The Eightfold Path
consists of:
(1) right understanding,
(2) right thought,
(3) right speech,
(4) right action,
(5) right livelihood,
(6) right effort,
(7) right mindfulness, and
(8) right concentration.
The divisions of the Path are: knowledge (and faith), conduct (with morality), and meditation.
Radio Free EarthRites… Will be down for a few more days as British Telecom can’t seem to do anything in a timely manner. (this is not news if you have lived in the UK) After all, they are doing you a favour by turning on the switch…
Our friend Doug has been graciously hosting the radio for the last year or so… he had to move from his locale (a brilliant view of British Rail…. every 5 minutes another train) up the hill towards St. John’s Wood.
EarthRites has been blessed with his assistance in all things teckie….
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Rowan has a marathon editing session this week end with Ivy to finish the film up for the up-coming film festival at his school. He would like to win the prize, as it would allow him to pay for supplies for the next four films. He has a grueling filming schedule coming up for the next couple of months, but is quite eager to get on with it!
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Musical Note… Side LinerI have heard this group on compilations (and they have been on Radio Free EarthRitees… but I found some videos recently…. see below
On The Menu:
Side Liner – Haunted Thoughts
Zen Tales…
Extracts from The Dhammapada
Side Liner – Morning Dewdrops
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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Side Liner – Haunted Thoughts
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Zen Tales…
Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on
the other bank. She thanked him and departed. As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied.
Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. “Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!”
“Brother,” the second monk replied, “I set her down on the other side, while you are still
carrying her.”
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Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain.
One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal. Ryokan returned and caught him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon.
“Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.”
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The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there.
In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly.
Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, “Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?”
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(Extracts from The Dhammapada – version by Thomas Byrom)
Choices
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.
“Look how he abused me and hurt me,
How he threw me down and robbed me.”
Live with such thoughts and you live in hate.
“Look how he abused me and hurt me,
How he threw me down and robbed me.”
Abandon such thoughts, and live in love.
In this world
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.
You too shall pass away.
Knowing this, how can you quarrel?
How easily the wind overturns a frail tree.
Seek happiness in the senses,
Indulge in food and sleep,
And you too will be uprooted.
The wind cannot overturn a mountain.
Temptation cannot touch the man
Who is awake, strong and humble,
Who masters himself and minds the dharma.
If a man’s thoughts are muddy,
If he is reckless and full of deceit,
How can he wear the yellow robe?
Whoever is master of his own nature,
Bright, clear and true,
He may indeed wear the yellow robe.
Mistaking the false for the true,
And the true for the false,
You overlook the heart
And fill yourself with desire.
See the false as false,
The true as true.
Look into your heart.
Follow your nature.
An unreflecting mind is a poor roof.
Passion, like the rain, floods the house.
But if the roof is strong, there is shelter.
Whoever follows impure thoughts
Suffers in this world and the next.
In both worlds he suffers
And how greatly
When he sees the wrong he has done.
But whoever follows the dharma
Is joyful here and joyful there.
In both worlds he rejoices
And how greatly
When he sees the good he has done.
For great is the harvest in this world,
And greater still in the next.
However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act upon them?
Are you a shepherd
Who counts another man’s sheep,
Never sharing the way?
Read as few words as you like,
And speak fewer.
But act upon the dharma.
Give up the old ways –
Passion, enmity, folly.
Know the truth and find peace.
Share the way.
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The Wise Man
The wise man tells you
Where you have fallen
And where you yet may fall –
Invaluable secrets!
Follow him, follow the way.
Let him chasten and teach you
and keep you from mischief.
The world may hate him.
But good men love him.
Do not look for bad company
Or live with men who do not care.
Find friends who love the truth.
Drink deeply.
Live in serenity and joy.
The wise man delights in the truth
And follows the law of the awakened.
The farmer channels water to his land.
The fletcher whittles his arrows.
And the carpenter turns his wood.
So the wise man directs his mind.
The wind cannot shake a mountain.
Neither praise nor blame moves the wise man.
He is clarity.
Hearing the truth,
He is like a lake,
Pure and tranquil and deep.
Want nothing.
Where there is desire,
Say nothing.
Happiness or sorrow –
Whatever befalls you,
Walk on
Untouched, unattached.
Do not ask for family or power or wealth,
Either for yourself or for another.
Can a wise man wish to rise unjustly?
Few cross over the river.
Most are stranded on this side.
On the riverbank they run up and down.
But the wise man, following the way,
Crosses over, beyond the reach of death.
He leaves the dark way
For the way of light.
He leaves his home, seeking
Happiness on the hard road.
Free from desire,
Free from possessions,
Free from the dark places of the heart.
Free from attachment and appetite,
Following the seven lights of awakening,
And rejoicing greatly in his freedom,
In this world the wise man
Becomes himself a light,
Pure, shining, free.
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The Master
At the end of the way
The master finds freedom
From desire and sorrow –
Freedom without bounds.
Those who awaken
Never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise
And leave the lake.
On the air they rise
And fly an invisible course,
Gathering nothing, storing nothing.
Their food is knowledge.
They live upon emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?
Only the master,
Such is his purity.
Like a bird,
He rises on the limitless air
And flies an invisible course.
He wishes for nothing.
His food is knowledge.
He lives upon emptiness.
He has broken free.
He is the charioteer.
He has tamed his horses,
Pride and the senses.
Even the gods admire him.
Yielding like the earth,
Joyous and clear like the lake,
Still as the stone at the door,
He is free from life and death.
His thoughts are still.
His words are still.
His work is stillness.
He sees his freedom and is free.
The master surrenders his beliefs.
He sees beyond the end and the beginning.
He cuts all ties.
He gives up all desires.
He resists all temptations.
And he rises.
And wherever he lives,
In the city or the country,
In the valley or in the hills,
There is great joy.
Even in the empty forest
He finds joy
Because he wants nothing.
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Violence
All beings tremble before violence.
All fear death.
All love life.
See yourself in other.
Then whom can you hurt?
What harm can you do?
He who seeks happiness
By hurting those who seek happiness
Will never find happiness.
For your brother is like you.
He wants to be happy.
Never harm him
And when you leave this life
You too will find happiness.
Never speak harsh words
For they will rebound upon you.
Angry words hurt
And the hurt rebounds.
Like a broken gong
Be still, and silent.
Know the stillness of freedom
Where there is no more striving.
Like herdsmen driving their cows into the fields,
Old age and death will drive you before them.
But the fool in his mischief forgets
And he lights the fire
Wherein one day he must burn.
He who harms the harmless
Or hurts the innocent,
Ten times shall he fall –
Into torment or infirmity,
Injury or disease or madness,
Persecution or fearful accusation,
Loss of family, loss of fortune.
Fire from heaven shall strike his house
And when his body has been struck down,
He shall rise in hell.
He who goes naked,
With matted hair, mud bespattered,
Who fasts and sleeps on the ground
And smears his body with ashes
And sits in endless meditation –
So long as he is not free from doubts,
He will not find freedom.
But he who lives purely and self-assured,
In quietness and virtue,
Who is without harm or hurt or blame,
Even if he wears fine clothes,
So long as he also has faith,
He is a true seeker.
A noble horse rarely
Feels the touch of the whip.
Who is there in this world as blameless?
Then like a noble horse
Smart under the whip.
Burn and be swift.
Believe, meditate, see.
Be harmless, be blameless.
Awake to the dharma.
And from all sorrows free yourself.
The farmer channels water to his land.
The fletcher whittles his arrows.
The carpenter turns his wood.
And the wise man masters himself.
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Side Liner – Morning Dewdrops
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