Loneliness gives you time to reflect.
Company gives you teachers to learn from.
Failures give you lessons to learn … and old age gives you half-price bus tickets!
There is no better possession than good health. There is no greater wealth than a contented mind. There is no greater victory than being free from hatred. There is no higher achievement than being at peace with whoever you are, whatever you have got, and however you are feeling.
Give up trying to satisfy all your desires.
Where there is no expectation there is no disappointment.
Never mind educating others to be like yourself.
Work on developing your own love and compassion.
When you have them, people will notice, and you will spontaneously ignite those qualities inside their hearts.
Happiness is like a lamp.
When a lamp is lit, it does not need to say to the dark corners of the room, ‘Let me illuminate and dispel your darkness’ or make any other effort to make the room bright.
The dark corners of the room simply become bright as soon as the lamp is lit.
When your life is filled with happiness, the lives of those around you will be brightened also without you needing to do anything.
People can torture you; they can insult you; they can take away all you have; they can put you in the darkest prison and starve you.
If you are determined to be happy anyway, no one can take that smile off your face.
To have a still heart, unmoved by others actions, words and attitudes, is like sitting still in the midst of a bush of thorns.
Whilst you cannot get rid of the thorns, at least you are not hurt by them, and you are already spreading love and peace just by having them inside you.
Life is not tough.
There will be sufferings and there will be good times.
Just let them happen and you will be all right.
The sufferings in themselves are not that bad.
It is when we react to them that they become larger than they are and make our lives really miserable.
Life is very short.
If you think on death, you will make sure your everyday life is meaningful.
The advice I offer is of no benefit unless you make it a part of yourself by familiarisation.
It must be etched into your heart and not merely remembered as words by your brain.
When you have accomplished this, your actions, thoughts and speech will reflect those qualities.
Even unconsciously, every single word you utter, every gesture you make, will be your teaching to the world, and the world will benefit just by your mere presence.
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发表于 2009-2-18 00:38
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发表于 2009-2-18 01:57
