a merciful heart will receive mercy

Just as a thought is made manifest
through actions and words,
so is our future reward
through the impulses of the heart.

Thus a merciful heart
will receive mercy,
while a merciless heart
will receive the opposite.

St Mark The Ascetic

At the times when you remember God

At the times when you remember God,
increase your prayers,
so that when you forget Him,
the Lord may remind you.

St Mark The Ascetic

Just as a silver smith

अनुपुब्बेन मेधावी,

थोकं थोकं खणे खणे।

कम्मारो रजतस्सेव,

निद्धमे मलमत्तनो॥

Just as a silver smith

step by step,

bit by bit,

moment to moment,

blows away

the impurities of molten silver —

so the wise man, his own.

 Dhammpad 18.239

"Malavagga: Impurities" (Dhp XVIII), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 19 September 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.18.than.html.

Buddha

Evil

An elephant was led to a well to drink. Seeing
itself in the water, it shied away. It thought it was
shying away from another elephant. It did not
realize it was shying away from its own self.

All evil qualities—oppression, hatred, envy,
greed, mercilessness, pride—when they are within
yourself, they bring no pain. When you see them
in another, then you shy away and feel the pain.
We feel no disgust at our own scab and abscess.
 But if we see a tiny abscess or half a
scratch on another’s hand, we shy away from that
person’s food and have no stomach for it whatsoever.
Evil qualities are just like scabs and abscesses;
when they are within us they cause no pain,
but when we see them even to a small degree in
another, then we feel pain and disgust.
Just as you shy away from your brother or sister,
so you should excuse them for shying away
from you. The pain you feel comes from those
faults, and they see the same faults. The seeker of
truth is a mirror for their neighbors. But those
who cannot feel the sting of truth are not mirrors
to anyone but themselves.

How to pray

Men and women run away from every goal,
whether worldly or spiritual, because they overestimate the initial task. The proper way is a bit at
a time. It is the same if someone eats too much;
they should diminish it daily by a small bit, gradually. In that way, before a year or two have
passed, they will have cut down what they eat by
half, reducing it in such a way that their body
does not notice. So it is with worship, withdrawing into solitude, attending to the service of God,
and prayer. When a person enters upon the Way
of God, for a while their prayers will be short. But
after that, if they pray with their whole heart,
their prayers will go on and on without end.

Rumi

Do not put your trust in every idea and every notion

Life can show the most
wonderful things, but behind all of them lies a
trap should we forget the source of this wonder.
God has devised this plan so that we will learn
not to claim, out of arrogance and vanity, these
ideas and plans as our own.
If everything were in truth as it appears to be,
Mohammed, endowed as he was with a vision so
penetrating, so illuminated, would never have
cried,
“Lord, show me things as they are.
You show a thing as fair, and in reality it is ugly.
You show a thing as ugly, and in truth it is beautiful.
Show us everything just as it is,
So that we will not fall into the snare.”

Now, your judgement, however good and
luminous it may be, is certainly not better than
the Prophet’s judgement.
So do not put your trust in every idea and every notion,
 but only in God and Its wisdom.

RUMI

पियतरसुत्तं

‘‘सब्बा दिसा अनुपरिगम्म चेतसा,

नेवज्झगा पियतरमत्तना क्‍वचि।

एवं पियो पुथु अत्ता परेसं,

तस्मा न हिंसे परमत्तकामो’’ति॥

 

Searching all directions with one's awareness,

one finds no one dearer than oneself.

In the same way,

others are fiercely dear to themselves.

So one should not hurt others if one loves oneself.

 

 

from Udaan 5.1

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 8 July 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.5.01.than.html.

 

 

Buddha