Via Daily Dharma: You Contain Multitudes

When we meditate... we begin to discover the fallacy in reducing our identity to any one of the conditions that forms us.

—Martine Batchelor, “The Woman in the Photograph”

Via Lions Roar / I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha!

They’re everywhere you look. In Facebook memes, quotes sites, blog articles, and even in published books, Hallmark-style Fake Buddha Quotes (FBQ) abound.

I first started to document these a few years ago after spotting some obvious fakes on Twitter. As they accumulated, I began detailing how to tell when quotes are fake, identifying their origins when I could, and offering some genuine scriptural quotations to show what (as best we know) the Buddha really taught. Fake quotes became teachable moments.

The most common FBQ giveaway, usually, is the style, which may be too flowery, poetic, or literary. Sometimes it’s the vocabulary, which sounds too contemporary for someone who lived some 2,600 years ago.

How do Fake Buddha Quotes arise? There are simple errors of attribution, where someone else’s words have somehow been ascribed to the Buddha. Then there are the “lost in translation” quotes where someone has creatively rendered the Buddha’s words into a “new, improved” version that may express their own view of spirituality but are so far from the original meaning that they’re essentially fake. And sometimes people just make up a spiritual-sounding quote and stick “—the Buddha” on the end. But it can be hard to tell; I’ve been convinced a quote is genuine only to discover that it’s not.

If you can’t find a quote in the scriptures we should regard it as fake.

Is there such a thing as a genuine Buddha quote? We can never know! The Buddha didn’t write anything down. The best record we have of what the historical Buddha said is found in the scriptures of Nikaya Buddhism, including, but not limited to, the Pali canon. But these teachings were passed down orally for hundreds of years before being committed to writing, and in the process they were simplified, edited, and made easier to memorize by being made repetitious. There’s no guarantee that anything in the scriptures is exactly what the Buddha said. But it’s the best we have to go on.

However, we don’t have to be certain about what the Buddha did say in order to know what he didn’t say. My rule of thumb is this: if you can’t find a quote in the scriptures—any scriptures, including those of the Mahayana traditions—we should regard it as fake. If there’s no evidence of him having said something, then we shouldn’t claim he did.

People often tell me that the Buddha was “too spiritual” to be bothered about being misquoted. But the reality is that the scriptures are full of stories in which the Buddha sets some seeker straight about what he’s said, and where he condemns those who have misquoted him.

Make the jump here to read the quotes and more!

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 8, 2017

 

 

The melodrama of fanaticism is a form of spiritual materialism: you make spiritual life into something else to acquire, like a new car or television set. Just do your practices; don't make a big deal out of them.

The less you dramatize, the fewer obstacles you create. Romanticism on the spiritual path is just another attachment that will have to go sooner or later.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Unswayed by Failure or Success

Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success.

—Mattieu Ricard, “A Way of Being”

Via Daily Dharma: Your Spiritual Practice Influences the Social World

As our dharma practice deepens, it begins to inform and influence everything we do, including how we engage with the important moral and social issues of our times.

—Ven. Santusikka Bhikkhuni, “Dharma in Action”

Via Tricycle: New at Tricycle: Why Buddhists Should Run for Public Office

November 6, 2017
 

Mixing Buddhism and Politics
 

The 2016 presidential election in the United States sent shockwaves across the world. As Americans prepare to head back to the polls on Tuesday, we have two reflections from Buddhists on the intersection of practice and government.

Suzanne Harvey, who is likely the only Buddhist in New Hampshire’s 400-member House of Representatives, is calling on engaged Buddhists to seriously consider running for a position on their local school board, city council, or higher governing office.

“When I enter the state house complex, my practice enters with me,” Harvey writes. “Federal, state, and local governments and municipal boards might function a lot differently if we had more Buddhists serving in positions.”

