High personal standards can be a double-edged sword -a few dharma thoughts:
"It is essential that our [standards] be translated into practice, not with an idealistic vision that we suddenly will become totally loving and compassionate, but with a willingness to be just who we are and to start from there. Then our practice is grounded in the reality of our experience, rather than based on some expectation of how we should be.
"But we must begin. We work with the precepts as guidelines for harmonizing our actions with the world; we live with contentment and simplicity that does not exploit other people or the planet; we work with restraint in the mind, seeing that it's possible to say no to certain conditioned impulses, or to expand when we feel bound by inhibitions and fear; we reflect on karma and the direction of our lives, where it is leading and what is being developed; we cultivate generosity and love, compassion and service.
All of this together becomes our path of practice."
-- From Joseph Goldstein, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Dharma - Nonviolence in Every Action
We all find our own ways of navigating day to day. I find some aspects of Buddhist practice helpful, so I humbly share an occasional dharma thought:
"Nonviolence belongs to a continuum from the personal to the global, and from the global to the personal.... [Applying] this ideal to daily life, nonviolence is not some exalted regimen that can be practiced only by a monk or a master; it also pertains to the way one interacts with a child, vacuums a carpet, or waits in line.
"Besides the more obvious forms of violence, whenever we separate ourselves from a given situation (for example, through inattentiveness, negative judgments, or impatience), we 'kill' something valuable. However subtle it may be, such violence actually leaves victims in its wake: people, things, one's own composure, the moment itself.
"According to the Buddhist reckoning, these small-scale incidences of violence accumulate relentlessly, are multiplied on a social level, and become a source of the large-scale violence that can sweep down upon us so suddenly. . . . One need not wait until war is declared and bullets are flying to work for peace. A more constant and equally urgent battle must be waged each day against the forces of one's own anger, carelessness, and self-absorption."
-from Keneth Kraft, Inner Peace, World Peace (Nonviolence)
"Nonviolence belongs to a continuum from the personal to the global, and from the global to the personal.... [Applying] this ideal to daily life, nonviolence is not some exalted regimen that can be practiced only by a monk or a master; it also pertains to the way one interacts with a child, vacuums a carpet, or waits in line.
"Besides the more obvious forms of violence, whenever we separate ourselves from a given situation (for example, through inattentiveness, negative judgments, or impatience), we 'kill' something valuable. However subtle it may be, such violence actually leaves victims in its wake: people, things, one's own composure, the moment itself.
"According to the Buddhist reckoning, these small-scale incidences of violence accumulate relentlessly, are multiplied on a social level, and become a source of the large-scale violence that can sweep down upon us so suddenly. . . . One need not wait until war is declared and bullets are flying to work for peace. A more constant and equally urgent battle must be waged each day against the forces of one's own anger, carelessness, and self-absorption."
-from Keneth Kraft, Inner Peace, World Peace (Nonviolence)
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