“The greatest effort is not concerned with results.”
― The Essence of Buddhism
― The Essence of Buddhism
“The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest precept is continual awareness. The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. The greatest generosity is non-attachment. The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind. The greatest patience is humility. The greatest effort is not concerned with results. The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go. The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.”
― The Essence of Buddhism
― The Essence of Buddhism
“Zen Koans The koan is an enigmatic or paradoxical question used to develop a person’s Intuition. Koans are a valuable tool in your quest for enlightenment, but how do they work and why use them? Koans work by confounding logic and forcing a person out of their normal thinking and into the realm of Intuition. In other words, the inherent meaning is inaccessible to rational understanding, but perhaps accessible to Intuition. This book presents some of the classic koans from traditional Zen, originally written hundreds of years ago in Japanese, and re-interpreted from early English translations into early 21st Century English. The underlying meaning is still there, so they will still work as a koan should, but they are expressed in language more easily understood by people in the 21st Century. Each koan encapsulates a profound truth for reflection. Zen counsels the lessening of the ego, not the strengthening of it as consumer culture would urge. Instead of making a name for ourselves in society, we should listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no wind stirs, in other words become no-thing, entering instead the field of pure being that is behind the phenomenal world.”
― Zen Kōans: Ancient Wisdom For Today
― Zen Kōans: Ancient Wisdom For Today
“But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest – The Buddha.”
― The Essence of Buddhism
― The Essence of Buddhism
“The third noble truth holds that you can end your suffering by eliminating the desire for sensual gratification and breaking the attachments you have to the egoic self and any of the other conceptual structures that are the furniture of your life.”
― The Essence of Buddhism
― The Essence of Buddhism
David’s 2025 Year in Books
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