Symptoms of Inner Peace

An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

Loss of interest in judging others.

Loss of interest in interpreting actions of others.

Loss of interest in conflict.

Loss of ability to worry. (very serious symptom)

Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation or unattached giving.

A tendency to smile more often

Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.

Frequent attacks of smiling through the eyes from the heart.

Tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

Tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fear based on past experiences.


From: www.dhammasukha.org

as always - dear mother teresa

the truth of desire

Our usual perceptions are tinged with “unwise consideration”. We ordinarily look only at the surfaces of things, scan them in terms of our immediate interests and wants; only rarely do we dig into the roots of our involvements or explore their long-range consequences. To set this straight calls for wise consideration: looking into the hidden undertones to our actions, exploring their results, evaluating the worthiness of our goals. In this investigation our concern must not be with what is pleasant, but with what is true. We have to be prepared and willing to discover what is true even at the cost of our comfort. For real security always lies on the side of truth, not on the side of comfort.

When desire is scrutinized closely, we find that it is constantly shadowed by 'unsatisfactoriness' (or dissatisfying). Sometimes 'unsatisfactoriness' appears as pain or irritation; often it lies low as a constant strain of discontent. But the two — desire and dukkha — are inseparable concomitants. We can confirm this for ourselves by considering the whole cycle of desire. At the moment desire springs up it creates in us a sense of lack, the pain of want. To end this pain we struggle to fulfill the desire. If our effort fails, we experience frustration, disappointment, sometimes despair. But even the pleasure of success is not unqualified. We worry that we might lose the ground we have gained. We feel driven to secure our position, to safeguard our territory, to gain more, to rise higher, to establish tighter controls. The demands of desire seem endless, and each desire demands the eternal: it wants the things we get to last forever. But all the objects of desire are impermanent. Whether it be wealth, power, position, or other persons, separation is inevitable, and the pain that accompanies separation is proportional to the force of attachment

Desire breeds fear and sorrow. Renunciation gives fearlessness and joy.


Bhikkhu Bodhi

the path

The search for a spiritual path is born out of suffering. It does not start with lights and ecstasy, but with the hard tacks of pain, disappointment, and confusion. However, for suffering to give birth to a genuine spiritual search, it must amount to more than something passively received from without. It has to trigger an inner realization, a perception which pierces through the facile complacency of our usual encounter with the world to glimpse the insecurity perpetually gaping underfoot. When this insight dawns, even if only momentarily, it can precipitate a profound personal crisis. It overturns accustomed goals and values,
mocks our routine preoccupations, leaves old enjoyments stubbornly unsatisfying.

No longer can we continue to drift complacently through life, driven blindly by our hunger for sense pleasures and by the pressure of prevailing social norms. A deeper reality beckons us; we have heard the call of a more stable, more authentic happiness, and until we arrive at our destination - we cannot rest content.


Bhikkhu Bodhi

a battle hard to win

ONe who repays an angry man with anger
Thereby makes things worse for himself.
Not repaying an angry man with anger,
One wins a battle hard to win.

He practises for the welfare of both
His own and the other's
When, knowing that his foe is angry,
He mindfully maintains his peace.


Samyutta Nikaya

time

It is by living together with someone that his virtue is to be known,
and that after a long time, not after a short time;
by one who is attentive, not by one who is inattentive;
by one who is wise, not by a dullard.

It is by dealing with someone that his honesty is to be known,
and that after a long time, not after a short time;
by one who is attentive, not by one who is inattentive;
by one who is wise, not by a dullard.

It is in adversities that a person's fortitude is to be known,
and that after a long time, not after a short time;
by one who is attentive, not by one who is inattentive;
by one who is wise, not by a dullard.

It is by discussion with someone that his wisdom is to be known,
and that after a long time, not after a short time;
by one who is attentive, not by one who is inattentive;
by one who is wise, not by a dullard.

A man is not easily known by outward form
Nor should one trust a quick appraisal,
For in the guise of the well controlled
Uncontrolled men move in this world.

Some move about in disguise:
Inwardly impure; outwardly beautiful.


Samyutta Nikaya

essential

Those who mistake the unessential for the essential
and in the essential see the unessential,
dwelling in wrong thoughts,
never arrive at the essence.

Those who know the essential as the essential
and the unessential as the unessential,
dwelling in right thoughts,
will arrive at the essence.


Dhammapada

in the realm of the spirit

This is the only satisfying way for the seeker of truth when the
diffuseness of the external world with its thin layer of
culture, comfort and allurement, ceases to be interesting and is
found to lack true value. The seeker knows to a certainty that
what he wants is to be found in the realm of the spirit.

Soma Thera

beyond the horizon

... spiritual awareness and the quest for enlightenment do not arise spontaneously in harmony with our natural modes of world-engagement, but require a turn "against the current", a break away from our instinctual urges for expansion and enjoyment, and the embarkation in a different direction. This break is precipitated by the encounter with suffering. Suffering spurs the awakening of the religious consciousness in that it is the experience of suffering which first tears us out of our blind absorption in the immediacy of temporal being and sets us in search of a way to its transcendence.


Bhikkhu Bodhi

listen

An interviewer asked Mother Teresa what she says to God when she prays.

"I don't say anything," she replied. "I just listen."

