The realm of dust is the world of sound and form. The land of name and gain where misery is taken for pleasure, where the artificial is taken to be real. Diminishing the vitality, wearing out the energy, destroying essence and life, in it there is death only. Those who realize this and can go beyond it are the people of attainment, those who are unaware of it and fall into it are people astray.
I cannot tell if what the world considers 'happiness' is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness.
If I am holding a cup of water and I ask you, "is the cup empty?" you will say "No, it is full of water." But if i pour out the water and I ask you again, you may say, "yes, it is empty." but, empty of what?....My cup is empty of water, but it is not empty of air. To be empty is to be empty of something.....
I Think...Therefore I am.
"When people practice charity, they should not abide [in the notion that they are practicing charity]. This is what is called 'practicing charity while not abiding in form,' and 'practicing charity while not abiding in sound, odor, taste, touch, or conceptions.'
The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.
If you're attached to anything, you surely will go far astray.
Only the crystal-clear question yields a transparent answer.
Live every day like your hair was on fire.
All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
Life is the only thing worth living for.
If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
When you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing.
There is nothing infinite apart from finite things.
Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them.
If you do not get it from yourself, Where will you go for it?
Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.
Sitting peacefully doing nothing Spring comes and the grass grows all by itself.
Lovely snowflakes, they fall nowhere else!
Everything the same; everything distinct.
Possessing much knowledge is like having a thousand foot fishing line with a hook, but the fish is always an inch beyond the hook.
One moon shows in every pool, in every pool the one moon.
What you think comes to you, understand your own mind, it has many layers, many created by your own self.
"Subhuti, what do you think? Can someone be discerned by seeing his perfectly-formed body?"
"No. Someone cannot be discerned by seeing his perfectly-formed body. Why? What the person calls a perfectly-formed body is not a perfectly-formed body. Hence it is called a perfectly-formed body."
"Subhuti, what do you think? Can someone be discerned by his perfect bodily characteristics?"
"No. a person cannot be discerned by his perfect bodily characteristics. Why? Those characteristics that the person has called 'perfect' are actually not perfect. Therefore he says that these characteristics are perfect."
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