Friday Filosophy v.11.11.2022
Friday Filosophy v.11.11.2022
In Friday Filosophy v.11.11.2022, our Founder, Ron Slee, shares quotes and words of wisdom from the Buddha.
Gautama Buddha (also Siddhartha Gautama, Siddhartha Gotama; Shakyamuni, Sakkamuni; and The Buddha) was an ascetic and spiritual teacher of South Asia who lived during the 6th or 5th century BCE. He was the founder of Buddhism and is revered by Buddhists as a fully enlightened being who taught a path to Nirvana, freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth and suffering.
According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha was born in Lumbini in what is now Nepal, to highborn parents of the Shakya clan, but abandoned his family to live as a wandering ascetic. Leading a life of begging, asceticism, and meditation, he attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. The Buddha thereafter wandered through the lower Gangetic plain, teaching and building a monastic order. He taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, a training of the mind that included ethical training and meditative practices such as effort, mindfulness, and jhana. He died in Kushinagar, attaining Para nirvana. The Buddha has since been venerated by numerous religions and communities across Asia.
Several centuries after the Buddha’s death, his teachings were compiled by the Buddhist community in the Vinaya, his codes for monastic practice, and the Suttas, texts based on his discourses. These were passed down in Middle Indo-Aryan dialects through an oral tradition. Later generations composed additional texts, such as systematic treatises known as Abhidharma, biographies of the Buddha, collections of stories about his past lives known as Jataka tales, and additional discourses, i.e. the Mahayana sutras.
Most of them accept that the Buddha lived, taught, and founded a monastic order during the Mahajan pada era and during the reign of Bimbi Sara (c. 558 – c. 491 BCE, or c. 400 BCE), the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajatashatru, who was the successor of Bimbi Sara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara. There is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies, as ” “Buddhist scholars […] have mostly given up trying to understand the historical person.”
The dates of Gautama’s birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE. Within the Eastern Buddhist tradition of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, the traditional date for the death of the Buddha was 949 BCE. According to the Ka-tan system of time calculation in the Kalachakra tradition, Buddha is believed to have died about 833 BCE.[31] More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha’s death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not been accepted by all historians.
- Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
- Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
- Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
- We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
- Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
- It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
- You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.
- With fools, there is no companionship. Rather than to live with men who are selfish, vain, quarrelsome, and obstinate, let a man walk alone.
- Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.
- Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.
- A woman of the world is anxious to exhibit her form and shape, whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping. Even when represented as a picture, she desires to captivate with the charms of her beauty and, thus, to rob men of their steadfast heart.
- However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?
- I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.
- Without health life is not life; it is only a state of langour and suffering – an image of death.
The Time is Now