So the interviewer asked her what God says to her.

"He doesn't say anything," said Mother Teresa. "He just listens."

And before the astonished interviewer could press her further, she added,
"And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it to you."


Stephen Carter, Civility

Picture from www.travelblog.org

Rory Peck Trust Award 2006

ZAKARIA ABU HARBID - Palestinian

Winner: The Rory Peck Award for Hard News

This piece shows scenes broadcast around the world of 12 year old Huda Ghalia after an explosion which killed her father, her step-mother and five siblings. The distraught young girl is seen running along the beach then weeping beside her father’s body. Zakaria had been filming another incident in the nearby village of Beit Hanon. As soon as he heard about the incident on Gaza Beach, he left and arrived at the scene just minutes later.





The Rory Peck Trust

no fixing

...she was philosophical about my moods. Sadness didn’t worry
her. On those occasions when I said, “But I’m not happy!” she
would say, “Where is it written that you are supposed to happy
all the time?”

I don’t remember this comment as a rebuke. I think of it now as
my introduction to the first of the Four Noble Truths of the
Buddha. Life is difficult because things change. Change means
loss and disappointment. Bodies and relationships are, from time
to time, painful. I was reassured by my grandmother’s response. I
didn’t feel I was making a mistake by feeling sad, and she didn’t
feel obliged to fix me.


Sylvia Boorstein

hurtling by

Days and nights go hurtling by
‘Till our lifetime comes to an end.
The life of mortals slips away
—Like the water of tiny streams.

Therigatha 145

Strongest Dad in the World

The Father n Son Story

China takes heat after shooting Tibetan pilgrims

NEW DELHI, India -- The two teenage girls were best friends. In their tiny farming village in Tibet, they had stayed up late many nights over four years plotting their escape.

Kelsang Namtso had become a Buddhist nun just last year, at the tender age of 16. Her friend, Dolma Palkyi, 16, wanted to go to India, and meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, before taking her vows.

Dolma says she managed to save nearly $1,400 for the arduous journey through the Himalayas. Half would go to the smugglers. In early September, the girls loaded their backpacks with yak butter, cheese, and barley, and finally set off.

Seventeen days later, Kelsang lay dying in the snow after an attack, captured by Western tourists' cameras, that is becoming an international incident and a stain on China's human rights record.

To continue reading article, goto:
China takes heat... from The Christian Science Monitor

follow the path to the end

A good actor is a man who represents the sediment, the unexplored and unexplained powers that have drifted down through the centuries; he takes the lessons he has gleaned and hides them deep inside him; his self-mastery is awesome; never does he bare his heart; no one may know how powerful he is until he strides onto the stage. All his life, he travels down unfamiliar roads to perform at the most out-of-the-way theaters in the most godforsaken towns, and everywhere he goes he searches for a voice that will grant him genuine freedom. If he is so fortunate as to find that voice, he must embrace it fearlessly and follow the path to the end.


Snow, Orhan Pamuk

Video footage of Chinese police shooting Tibetan pilgrims

Pro Tv cameraman Sergiu Matei returned to Romania after climbing Himalaya and brought home with him a shocking story.

To see video footage of Chinese police shooting Tibetan pilgrims on their way to see the Dalai Lama at Dharamsala, India,
Click: Video Footage

For info on Invasion n Illegal Annexation of Tibet,
goto Tibet

respect for all faiths

"I consider myself as someone who is a devout follower of the Buddha Shakyamuni.
I can actually claim that my admiration for the Buddha is grounded in a genuine
conviction based upon understanding of the essence of his teachings. I also feel
that at least in me there is the perfect realization of taking refuge in the Buddha,
Dharma and Sangha. So this is the case of my own personal belief as a committed
practicing Buddhist.

But at the same time when I look at other faith traditions such as Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, Hinduism and other major world religions, I have a profound sense of admiration and
reverence for them. This is because each of the great spiritual traditions has served the spiritual
needs of millions of individuals in the past, they continue to do so and they will continue in the
future. They provide spiritual solace and inspiration as well as a deep sense of fulfillment of
peoples’ spiritual needs. In a sense these are very powerful and profound methods for other
sentient beings to bring about the fulfillment of their spiritual aspirations. They are in a sense
sources of profound benefit to millions of individuals.

So when I look at these other faith traditions from this angle, my admiration and reverence for
these traditions tremendously increases. One of the aspects this reflects is the diversity and
multiplicity of the mental inclinations, spiritual inclinations and mental dispositions and interests
of sentient beings."


The Dalai Lama at Illinois 1999
Picture: The Dalai Lama at the Western Wall in Jerusalem (www.guysen.com)

CAIGENTAN 菜根谭

One who craves solitude understands the cosmos
just by looking at the white clouds and rocky crags.

One who seeks wealth and honour
finds respite in singing and dancing.

Only the self-sufficient person
is unaffected by noise or quiet,
the magnificent or the withered,
and finds any place to be just right.



CAIGENTAN by Hong Zicheng, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty
Translated by Robert Aitken with Daniel Kwok

Goto site:
CAIGENTAN 菜根谭

narrow road

Nowhere in this wide universe
have we a fixed abode.

Matsuo Basho
Narrow Road to the Interior