Quotes About Dharma

No penance is greater than the one done for maintaining peace, no happiness is better than the one received from satisfaction, no disease is more damaging than greed and no Dharma is better than the one having compassion for all.

Away from home, in the foreign strand, one's knowledge is one's best friend, inside home one's wife is one's best friend. For a patient the first friend is efficacious medicine while after death one's Dharma is one's best friend.

All intending students of Buddhism would do well to remember, however, that the heart of the Dharma, the spiritual essence that underlies and interpenetrates all doctrinal formulations, metaphysical disciplines, and aesthetic expressions, will be revealed, not in proportion to the bulk of our scholastic equipment, but only to the extent to which we have cultivated right motive.

Time is a device to stop everything from happening at once ... space is a device to stop everything from happening in Cambridge.

See karma, make dharma

One's Use of Life', if turns into worldly selfishness is called adharma (irreligion), and if it turns into spiritual selfishness (towards true self) is called dharma (religion).

So all of the music had reference, or is inspired by something of the dharma that I've come in contact with.

The discourses that make up the different Nik?yas are all regarded as buddhavacana, but not all of them are spoken by Gotama. The "word of the Buddha," therefore, refers to whatever is well said, to any utterance that accords with and supports the practice of the dharma, irrespective of who utters it.

I cannot help but see the void in which I am standing as a metaphor for emptiness: the absence of compulsive reactivity, a precondition for the unimpeded space of paths that allow human flourishing. The unadorned simplicity of this rock-cut shrine evokes the Buddha's dharma before it mutated into dogma. This is nirvana inscribed in stone. Until the idea of emptiness was hijacked by metaphysicians, it was just another way of talking about solitude.

A secular approach to Buddhism is thus concerned with how the dharma can enable humans and other living beings to flourish in this biosphere, not in a hypothetical afterlife. Rather than emphasizing personal enlightenment and liberation, it is grounded in a deeply felt concern and compassion for the suffering of all those with whom we share this earth.

THE ACTIONS THAT accompany the four truths describe the trajectory of dharma practice: understanding anguish leads to letting go of craving, which leads to realizing its cessation, which leads to cultivating the path. These are not four separate activities but four phases within the process of awakening itself. Understanding matures into letting go; letting go culminates in realization; realization impels cultivation.

Dharma practice is founded on resolve. This is not an emotional conversion, a devastating realization of the error of our ways, a desperate urge to be good, but an ongoing, heartfelt reflection on priorities, values, and purpose. We need to keep taking stock of our life in an unsentimental, uncompromising way.

The extent to which dharma practice has been institutionalized as a religion can be gauged by the number of consolatory elements that have crept in: for example, assurances of a better afterlife if you perform virtuous deeds or recite mantras or chant the name of a Buddha.

an agnostic Buddhist would not be a believer with claims to revealed information about supernatural or paranormal phenomena and in this sense would not be religious. I've recently started saying to myself "I'm not a religious person" and finding that to be strangely liberating. You don't have to self-identify as a religious person in order to practice the dharma.

An agnostic Buddhist would not regard the Dharma as a source of answers to questions of where we came from, where we are going, what happens after death. He would seek such knowledge in the appropriate domains: astrophysics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, etc.

Then I spent the next four years translating it into English. That was a very valuable experience. It enabled me to internalize somebody else's refined understanding of the dharma and to work very closely with

Just as there are four nucleobases (cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine) that make up DNA, the nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions for all living organisms, one might say that suffering, arising, ceasing, and path are the four nucleobases that make up the dharma, the body of instructive ideas, values, and practices that give rise to all forms of Buddhism.

Dharma is born mysteriously out of the intersection between The Gift and The Times. Dharma is a response to the urgent—though often hidden—need of the moment. Each of us feels some aspect of the world's suffering acutely. It tears at our hearts. Others don't see it or don't care. But we feel it. And we must pay attention. We must act. This little corner of the world is ours to transform. This little corner of the world is ours to save.

We derive the greatest pleasure and fulfillment when all our faculties are drawn together into our life's work. In this state of absorption, we experience extraordinary satisfaction. We human beings are attracted to the experience of intense involvement. The outcome of this involvement, says Hokusai, is sublime. "By ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature." Hokusai's lesson, finally, is that a life of passion for dharma is a fulfilled

What Frost makes clear in his poem is that the act of choosing is the most important thing. The act of moving forward is what matters. He might have chosen either teaching or poetry. But he had to choose one or the other. He looked long down each path. He understood the loss involved—the cutting off of possibilities. He saw clearly that options once discarded are usually gone forever. Way leads on to way. But Krishsna writes: Concerning one's dharma, one should not vacillate!

good. In order to ignite the full ardency of dharma, The Gift must be put in the service of The Times.

Dharma is not about believing in God. It's about making the right choices, doing the right things and leading the right life.

The gift of Dharma surpasses all gifts. The taste of Dharma surpasses all tastes. The delight in Dharma surpasses all delights. The destruction of craving conquers all suffering.

Doing no evil, Engaging in what's skillful, And purifying one's mind: This is the teaching of the buddhas.