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These words are not my own and I take no credit for them. I share them here as a resource for anyone seeking personal growth or as source material for their own creative expansion of the collective.
“This life is transitory as the beauty of these flowers. May my God share with me the merit of this offering”
Christ like Buddha is an embodiment of the self, but in an altogether different sense. Both stood for an overcoming of the world; Buddha out of rational insight; Christ as a foredoomed sacrifice. In Christianity more is suffered, in Buddhism more is seen and done, Both paths are right, but in the Indian sense Buddha is the more complete human being. He is a historical personality, and therefore easier for men to understand. Christ is at once a historical man and God, and therefore much more difficult to comprehend. At bottom he was not comprehensible even to himself; he knew only that he had to sacrifice himself, that this course was imposed upon him from within. His sacrifice happened to him like an act of destiny. Buddha lived out his life and died at an advanced age, whereas Christ's activity as Christ probably lasted no more than a year. Later, Buddhism underwent the same transformation as Christianity: Buddha became, as it were, the image of the development of the self; he became a model for men to imitate, whereas actually he had preached that by overcoming the Nidana-chain every human being could become an illuminate, a buddha. Similarly, in Christianity, Christ is an exemplar who dwells in every Christian as his integral personality. But historical trends led to the imitatio Christi, whereby the individual does not pursue his own destined road to wholeness, but attempts to imitate the way taken by Christ. Similarly in the East, historical trends led to a devout imitation of the Buddha. That Buddha should have become a model to be imitated was in itself a weakening of his idea, just as the imitatio Christi was a forerunner of the fateful stasis in the evolution of the Christian idea. As Buddha, by virtue of his insight, was far in advance of the Brahma gods, so Christ cried out to the Jews, "You are gods" (John 10:34); but men were incapable of understanding what he meant. Instead we find that the so-called Christian West, far from creating a new world, is moving with giant strides toward the possibility of destroying the world we have.
I grasped the life of the Buddha as the reality of the self which had broken through and laid claim to a personal life. For Buddha, the self stands above all gods, a unus mundus which represents the essence of human existence and of the world as a whole. The self embodies both the aspect of intrinsic being and the aspect of its being known, without which no world exists. Buddha saw and grasped the cosmogonic dignity of human consciousness; for that reason he naw clearly that if a man succeeded in extinguishing this light, the world would sink into nothingness.
To this end, he said, before they set foot inside the temple they were reminded of their dharma by the exterior decorations; for unless they were made conscious of their dharma and fulfilled it, they could not partake of spiritualization.
At the moment of his birth [Buddha], a lotus flower rose from the earth and he stepped into it to gaze into the 10 directions of space. (The lotus in this case was eight-rayed; and Buddha also gazed upward and downward, making 10 directions.) This symbolic gesture of survey was the most concise method of showing that from the moment of his birth, the Buddha was a unique personality, predestined to receive illumination. His personality and his further existence were given the imprint of wholeness.
If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha! - Lin-Chi Zen Buddhism
He who sees me, sees the dhamma, and he who sees the dhamma sees me. - Gotama Buddha
Gotama did not want a personality cult, but paradigmatic individuals such as himself, Socrates, Confucius, and Jesus tend to be revered either as gods or as superhuman beings. Even the Prophet Muhammad, who always insisted that he was an ordinary human being, is venerated by Muslims as the Perfect Man, an archetype of the complete act of surrender (islam) to God.
Like Jesus, Muhammad, and Socrates, the Buddha was teaching men and women how to transcend the world and its suffering, how to reach beyond human pettiness and expediency and discover an absolute value. All were trying to make human beings more conscious of themselves and awaken them to their full potential.
The scriptures were not interested in tracing Gotama's unique, personal achievements but in setting forth the path that all Buddhas, all human beings must take when they seek enlightenment.
In his [Buddha’s ]view, the spiritual life cannot begin until people allow themselves to be invaded by the reality of suffering, realize how fully it permeates our whole experience, and feel the pain of all other beings, even those whom we do not find congenial.
The search for a place apart, separate from the world and yet marvelously within it, that is impartial, utterly fair, calm and which fills us with the faith that, against all odds, there is value in our lives, is what many seek in the reality we call "God." In the person of the Buddha, who had gone beyond the limitations and partialities of selfhood, many people seemed to find it in a human being.
Gotama subscribed to what has been called the "perennial philosophy," because it was common to all peoples in all cultures in the premodern world.' Earthly life was obviously fragile and overshadowed by death, but it did not constitute the whole of reality. Everything in the mundane world had, it was thought, its more powerful, positive replica in the divine realm. All that we experienced here below was modeled on an archetype in the celestial sphere; the world of the gods was the original pattern of which human realities were only a pale shadow.
"Suppose," he said, "I start to look for the unborn, the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, incorrupt and supreme freedom from this bondage?" He called this wholly satisfactory state Nibbäna ("blowing out").
"There is something that has not come to birth in the usual way, which has neither been created and which remains undamaged," Gotama would insist in later life. "If it did not exist, it would be impossible to find a way out.” - Udāna, 8:3.
Gods could not show Gotama the way to Nibbāna; he would have to depend upon his own efforts.
But rebirth in one of the heavens was not a happy ending, because divinity was no more permanent than any other state.
The law of kamma was a wholly impersonal mechanism that applied fairly and without discrimination to everybody.
