“The initial response the Buddha intends to arouse in us is an ethical one. By calling our attention to our bondage to old age and death, he seeks to inspire in us a firm resolution to turn away from unwholesome ways of living and to embrace instead wholesome alternatives.”
― In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon
― In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon
“The familiar world of substantial objects and enduring persons is, according to the dhamma theory, a conceptual construct fashioned by the mind out of the raw data provided by the dhammas. The entities of our everyday frame of reference possess merely a consensual reality derivative upon the foundational stratum of the dhammas.”
― A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha
― A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha
“The importance of right view can be gauged from the fact that our perspectives on the crucial issues of reality and value have a bearing that goes beyond mere theoretical convictions. They govern our attitudes, our actions, our whole orientation to existence. Our views might not be clearly formulated in our mind; we might have only a hazy conceptual grasp of our beliefs. But whether formulated or not, expressed or maintained in silence, these views have a far-reaching influence. They structure our perceptions, order our values, crystallize into the ideational framework through which we interpret to ourselves the meaning of our being in the world.”
― The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering
― The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering
“Mindfulness brings to light experience in its pure immediacy. It reveals the object as it is before it has been plastered over with conceptual paint, overlaid with interpretations.”
― The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering
― The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering
“What's past is prologue.”
― The Tempest
― The Tempest
志昌’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at 志昌’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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