BUDDHI S T I N S P I R AT I O N S
Edited by Josh Bartok
DAILYWISDOM INCLUDEDS WORDS OF
WISDOM FROM:
Buddha
The Dalai Lama
Lama Yeshe
Ayya Khema
Bhante G.
Thich Nhat Hanh
B. Alan Wallace
Lorne Ladner
Sandy Bovcher
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Master Hsing Yun
Sakya Pandita
Milarepa
Kalu Rinpoche
and many more
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DAILY WISDOM
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Acquired at wisdompubs.org
DAILYWISDOM
3 6 5 B U D D H I S T INS P I R AT IONS
edited by Josh Bartok
WISDOM PUBL ICAT IONS • BOSTON
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Wisdom Publications
199 Elm Street
Somerville MA 02144 USA
www.wisdompubs.org
© 2001 Wisdom Publications
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photography, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed,
without the permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Daily wisdom: 365 Buddhist inspirations / edited by Josh Bartok.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-86171-300-1 (alk. paper)
1. Buddhist devotional calendars. 2. Buddhist meditations.
I. Bartok, Josh.
BQ5579.D35 2001
2001033333
11 10 09 08
8 7 6 5 4
Cover design by Laura Shaw Feit
Interior by Gopa and the Bear
Cover image courtesy of Photodisc.
Special thanks to Eveline Yang, whose assistance was of
inestimable value in the preparation of this work.
Wisdom Publications’ books are printed on acid-free paper and
meet the guidelines for the permanence and durability set by
the Council on Library Resources.
Printed in Canada.
ISBN 978-0-86171-821-4 (ebook)
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Dedicated
with boundless gratitude
to all our teachers
and to all beings.
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PREFACE
Cited within these pages are representatives from many streams
of Buddhist thought and practice: Tibetan lamas and Burmese
teachers, Zen masters and tantric adepts, Asians andWesterners,
monastics and lay people, poets and pundits. And yet, as diverse
as these sources are, their words all point to the same open,
compassionate heart and wise, unhindered mind.
Our utmost gratitude goes to the myriad teachers, translators,
and editors whose generous efforts have given rise to the
original works from which DailyWisdom is drawn.We hope the
page-a-day format invites you to spend a few moments of quiet
reflection with each excerpt to truly feel the beating heart of
these living words. But most of all, in offering this compilation
it is our sincere hope that you find encouragement, illumination,
perhaps even solace, as you follow your own path deeper into
daily wisdom.
Josh Bartok
on behalf of the staff of
Wisdom Publications
Somerville, Mass.
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Acquired at wisdompubs.org
“How, dear sir, did you cross the flood?”
“By not halting, friend, and by not straining I crossed the flood.”
“But how is it, dear sir, that by not halting and by not straining
you crossed the flood?”
“When I came to a standstill, friend, then I sank; but when I
struggled, then I got swept away. It is in this way, friend, that
by not halting and by not straining I crossed the flood.”
1
JANUARY 1
BUDDHA, IN THE CONNECTED DISCOURSES OF THE BUDDHA
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There simply is nothing to which we can attach ourselves, no
matter how hard we try. In time, things will change and the
conditions that produced our current desires will be gone.
Why then cling to them now?
2
JANUARY 2
MASTER HSING YUN, DESCRIBING THE INDESCRIBABLE
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The temptation is to conclude that perhaps meditation
is alright for some but dead wrong for you. In my case,
meditation started out painful and tedious beyond words.
Extremely convincing arguments for giving up before you
have even started will almost certainly occur to you—
don’t listen to them.
3
JANUARY 3
TOM CHETWYND, ZEN AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
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When we fall on the ground it hurts us, but we also need to rely
on the ground to get back up.
4
JANUARY 4
KATHLEEN MCDONALD, HOW TO MEDITATE
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Wisdom does not mean knowledge but experiential
understanding. Wisdom helps you to change radically your
habits and perceptions, as you discover the constantly
changing, interconnected nature of the whole of existence.
5
JANUARY 5
MARTINE BATCHELOR, MEDITATION FOR LIFE
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We plant merit with our minds, and we commit crimes with our
minds. With our minds, we imprint images. This one mind is like
an artist. It can draw anything, and what it draws is realized.
