Monday, June 04, 2007

THE BUDDHA SAYS...

A wonderful quote borrowed from Neodawn's blog.

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

The Buddha

7 comments:

Sathej said...

Really nice,Neodawn(And Alaphia, for letting us know).It is a principle that must be adhered to by everyone of us - the scientific questioning.Rationality and reasoning are things we lack so teribly.
Sathej

Karthik Narayan said...

wonderful words... thanks for sharing

GeekBeyondRedemption said...

Yep. The Buddha never said anything about God or religion.

All he said was follow the middle-path and live a righteous life according to your Dharma. He also expounded on rationality - a message which is completely lost today.

Unfortunately a lot of his message has gotten corrupted over the centuries. And today you have Buddhists in Thailand and Sri Lanka killing others.

Such is life!

Alaphia Zoyab said...

You're welcome Sathej, Karthik...

Geek - I don't know enough about what the Buddha said but what little I have read I like a lot.

GeekBeyondRedemption said...

And if you're interested in reading more,

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/intro_bud.htm
The eight-fold path is explained well in that link.

And for a refresher on the life of the Buddha,
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/buddhaintro.html

I'm not a Buddhist in the religious sense, but I find many of the teachings apt and useful.

Kavi said...

Wonderful ! I think it makes sense in the current times of personality contests in the name of politics !

nimmie said...

Buddha was avery intersting character.Becuase of his insistence in using rationality as a tool the status quoists banished him and his teachings very sytematically.Hegel is also very intersting to read.