Dick Allen, a Republican Zen Buddhist practitioner and the former poet laureate of Connecticut, offers an Election Day reminder that moderation is a “sorely needed political position” that will help things get done in these highly divided times.

And, just in time for cooler temperatures and shorter days is our Winter 2017 issue. Inside, you’ll meet a former nun and latex enthusiast, learn about a new vision for globalism, get instructions on cutting off negative emotions at the pass using the third moment method, and more.

Via Daily Dharma: Are You Awake?

We lose something very vital in our life when it’s more important to us to be one who knows than it is to be awake to what’s happening.

—Zenkei Blanche Hartman, “The Zen of Not Knowing”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 5, 2017

We can't be afraid of making errors. We may choose the wrong teacher; we may get into a method that's no good. Many things can happen. We make errors; we correct them if we can, without hurting another being's spiritual opportunities.

There is another rule for this game: we may never use one soul for another. If our journey to God is keeping another being from going to God, forget it. We're never going to get there. It's as simple as that.

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Human Intelligence Is a Gift; Use It Wisely

So long as we remember that we have this marvelous gift of human intelligence and a capacity to develop determination and use it in positive ways, we will preserve our underlying mental health.

—The Dalai Lama, “Countering Stress and Depression”

Via Tricycle / Why Trees Are The Ultimate Meditation Teachers

In Buddhism, trees have long been recognized as living things worthy of recognition and protection.

"A meditation teacher once advised me to look to the example trees set as steady, observant beings. “They are excellent meditators,” she said. “They sit in one spot for decades, watching all that goes by.” In his book The Island Within, anthropologist Richard Nelson described trees in a similar manner. “The dark boughs reach out above me and encircle me like arms. I feel the assurance of being recognized, as if something powerful and protective is aware of my presence . . .  I am never alone in this forest of elders, this forest of eyes.”

Make the jump here to read the full article and more here

Via Daily Dharma: You Are Not Alone

The absence of self—this emptiness—is not a thing that we can feel. It is, rather, more of a vehicle to help us understand our intrinsic connectedness with all things. This teaching can remind us that even though we may feel alone or isolated at times, we are not.

—Lauren Krauze, “Why Trees Are the Ultimate Meditation Teachers”

The Hope Speech | Figures of Speech

Via Daily Dharma: Perfect Your Love, Not Yourself

It is important during such dispiriting times to recall the infinity of small actions that support what is good in life.

—James Shaheen, “Unhistoric Acts”

Via FB:

Via Daily Dharma: Lovingkindness Starts Close to Home

Although we are aiming at an all-inclusive lovingkindness unrestricted by the partiality that divides the world into “mine” and “yours,” it needs to start with simple, uncontrived loving feelings toward those closest to us.

—Lama Jampa Thaye, “Bringing It All Back Home”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 1, 2017

We can take our lives exactly as they are in this moment; it is a fallacy to think that we're necessarily going to get closer to God by changing the form of our lives, by leaving so-and-so, or changing our jobs, or moving, or whatever...by giving up our stereos, or cutting off our hair, or growing our hair, or shaving our beards, or...

It isn't the form of the game; it's the nature of the being that fulfills the form. If I'm a lawyer, I can continue being a lawyer. I merely use being a lawyer as a way of coming to God. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: What Is Boundless Compassion?

Boundless compassion, which is distinct from being overwhelmed by emotion, is the wish that everyone everywhere be free of pain and its causes.

—Anne C. Klein, “The Four Immeasurables”

Via Daily Dharma: Don't Feed Your Demons

When many demons are struggling inside you, the one that you feed is the one that will become the strongest. You alone are responsible for what you feed.

—Wendy Egyoku Nakao Roshi, “Hold to the Center!”

Via Daily Dharma: Engaged, but Not Busy

Though we usually associate busyness with activity and speed, and lack of busyness with stopping or slowing down, this is not always the case. It is possible to be actively engaged and not be busy.

—Marc Lesser, “Do Less, Accomplish More”