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Where is the truth?
A sagacious student does not depend on his teachers words, but uses his own experience to find the truth.
~ Bodhidharma ~
Two monks arguing
Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind.
One said, “The flag moves.”
The other said, “The wind moves.”
They argued back and forth but could not agree.
Hui-neng, the sixth patriarch, said: “Gentlemen! It is not the flag that moves. It is not the wind that moves. It is your mind that moves.”
The two monks were struck with awe.
To Punish The Guilty
Source: To Punish The Guilty | Great Middle Way
greatmiddleway.wordpress.com
June 11, 2017
I want —I need— to assign blame. I reduce actions to labels. I opt for simple answers. I take sides. I demonize the other. I want to punish the guilty, I want justice. I am right; they are wrong. Why can´t everyone else see what is clearly self-evident?
It is more complicated than that, and yet also more simple. By assigning blame here or there, I externalize responsibility. I avoid looking at what I and all sentient beings share: the wrong views of separation and supremacy, my innate self-grasping and self-cherishing, my delusion.
Yes, my perception of reality is self-evident to me; it is evident to this self. It is my perception.
“Perception is burning. Ideas are burning. Consciousness is burning. Contact is burning. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on perception —experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain— that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of attachment, the fire of aversion, the fire of indifference.” —Buddha Shakyamuni, Adittapariyaya Sutta, SN 35.28
The fires of attachment, aversion, and indifference are the three killers. To fan these flames further can only increase our suffering. To extinguish these fires is the only solution.
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,”
—in those who harbor such thoughts, hatred will never cease.
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,”
—in those who do not harbor such thoughts, hatred will cease.
For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time:
hatred ceases by love, this is the law everlasting.
—Buddha Shakyamuni, Dhammapada
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