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Posts tagged with "Middle Path"
Posts tagged with "Middle Path"
Aug. 30 | The simplest spiritual joy
begins with recognition
and rejoice of the worthy.
- Stonepeace
In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the Buddha was recorded to have remarked, ‘Pleasant, Ananda, is Vesali; pleasant are the shrines of Udena, Gotamaka, Sattambaka,...
May. 17 | Question: How can kids be taught the Third & Fifth Precept, of abstaining from sexual misconduct and taking of intoxicants?
Answer: For teaching the Third Precept to kids who have yet to reach puberty, I suggest teaching it ‘forward’,...
Nov. 1 | To share absolute truths
with those who need relative truths
is to confuse instead of help.
To share relative truths
with those who need absolute truths
is to belittle instead of enlighten.
- Stonepeace
Relative truths refer to conventional realities...
Oct. 24 | If one clings to the relative forms of all phenomena,
one neglects the absolute emptiness of all phenomena.
One makes forms an eternalistic dogma,
and forgoes the wisdom of practising non-attachment [of the transient].
If one clings to the absolute...
Sep. 12 | If you try to convert me,
I’ve thought about heaven and hell,
I’m prepared to face either,
if either of them exists.
- Lee Kuan Yew
(The Straits Times, 06.09.11)
But is it possible for anyone to truly imagine or to ever be prepared to face...
Sep. 6 |
Questions:
(1) How do we go about being compassionate to ourselves, and
(2) How to know if we are so?
Answer:
Very broad questions!
(1) We can do so by taking good care of ourselves physically and spiritually. Physically, as in having enough nutrition,...
Aug. 2 | ‘Wu Xia’ is an entertaining and nuanced study of the tension between the need for forgiving one who has resolved to turn over a new leaf, versus the danger of forgiving one who turns out to be thoroughly unrepentant. Since we cannot read...
Jul. 6 | Birth in the heavens might be supremely hedonistic.
Birth in the hells might be supremely ascetic.
Birth in the Pure Lands is supremely the Middle Way.
- Stonepeace
In India at the time the Buddha’s time, there was a belief that the purpose of life...
Jun. 27 | If you’re confused about the outside,
you’re attached to forms.
If you’re confused about the inside,
you’re attached to emptiness.
To be free of form amid forms
and to be free of emptiness amid emptiness,
this is when you aren’t...
Jun. 8 | In ‘X-Men: First Class’, Professor X urged Magneto to find a point between rage and serenity to harness and focus his power, instead of banking on sheer anger and pain. As I sat in the cinema, I wondered what is that between rage and serenity....
Mar. 23 | Question: Is there such a thing as ‘perfect compassion’?
Answer: Perfect compassion is compassion that is applied the most effectively and skilfully for a given situation, to help or guide another being to advance towards True Happiness...
Mar. 1 | ‘Black Swan’ tells the story of extreme clash of conflict in body and mind. A ballerina feels compelled by her idealism and expectations of others to play both the pure and restrained white swan and the malevolent and seductive black swan...
Dec. 21 | Between the dualistic extremes
of strong love (attachment) and hate (aversion)
is the Middle Way of spiritual friendship
(with the friendliness of loving-kindness)
~ Stonepeace
Dec. 21 | The most simple way to attain sufficiency is the best.
The most complex way to attain excesses is the worst.
~ Stonepeace
While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation. But Buddhism is “The...
Dec. 2 | If we understand birth as meaning real birth,
we stray in the direction of eternalism;
if we understand non-birth as meaning that there is no actual birth,
we commit the error of nihilism.
Birth and yet no birth,
no birth and yet birth,
is truly the ultimate...
