Believe nothing, O monks, just because you have been told it, or it is commonly believed, or because it is traditional or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to and take as your guide.
Do not interrogate silence because silence is mute; do not expect anything from the gods, nor should you try to bribe them with gifts, because it is in ourselves that we must look for liberation.
Through countless births in the cycle of existence
I have run, not finding
although seeking the builder of this house;
and again and again I faced the suffering of new birth.
Oh housebuilder! Now you are seen.
You shall not build a house again for me.
All your beams are broken,
the ridgepole is shattered.
The mind has become freed from conditioning:
the end of craving has been reached.
Even if a fool lived with a wise man all his life, he would still not recognise the truth, like a wooden spoon cannot recognise the flavour of the soup.
Solitude is happiness for one who is content, who has heard the Dhamma and clearly sees. Non-affliction is happiness in the world - harmlessness towards all living beings.
If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself.
Please, try to eat a bit less meat, a bit more veggies from today. Let it become a habit gradually until not to eat meat anymore. Then, observe the changing of the body and spirit after eating veggies, fruits and grains.
Go forth in every direction- for the happiness, the harmony, the welfare of the many. Offer your heart, the seeds of understanding, like a lamp overturned and re-lit, illuminating the darkness.
Just as a chariot is verbalized, in dependence on collections of parts, so conventionally a sentient being, is set up depending on the mental and physical aggregates
The four catagories of existance, non-existance, both existance and non-existance, and neither existance nor non-existance, are spiderwebs among spiderwebs which can never take hold of the enormous bird of reality