Zen

Do not think of what has not happened yet, or to be overly concerned about what has already passed; instead to be like a mirror which just sees things everything as is, with no "then what' or "what if?" This is Zen. - Unknown

Fasting

Yen Hui: What is fasting of the heart?
Confucius: The goal of fasting is inner unity. This means hearing, but not with the ear; hearing, but not with the understanding; hearing with the spirit, with your whole being... The hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind. Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind. Fasting of the heart empties the faculties, frees you from limitations and from preoccupations. Fasting of the heart begets unity and freedom.
Yen Hui: I see. What was standing in my way was my own self-awareness. If I can begin this fasting of the heart, self-awareness will vanish.

An article on Fasting

Spiritual - quotes

Never think of any right effort as being fruitless – all right effort bears good fruit, whether we see results or not. - Unknown

No one, and nothing can free you but your own understanding. - Ajahn Chah

Nothing hurts a good soul and kind heart more than to live amongst people who cannot understand it. - Hazrat Ali Ibn Abi-Talib A.S

Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real. - Deepak Chopra

One is called ‘Ocean’. The other called ‘Ganges’. And though these are different names, their waters are still the same. - Jnaneshwar

Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being. - Rumi

Our own life has to be our message. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Our spiritual energy has to go somewhere after we passed from this world. In that sense, we can never really die. - Unknown

Paradise is not a place, it’s a state of consciousness. - Sri Chinmoy

Purity or impurity depends on oneself, no one can purify another. - Unknown

Religion

Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter. - Alan Watts

You don’t need religion to have morals. If you can’t determine right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion. - Unknown

The more I study religions, the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anyone but himself. - Sir Richard F. Burton

What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension. - Mark Twain

The theory that religion is a force for peace, does not fit the facts of it’s history. - Steven Pinker

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when you understood metaphorically. But when it gets tuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell

Images / Memes

Food for Thought - Images

Dalai Lama

          As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking.
          On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality of calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.

- The Dalai Lama

Humorous Images

Search in the Right Place

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. - Joseph Addison

There was once a great master who used to teach his students in many different and sometimes bizarre ways. One evening, they arrived at his house to find him crawling around on the ground. There was a lamp by the front door and he was moving around within the lamp light.

“Master, what are you doing?” One of the students asked.

“Searching for the front door key.” The master answered.

The students then joined him, crawling around, hunting for the key.

After quite a period of fruitless search, one student asked, “Master, where were you when you lost the key?”

“Over there.” The master pointed to a distant spot, which was in darkness.

“Then why on Earth are you hunting for it here?”

“Oh, because it’s much easier to hunt here in the light.”

This is what we all tend to do. Due to our ignorance, we look for happiness in places where it cannot be found. We keep on doing this because superficial appearances delude us into thinking that it can be found where we seek it – within the world of desires and senses. Happiness cannot truly be found there, so our efforts lead instead to frustrations, dissatisfaction, unhappiness and sometimes suffering.

Are you searching in the right place for your happiness?

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Spiritual - Quotes

Look within. Be still. Free from fear and attachment. Know the sweet joy of the way. - Dhammapada

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig. - Marcus Aurelius

Loss and possession, death and life are one. There falls no shadow where there shines no sun. - Hilaire Belloc

Love is the secret you unmask yourself to find; it is the foundation of the spiritual life, the destination where all roads of the journey lead. - Elizabeth Lesser

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Manifest the divinity within you and everything will be harmoniously arranged around it. - Swami Vivekananda

Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots. - Rumi

Most people don't know or don't accept the fact that if they had no thoughts they would be happy. - Anthony Damiani

Moving one step towards finding the answer to the question, Who Am I?, we brought consciousness from outside to inside. - Acharya Mahaprajna

Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world. - Ansel Adams

Religion

We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and State are and must remain separate. - Ronald Reagan

Respect for religion has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion’. Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and yes, our fearless disrespect. - Salman Rushie

Where the questions of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanour. - Sigmund Freud

Religion is an advertising campaign for a product that doesn’t exist. - Clive James

Religion is not in books, nor in theories, nor in dogmas, nor in talking, not even in reasoning. It is being and becoming. - Swami Vivekananda

