Appreciation and compliments can make you feel good about yourself. Stay humble by simply thanking people for their kind words. But each time you receive a compliment or praise do not absorb it or dwell too much in it because all these may go to your head and you may lose interest in improving yourself as a leader. ~Dr Anil Kumar Sinha
Kindness is the most valuable thing that a person can possess. ~Anurag Prakash Ray
To live as equals with others requires a wide range of experience. The wise have much experience and fools have little. To gain experience, you need to go through good and bad times. How can you grow if your experiences are always the same? Anything that happens, good or bad, can be constructive in the end — as long as you learn something useful from it. So when you face difficulties, don’t feel too bad! ~ 17th Karmapa
The Buddha-Dhamma is not a fiction to be read and forgotten. It deals with life — with real life, the life that you and I lead every day, the value and worth of which is greatly enhanced when the Dhamma is translated into action and built into our character by constant effort and practice.
The ultimate aim of the Buddha-Dhamma is Nibbana — emancipation from suffering. The immediate objective is to help us to understand and solve the problems that confront us in our daily life, to make us well-rounded, happy, and balanced men and women, able to live in harmony with our environment and our fellow beings. Balance, however, though it is an aim worth striving for, is not easily struck in the contemporary world, with its false ideologies and illusory values.
In contrast to the relative, often false values of our age, the Buddha’s teaching is a revelation of true and absolute values. Its truth can be tested and tried in one’s own experience. Buddhism teaches clear thinking, self-control, and mental culture as means to these ends. One who builds his daily life upon this firm foundation of appropriate knowledge and clear-sighted ideals is assured of progress and success even as a layman. ~Robert Bogoda
A well-balanced Buddhist, therefore, must make up his own mind, form his own opinions, and arrive at his own conclusions in facing life’s difficulties according to Buddhist principles. He must not be a moral and intellectual coward. He must be prepared to stand alone, to go his own way irrespective of what others think or say. Of course he will take advice — it is no interference with one’s freedom to seek advice from a more experienced and knowledgeable person — but the decision should be his own.
Seeing the relationship between craving and suffering, we must maintain a certain degree of detachment from worldly things and, in addition, regulate our lives by strictly observing the Five Precepts. Thereby we preserve the well-being of our whole personality, both here and in the hereafter, by living in harmony with the universal laws governing our mental and moral life. The development of moral and ethical character (sila) is a prerequisite for mind-control and for obtaining the wisdom needed to attain Nibbana. ~Robert Bogoda
By Robert Bogoda
BUDDHIST CULTURE
For over twenty-five centuries, Buddhist ideas and ideals have guided and influenced the lives and thoughts of countless human beings in many parts of the world. As lay Buddhists, our own experiences and discoveries in life are not enough to give a true perspective on life. To bring ourselves closer to the ideal of a well-balanced man or woman, we need to acquire, at least in outline, what is called a cultural grounding in the Buddha-Dhamma.
Culture reveals to ourselves and others what we are. It gives expression to our nature in our manner of living and of thinking, in art, religion, ethical aspirations, and knowledge. Broadly speaking, it represents our ends in contrast to means.
A cultured man has grown, for culture comes from a word meaning “to grow.” In Buddhism the arahant is the perfect embodiment of culture. He has grown to the apex, to the highest possible limit, of human evolution. He has emptied himself of all selfishness — all greed, hatred, and delusion — and embodies flawless purity and selfless compassionate service. Things of the world do not tempt him, for he is free from the bondage of selfishness and passions. He makes no compromises for the sake of power, individual or collective.
In this world some are born great while others have greatness thrust on them. But in the Buddha-Dhamma one becomes great only to the extent that one has progressed in ethical discipline and mental culture, and thereby freed the mind of self and all that it implies. True greatness, then, is proportional to one’s success in unfolding the perfection dormant in human nature. Continue reading
Teaching What is Really Useful
Parents do seek to create a wonderful world for their children, but even more splendid is to give them explanations that increase their intelligence and ability to discriminate right from wrong. In Buddhism, we speak of what is to be given up and what is to be taken up. According to the Dharma, what is most difficult to give up, even if we try very hard, is our ego-fixation, this grasping on to “I”. Therefore, we are guiding our children in the wrong direction if we encourage their self-centeredness. We should teach them what is really useful. ~ 17th Karmapa
To be successful, don’t strive to get everything you want from the world. Instead, give the world everything you have. ~Alexander Den Heijer
If you want to be average, do what others do. If you want to be awesome, do what no one does. ~Alexander Den Heijer
A clever person solves a problem no one can solve. A genius solves a problem no one can see. ~Alexander Den Heijer
ព្រះត្រៃបិដក ប្រែថា កញ្រ្ចែង ឬ ល្អី ៣ សម្រាប់ដាក់ផ្ទុកពាក្យពេចន៍នៃព្រះសម្មាសម្ពុទ្ធ
The Tipitaka or Pali canon, is the collection of primary Pali language texts which form the doctrinal foundation of Theravada Buddhism. The three divisions of the Tipitaka are: Vinaya Pitaka, Sutta Pitaka, Abhidhamma Pitaka.
វចនានុក្រមសម្តេចសង្ឃ ជួន ណាត
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Listen to Khmer literature and Dhamma talk by His Holiness Jotannano Chuon Nath, Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia Buddhism.
Should anyone wish to ridicule me and make me an object of jest and scorn why should I possibly care if I have dedicated myself to others?
Let them do as they wish with me so long as it does not harm them. May no one who encounters me ever have an insignificant contact.
Regardless whether those whom I meet respond towards me with anger or faith, may the mere fact of our meeting contribute to the fulfilment of their wishes.
May the slander, harm and all forms of abuse that anyone should direct towards me act as a cause of their enlightenment.
As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, so the wise are not shaken by blame and praise. As a deep lake is clear and calm, so the wise become tranquil after they listened to the truth…
Good people walk on regardless of what happens to them. Good people do not babble on about their desires. Whether touched by happiness or by sorrow, the wise never appear elated or depressed. ~The Dhammapada