If you surrender your impressions, ideas, thoughts, and so on at
the moment they arise without imprinting them on your mind,
your mind will not be tainted, just as the lotus flower is not
tainted by the muddy water whence it grows.
6
JANUARY 6
JAE WOONG KIM, POLISHING THE DIAMOND
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This mind and body is our household. If this inner household
is not in order, no outer household can be in order.
7
JANUARY 7
AYYA KHEMA, BEING NOBODY, GOING NOWHERE
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No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are
times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times
when pain catches up with you.
8
JANUARY 8
BHANTE HENEPOLA GUNARATANA, MINDFULNESS IN PLAIN ENGLISH
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Try to be reasonable in the way you grow, and don’t ever
think it is too late. It is never too late. Even if you are going
to die tomorrow, keep yourself straight and clear and be a
happy human being today. If you keep your situation happy
day by day, you will eventually reach the greatest happiness
of enlightenment.
9
JANUARY 9
LAMA THUBTEN YESHE, THE BLISS OF INNER FIRE
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On the basis of the belief that all human beings share the same
divine nature, we have a very strong ground, a very powerful
reason, to believe that it is possible for each of us to develop
a genuine sense of equanimity toward all beings.
10
JANUARY 10
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA, THE GOOD HEART
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Honesty can be cultivated by transforming your inner
language. For example, you might think: “I am no good” or
“They are not good.” Is this true? For some strange reason,
people want to wallow in the idea of being either the best
or the worst. What is true in this moment? How close can
we get to the reality of our experiences?
11
JANUARY 11
MARTINE BATCHELOR, MEDITATION FOR LIFE
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The present moment is changing so fast that we often do not
notice its existence at all. Every moment of mind is like a series
of pictures passing though a projector. Some of the pictures
come from sense impressions. Others come from memories of
past experiences or from fantasies of the future. Mindfulness
helps us freeze the frame so that we can become aware of our
sensations and experiences as they are, without the distorting
coloration of socially conditioned responses or habitual
reactions.
12
JANUARY 12
BHANTE HENEPOLA GUNARATANA, EIGHT MINDFUL STEPS TO HAPPINESS
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Leave the mind in its natural, undisturbed state.
Don’t follow thoughts of “This is a problem, that is a
problem!”Without labeling difficulties as problems,
leave your mind in its natural state. In this way,
you will stop seeing miserable conditions as problems.
13
JANUARY 13
LAMA ZOPA RINPOCHE, TRANSFORMING PROBLEMS INTO HAPPINESS
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There is a well-known simile about a monkey trap of the kind
used in Asia—a wooden container with a small opening. Inside
lies a sweet. The monkey, attracted by the sweet, puts his paw
into the opening and grasps the sweet. When he wants to draw
his paw out again, he cannot get his fist with the sweet through
the narrow opening. He is trapped until the hunter comes and
captures him. He does not realize that all he has to do to be free
is let go of the sweet. That is the way we live our lives. We are
trapped because we want it nice and sweet. Not being able to let
go, we are caught in the never-ending cycle of happiness and
unhappiness, hope and despair.
14
JANUARY 14
AYYA KHEMA, BE AN ISLAND
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Baizhang asked, “What is the essential import of the school?”
Mazu said, “It’s just the place where you let go of your body
and life.”
15
JANUARY 15
FROM ZEN’S CHINESE HERITAGE
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All the faults of our mind—our selfishness, ignorance, anger,
attachment, guilt, and other disturbing thoughts—are temporary,
not permanent and everlasting. And since the cause of our
suffering—our disturbing thoughts and obscurations—is
temporary, our suffering is also temporary.
16
JANUARY 16
LAMA ZOPA RINPOCHE, ULTIMATE HEALING
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It’s not enough just to sit down and then, with a totally
mundane motivation, proceed into meditation. Rather,
among the possibilities of having a virtuous, nonvirtuous,
or ethically neutral motivation, it is necessary to bring forth
a virtuous motivation, specifically the spirit of awakening
for the sake of all sentient beings.
17
JANUARY 17
PADMASAMBHAVA, NATURAL LIBERATION
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Just as a monkey roaming through a forest grabs hold of one
branch, lets that go and grabs another, then lets that go and
grabs still another, so too that which is called “mind” and
“mentality” and “consciousness” arises as one thing and ceases as
another by day and by night.
