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Quotes[ Maha Ghosananda
| Anandamayi Ma |
Thich Nhat Hahn |
Eknath Easwaran | Mother
Maha Ghosananda
We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the
temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we
listen to the Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee
camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will then become our
temples. We have so much work to do." The suffering of Cambodia has been deep. Niwano Peace Prize Press Release (acceptance speech and biographical dateline) Maha Ghosananda's humanity comes through in a vignette about his meeting with
Pope John Paul II on the Vatican steps. When Cambodians greet persons of special
importance they offer a long and warm embrace. Then they gently lift the honored
one into the air. This expresses the feeling, "I have deep reverence for
your being." When the small monk tried this with the Pope he hurt his arm.
He concludes that compassion must always be allied with wisdom! What was Maat's [Bob Maat, a Jesuit Priest] perspective? The blond American referred to Gandhi's advice that when you study someone else's religion you learn more about your own. "That has been a lived experience for me," he said. "I have learned so much about what it means to be Christian, Catholic and Jesuit from Buddhist friends. Maha Ghosananda said, `If you want to work for peace in my country, come follow me.' He didn't tell me what to do, how to do it, what to be, how to act as a Catholic. He just said, `Come walk with me.'" http://www.abm.ndirect.co.uk/fsn/31/ghosananda.html
Anandamayi Ma
"Whenever you possibly can, sustain the flow of a sacred Name. To repeat His name is to be in His presence. If you associate with the Supreme Friend, He will reveal His true being to you." "Just as fire burns away all dross and rubbish, so the three fold suffering purges man's heart from all impurity and results in a growing single mindedness in his search after Truth. When he becomes deeply conscious of his weakness and tormented by the thoughts of his undesirable impulses and distressing characteristics, when afflictions like poverty, bereavement or humiliation make him feel his life is futile, then and then only does he develop real faith and religious fervor, and becomes anxious to surrender himself at the feet of the Supreme Being. Suffering should therefore be welcomed. Never does the soft moonlight appear more soothing than after the scorching heat of a summer day." "As you love your own body, so regard everyone as equal to your own body. When the Supreme Experience supervenes, everyone's service is revealed as one's own service. Call it a bird, an insect, an animal or a man, call it by any name you please, one serve's one's own Self in every one of them." "A wealthy merchant went on a business trip. A thief in the disguise of a businessman joined him, intent on robbing him at the earliest suitable occasion. Every morning, before leaving the inn which they happened to have put up for the night, the merchant would count his money quite openly and then put it into his pocket. At night the merchant went to sleep seemingly without suspicion. While he was asleep the thief would frantically search through all the belongings of the merchant without being able to find the money. After several nights of frustrating searching, the thief finally in resignation confessed to the merchant his true intention and pleaded with him to tell him how he was able to hide his money so successfully. The merchant replied casually: "I knew from the very beginning what you were up to. So, every night I placed the money under
your pillow. I could safely sleep, knowing full well that that would be the one place where you would never look."
Thich Nhat Hanh
"Promise me, promise me this day, promise me now. Even as they strike you down, you will remember: humanity is not our enemy. The only thing worthy of you is compassion.... Hatred will never let you face the beast in human beings. One day, when you face the beast alone, with your courage intact, your eyes kind… out of your smile will bloom a flower. [And] on the long, rough road, the sun and the moon will continue to shine.” "We often become so busy that we forget what we are doing or even who we are. I know someone who says he even forgets to breathe! We forget to look at the people we love and to appreciate them, until it is too late. Even when we have some leisure time, we don't know how to get in touch with what is going on inside and outside of ourselves. So we turn on the television or pick up the telephone as if we might be able to escape from ourselves." (Present Moment Wonderful Moment, Parallax Press, 1990)
Eknath Easwaran"Good people around the globe today are concerned about
taking the external steps necessary to promote peace, but if we want a lasting
solution we much search deeper, into this largely ignored dimension within
ourselves... I knew hundreds of students in India during Gandhi's long struggle
for independence from the British Empire. I met hundreds more in Berkeley during
the turbulent sixties, when students all over the country were honestly trying
to work for peace. I watched their relationships with one another, especially
with those who differed from them, and I saw that these relationships often were
not harmonious. If your mind is not trained to make peace at home, Gandhi would
ask, how can you hope to promote peace on a larger scale?" Mother Teresahttp://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9709/mother.teresa/quotes/index.html
"I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel
I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?" "The other day I dreamed that I was at the gates of heaven. And St.
Peter said, 'Go back to Earth. There are no slums up here.'" "A child is a gift of God. If you do not want him, give him to me."
[Mahatma] Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Bapu :-)
"You must watch my life, how I live, eat, sit, talk, behave in general. The sum total of all those in me is my religion." "I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith." "Literally speaking, ahimsa means non-violence. But to me it has much higher, infinitely higher meaning. It means that you may not offend anybody; you may not harbor uncharitable thought, even in connection with those who consider your enemies. To one who follows this doctrine, there are no enemies. A man who believes in the efficacy of this doctrine finds in the ultimate stage, when he is about to reach the goal, the whole world at his feet. If you express your love- Ahimsa-in such a manner that it impresses itself indelibly upon your so called enemy, he must return that love." "Poverty is but the worst form of violence." "As for the internal foes, we must ever walk in their fear. We are rightly afraid of Animal Passion, Anger and the like. External fears cease of their own accord when once we have conquered these traitors within the camp. All fears revolve round the body as the center, and would, therefore, disappear as soon as one got rid of the attachment for the body."
Shown above: Photographer Margate Bourke-White's famous picture of Gandhi taken for the LIFE Magazine. "To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest." "We must be the change we wish to see." "Non-violence is a more active and real fight against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness. It is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and bravest." "Have I that nonviolence of the brave in me? My death alone will show that. If someone killed me and I died with a prayer for the assassin on my lips, and God's remembrance and consciousness of His living presence in the sanctuary of my heart, then alone would I be said to have had the nonviolence of the brave." [ Buddhism | Activism | Spirituality | About Us | Links ] |
"Prayer
is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's
weakness... It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words
without a heart."