‘When we understand śīla we naturally wish to avoid actions that cause harm. The practice of śīla aligns our actions with this understanding, helping us to act in ways that reduce suffering and promote wellbeing for ourselves and others.’ Everyday Buddhism
‘Please understand that all your experience is your personal experience rather than somebody else’s. It is your experience, and thus is different from the personal experience of others.’ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
‘The great beings see with their wisdom eye All things like reflections of forms; They do not become stuck In the mire of so-called objects.’ Arya Nagarjuna
‘Buddha’s Teaching: Just a few things that have fallen into words..’ Zen Graffiti
The night nurse said I should come right away. At 2 a.m., I arrived by Sam’s bedside. The nurse on call said he had “taken a turn for the worse.” He stopped breathing; his heart gave out. There was nothing more they could do. Lying there, he looked so peaceful, quiet....
‘One comes across a weed, and it turns out to be an orchid.’ Zen Master Yunmen
‘Thoughts arise and pass away, The preceding no different from the succeeding. If the succeeding thought does not arise, The preceding thought cuts itself off.’ Niutou Farong
‘Virtue is so feeble; Vice is so powerful and terrible! How can good ever triumph over evil Without the resolve to awaken?’ Acharya Shantideva
Photo by MemoryMan / stock.adobe.com 1. Wat Rong Khung, Thailand By the end of the twentieth century, Thailand’s Wat Rong Khun was in disrepair. As an offering to the Buddha, a local artist used his own money to rebuild it—in white. Photo by William R. Pugsley /...
Bhikkhu Bodhi knows hunger not as a metaphor, but as a memory etched into his body. As a young American monk in the early 1970s, he began his monastic training in rural Sri Lanka at a time when the country was facing a severe economic crisis. This forced the...