18
JANUARY 18
BUDDHA, IN THE CONNECTED DISCOURSES OF THE BUDDHA
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Remember, lifelong habits die hard. It is difficult enough to
simply recognize our anger and jealousy, let alone to make an
effort to hold back the old familiar tide of feeling or analyze
its cause and results. Transforming the mind is a slow and
gradual process. It is a matter of ridding ourselves, bit by bit,
of instinctive, harmful habit patterns and becoming familiar
with habits that necessarily bring positive results—to ourselves
and others.
19
JANUARY 19
KATHLEEN MCDONALD, HOW TO MEDITATE
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Zen teachers talk quite often about how you will make
compromises when you try to practice on your own. As you are
not disturbing anyone else, you don’t mind shifting position to
get a bit more comfortable—and then shifting again. You may
cut the sitting short, then a bit shorter—then end up not sitting
at all. But it is your own sitting that you disturb by moving,
destroying the effort you’ve made up until then, by stirring up
the mind and the ego. It is yourself that you cheat.
20
JANUARY 20
TOM CHETWYND, ZEN AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
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If we divide into two camps—even into the violent and
the nonviolent—and stand in one camp while attacking the
other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame
and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and
social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence
in ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those
we condemn if we want to have a real impact.
21
JANUARY 21
AYYA KHEMA, BE AN ISLAND
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Those who merely read books cannot understand the teachings
and, what’s more, may even go astray. But those who try to
observe the things going on in the mind, and always take that
which is true in their own minds as their standard, never get
muddled. They are able to comprehend suffering, and ultimately
will understand Dharma. Then, they will understand the books
they read.
22
JANUARY 22
BUDDHADASA BHIKKHU, HEARTWOOD OF THE BODHI TREE
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If you never try, you can never be successful; but if you try,
you might surprise yourself.
23
JANUARY 23
LAMA THUBTEN YESHE, THE BLISS OF INNER FIRE
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The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to
construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of
goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.
24
JANUARY 24
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA, THE GOOD HEART
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There’s but little breath left
on the boundary of this life and next.
Not knowing if I’ll be here next morning,
why try to trick death
with life-schemes for a permanent future?
25
JANUARY 25
MILAREPA, DRINKING THE MOUNTAIN STREAM
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You can expect certain benefits from meditation. The initial
ones are practical things; the later stages are profoundly
transcendental. They run together from the simple to the
sublime.
26
JANUARY 26
BHANTE HENEPOLA GUNARATANA, MINDFULNESS IN PLAIN ENGLISH
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Pulling up
My robes, I draw magic water
From the spring and let it surge,
To scrub clogs and headcloth. Smoky
Haze breaking over fir and bamboo,
Clears and concentrates
The mind and spirit.
27
JANUARY 27
CHIEN CHANG, IN THE CLOUDS SHOULD KNOW ME BY NOW
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And what is the wholesome? Abstention from killing living
beings is wholesome; abstention from taking what is not given
is wholesome; abstention from misconduct in sensual pleasures
is wholesome; abstention from false speech is wholesome;
abstention from malicious speech is wholesome; abstention from
harsh speech is wholesome; abstention from gossip is wholesome;
uncovetousness is wholesome; non-ill will is wholesome; right
view is wholesome. This is called the wholesome.
And what is the root of the wholesome? Non-greed is a root
of the wholesome; non-hate is a root of the wholesome;
non-delusion is a root of the wholesome. This is called the
root of the wholesome.
28
JANUARY 28
BUDDHA, IN THE MIDDLE LENGTH DISCOURSES OF THE BUDDHA
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Thinking of human beings alone is a bit narrow. To consider
that all sentient beings in the universe have been our mother
at some point in time opens a space of compassion.
29
JANUARY 29
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA, IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE
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By renouncing samsara, we renounce our habitual grasping,
unhappy minds. And by renouncing samsara, we embrace our
potential for enlightenment.
30
JANUARY 30
LAMA ZOPA RINPOCHE, TRANSFORMING PROBLEMS INTO HAPPINESS
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It is crucial to know when it is appropriate to withdraw our
attention from things that disturb our mind. However, if the
only way we know how to deal with certain objects is to avoid
them, there will be a severe limit as to how far our spiritual
practice can take us.
31
JANUARY 31
LAMA THUBTEN YESHE, INTRODUCTION TO TANTRA
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