I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels’ Sanctuary. Then the brahman Akkosaka Bharadvaja heard that a brahman of the Bharadvaja clan had gone forth from the home life into homelessness in the presence of the Blessed One. Angered & displeased, he went to the Blessed … Read the rest >
Tierno Bokar was a Sufi, a spiritual guide, sage and teacher. He lived in the first half of the twentieth century.
“In relation to one another,” he said, “humans are comparable to walls located facing one another. Each wall is pierced by a multitude of small holes where white birds and black birds are … Read the rest >
There exists only the present instant… a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.
“ The beginning, in which God created heaven and earth, is the … Read the rest >
“Especially important is the idea which some people have that after death there is just voidness, nothingness. This view is fundamentally wrong.
The heart of the Lord Buddha and those of all the Arahants who have got rid of the kilesas which would otherwise lead them into birth and death, have hot been annihilated … Read the rest >
“Motionless like the light of a lamp in a windless place is the controlled consciousness (free from its restless action, shut in from its outward motion) of the Yogin who practises union with the Self.
That in which the mind becomes silent and still by the practice of Yoga: that in which the Self … Read the rest >
« It seems to me that we have ultimately to go beyond all forms of thought – even beyond the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church, etc. All these belong to the world of « signs » — manifestations of God in human thought — but God himself, Truth itself, is beyond all forms of … Read the rest >
When we sit down to meditate, we are trying to transcend our everyday consciousness, the consciousness used to transact ordinary business, the one used in the world’s marketplace as we go shopping, bring up our children, work in an office or in our business, clean the house, check our bank statements, and all the … Read the rest >
How to be whole in what I do? We always want to get rid of something. Each moment can become a moment of practice — The street can be a cloister — the subway, the cooking, all must become practice. We have no time, don’t let a moment pass without working spiritually.
No reveries, no conversations, no tracing out of the meaning of phantasies, contain this now, which belongs to a higher order of consciousness. The time-man in us does not know now. He is always preparing something in the future, or busy with what happened in the past. He is always wondering what to do, … Read the rest >
Subhuti asked: “Is perfect
wisdom beyond thinking? Is it unimaginable and totally unique but
nevertheless reaching the unreachable and attaining the unattainable?”
The Buddha replied: “Yes,
Subhuti, it is exactly so. And why is perfect wisdom beyond thinking? It
is because all its points of reference cannot be thought about but can
be apprehended. … Read the rest >
