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Excerpts
What Is In Your Circle Of Control?
Jul. 17 | Mind your mind mindfully, or it will be ‘minded’ by its negative habits of greed, hatred and delusion. – Shilashanti ‘We control our reasoned choice and all acts that depend on that moral will. What’s not under our control are...
See Your Body’s Impermanence Closely & Quickly
Jul. 10 | With my diligence, carefully I examined the body And saw this as it really is — Both within and without. – Nanda (Thig 84) Because Nanda was so taken up with her physical beauty, the Buddha used his psychic powers to conjure up the vision of an even...
How To Truly Know Anyone
Jul. 3 | The fool assumes quickly. The wise observes slowly. – Shantishila The nature of the human mind is unpredictable. As Pessa has observed and the Buddha endorsed in his reply that the mind’s involved and tangled behaviour is difficult to understand...
Be Mindful, Brothers & Sisters
Jun. 26 | But little water do the oceans four contain, Compared with all the tears that man hath shed, By sorrow smitten and by suffering distraught. Woman, why heedless dost thou still remain? – The Buddha to Patacara Patacara, a lady from a well-to-do family...
Careful Who You Lust For, Whom You Might Never Get
Jun. 19 | From lust springs grief, from lust springs fear; One free from lust, has no grief, whence fear? – The Buddha (Dhammapada Verse 215) The Dhammapada Commentary relates the story of Anitthigandha Kumāra in whom love developed for the kind of feminine...
How An Abandoned Parent Taught His Children
Jun. 12 | How good can one be if not repaying the kindness of those first kind to us? – Nowanden A certain affluent brahmin had four sons and he had given away half of his property to the sons when they got married. Later, when his wife died, his sons came and...
The Three Fields As Spiritual Capacities
Jun. 5 | Plant the right seed well. Nurture the right way well. Bear the right fruit well. – Nowanden Once, Anathapindika, a millionaire who is the foremost benefactor of the dispensation [of monastics] asked the Buddha whether the Buddha is not compassionate...
Extend The Five Precepts To Cover All
May. 29 | As all moral precepts extend from the Five Precepts, they are basic yet profound, in implications and applications. – Shilashanti Sulak reinterprets in Seeds of Peace the first five Buddhist precepts of abstaining from killing, stealing, lying, sexual...
Two Kinds Of Lion’s Roar
May. 16 | Truths are only surprising to those used to non-truths. – Shilashanti Two of the most important scriptures in the Pali canon are the Great Discourse on the Lion’s Roar (Maha-sihanada Sutta) and the Short Discourse on the Lion’s Roar (Cula-sihanada...
The Noble Abstain From False, Divisive, Harsh & Frivolous Speech
May. 8 | Renounce falseness and cultivate trustworthiness. Renounce divisiveness and cultivate harmoniousness. Renounce harshness and cultivate peacefulness. Renounce frivolousness and cultivate meaningfulness. – Shilashanti Kālāmas, a learned noble disciple...
Some Truths Revealed On Revealed ‘Truths’
May. 3 | ‘Come Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by [1] repeated hearing; nor [2] upon tradition; nor [3] upon rumor; nor [4] upon what is in a scripture; nor [5] upon surmise; nor [6] upon an axiom; nor [7] upon specious...
The Wheels Of Spiritual & Worldly Power
Apr. 26 | Without the spiritual wheel of the Dharma, all worldly wheels but turn in endless cycles, seemingly getting somewhere but nowhere. – Shilashanti “The monks since the time of the Buddha have represented the wheel of truth and righteousness, the...
How To Not Sleepwalk Through Life
Apr. 18 | You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire. – Seneca Like Buddhists, Stoics advise us to contemplate the world’s impermanence. “All things human,” Seneca reminds us, “are short-lived...
Two Ways To Overcome Lust
Apr. 10 | Where another man prays ‘Grant that I may possess this woman,’ let your own prayer be, ‘Grant that I may not lust to possess her.’ Where he prays, ‘Grant me to be rid of such-and-such a one,’ you pray, ‘Take from me my desire to be rid of...