Images / Memes

Food for Thought

Dalai Lama - Quotes

          I believe the ultimate aim of all human beings is to obtain happiness and a sense of fulfillment. These objectives can be achieved through physical amenities and proper mental development, but the dominant and ultimate factor is the mental aspect. In order to achieve these objectives one must have knowledge about both mind and matter.
          Scientists may study mainly matter but they cannot ignore the human mind, or consciousness: spiritual practitioners may be engaging mainly in developing the mind but they cannot completely ignore their physical needs.
          It is for this reason that I have always stressed the importance of combining both mental and the material approach to achieving happiness for humankind. - Dalai Lama 

Hell

I can’t think of many poeple who desere to go to hell, but people who teach its existence to vulnerable children are prime candidates. - Richard Dawkins

Belief

Spiritual - Quotes

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things. - Dogen

It is not until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control. - Unknown

I have come to the conclusion that whether or not a person is a religious believer does not matter. Far more important is that they be a good human being. - Dalai Lama 

I’m touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful – collecting these shards of spirituality – that we may be helping to bring about a healing. - Leonard Nimoy

If you can cultivate wholesome mental states prior to sleep and allow them to continue right into sleep without getting distracted, then sleep itself becomes wholesome. - Dalai Lama

In man's life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious. - Unknown

Flowers do not force their way with great strife. Flowers open to perfection slowly in the sun... Don't be in a hurry about spiritual matters. Go step by step, and be very sure. - White Eagle

People normally cut reality into compartments, and so are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena… We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Religion

The only consistent purpose of human religion was as a cover for the most bestial excesses of mass homicide, torment, and atrocity. - Mick Farren

The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The tendency to turn human judgments into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world. - Georgia Harkness

There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages. - Ruth Hurmence Green

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation – is that good for the world? - Christopher Hitchens

Images / Memes

Buddhist Terms

Nirvana

Nirvana is an experience of the Unconditioned which defies any description.  Any description of Nirvana is not a description of Nirvana, and that is the most that can be said about Nirvana.  There are no reference points in Nirvana on which to base a description. - William Hamilton

Samsara

Samsara might be understood as the state of being bound by greed, hate and ignorance – or as a veil of illusion that hides true reality. In traditional Buddhist philosophy, we are trapped in samsara through one life after another until such time as we find awakening through enlightenment.

However, the best definition of samsara, and one with more modern applicability may be from the Theravada monk and teacher Thanissaro Bhikkhu: "Instead of a place, it's a process: the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them."

And note that this creating and moving, it doesn't just happen once, at birth. We're doing it all the time.

Dalai Lama

 

Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others' happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace – anxiety, doubt, disappointment – these things are definitely less. In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves, an experience of our own suffering is less intense.
          What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness.

- Dalai Lama 

Atheism - Images

Sin - Images

Spiritual - Quotes

In the process of letting go, you will lose many things form the past, but you will find yourself. - Deepak Chopra

In the stillness of being I remain forever here and now. - Unknown

Infinite power and existence and blessedness are ours, and we have not to acquire them; they are our own, and we have only to manifest them. - Swami Vivekananda

It is a shameful thing for the soul to faint while the body still perseveres. - Marcus Aurelius

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up. - Eckhart Tolle

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life. - The Buddha

Just be silent, utterly silent. Let peace descend over you, and the revelation of the mysterious truth of existence is yours. - Osho

Keep your heart clear and transparent and you will never be bound. A single disturbed thought, though, creates ten thousand distractions. - Ryokan

Let thine occupations be few, saith the sage, if thou wouldst lead a tranquil life. - Marcus Aurelius

Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows. - Native American Proverb

Religion

Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things… one of the beginnings of the human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority, its indispensable. - Christopher Hitchens

Religion is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity, it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. - Sigmund Freud

We diminish this life by preferring the myth of an afterlife. We sacrifice honesty to the maintenance of a lie. Religion demands time, energy, and money, draining valuable resources from the improvement of this world. - Dan Barker

Images / Memes

Lotus Flower

The lotus flower is a symbol often used in conjunction with Buddhism. You will see the lotus flower where there is Buddhism.

The traditional Indian and Buddhist explanation of the glorious lotus flower is that it appears not to spring from the sordid earth but from the surface of the water and it is always unsullied and pure, no matter how impure the water. This symbolizes all first created objects arising from primordial chaos – confusion and darkness. In other words, from out the darkness came light, beauty, and form. No matter what one’s environment, the spiritual truth latent in one’s nature may blossom forth and remain uncontaminated if one turns toward the light.

Buddhism

Five Things Buddhism (and science) says that will make you happy.

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Prayers

God