The theory of kamma stated that we had nobody to blame for our fate but ourselves and that our actions would reverberate in the very distant future. True, kamma could not release human beings from the wearisome round of samsara, but good kamma would yield a valuable return since it ensured a more enjoyable existence next time.
To believe that one's innermost Self was identical with brahman, the supreme reality, was a startling act of faith in the sacred potential of humanity.
"The whole universe has this first essence (brahman) as its Self (atman). That is what the Self is; that is what you are… - Chandogya Upanisad, 6:13.
Instead, this overtly mythological story, with its divine interventions and magical occurrences, represents an alternative interpretation of the crucial event of the Pabbajja [going forth]. This is what all Buddhas — Gotama no less than Vipassi — have to do at the beginning of their quest; indeed, everybody who seeks enlightenment must go through this transformative experience when he or she embarks on the spiritual life.
The story in the Nidana Katha is symbolic and has universal impact, because unawakened men and women all try to deny the suffering of life and pretend that it has nothing to do with them. Such denial is not only futile (because nobody is immune to pain and these facts of life will always break in), but also dangerous, because it imprisons people in a delusion that precludes spiritual development.
Gotama's pleasure-palace is a striking image of a mind in denial. As long as we persist in closing our minds and hearts to the universal pain, which surrounds us on all sides, we remain locked in an undeveloped version of ourselves, incapable of growth and spiritual insight.
Suddhodana [Buddha's father] is an example of exactly the kind of authority figure that later Buddhist tradition would condemn. He forced his own view upon his son and refused to let him make up his own mind. This type of coercion could only impede enlightenment, since it traps a person in a self which is inauthentic and in an infantile, unawakened state.
"How oppressive and stifling it is!" Gotama exclaimed. He leapt out of bed and resolved to "Go Forth" that very night.
It is always tempting to try to shut out the suffering that is an inescapable part of the human condition, but once it has broken through the cautionary barricades we have erected against it, we can never see the world in the same way again.
… pain can never be conquered by force.
Long after Gotama had attained the supreme enlightenment, he still had to be on his guard against Mãra, who represents what Jungian psychologists would, perhaps, call his shadow-side, all the unconscious elements within the psyche which fight against our liberation.
This was what Alãra Kalãma had meant by "direct" knowledge, since the delusions and egotism of normal consciousness no longer came between the yogin and his dhamma; he "saw" it with new clarity, without the distorting film of subjective associations. These experiences are not delusions. The psychophysical changes wrought by prānāyāma and the disciplines that taught the yogin to manipulate his mental processes and even to monitor his unconscious impulses did bring about a change of consciousness.
"Surely," he cried, "there must be another way to achieve enlightenment!"
Such exstasis, a word that literally means "to stand outside the self," has nothing to do with the craving and greed that characterize so much of our waking lives.
… a person seeking enlightenment must be "energetic, resolute and persevering" in pursuing those "helpful," "wholesome" or "skillful" (kusala) states that would promote spiritual health.
It was very important not to tell lies, but it was also crucial to engage in "right talk" and make sure that whatever you said was worth saying: "reasoned, accurate, clear, and beneficial."
Gotama was developing what he called a "Middle Way," which shunned physical and emotional self-indulgence on the one hand, and extreme asceticism (which could be just as destructive) on the other.
First, as a preliminary to meditation, came the practice that he called "mindfulness" (sati), in which he scrutinized his behavior at every moment of the day. He noted the ebb and flow of his feelings and sensations, together with the fluctuations of his consciousness. If sensual desire arose, instead of simply crushing it, he took note of what had given rise to it and how soon it faded away. He observed the way his senses and thoughts interacted with the external world, and made himself conscious of his every bodily action. He would become aware of the way he walked, bent down or stretched his limbs, and of his behavior while "eating, drinking, chewing, and tasting, in defecating, walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, waking, speaking and keeping silent."
"Pain, grief and despair are dukkha," he would explain later, "being forced into proximity with what we hate is suffering, being separated from what we love is suffering, not getting what we want is suffering."
The prosperity of one person usually depends upon the poverty or exclusion of somebody else; when we get something that makes us happy, we immediately start to worry about losing it; we pursue an object of desire, even when we know in our heart of hearts that it will make us unhappy in the long run.
On the one hand, desire makes us "grab" or "cling" to things that can never give lasting satisfaction. On the other, it makes us constantly discontented with our present circumstances.
"The world, whose very nature is to change, is constantly determined to become something else," Gotama concluded. "It is at the mercy of change, it is only happy when it is caught up in the process of change, but this love of change contains a measure of fear, and this fear itself is dukkha.” - Udana, 3:10
Once he has banished malevolence and hatred from his mind, he lives without ill will and is also full of compassion, desiring the welfare of all living beings.... Once he has banished the mental habits of laziness and indolence, he is not only free of laziness and indolence but has a mind that is lucid, conscious of itself and completely alert; ... Once he has banished anxiety and worry, he lives without anxiety and his mind becomes calm and still; ... Once he has banished uncertainty, he lives with a mind that has outgrown debilitating doubt and is no longer plagued by unprofitable [akusala] mental states.
"Just as the ocean slopes gradually, falls away gradually, and shelves gradually with no sudden incline," he later warned his disciples, "so in this method, training, discipline and practice take effect by slow degrees, with no sudden perception of the ultimate truth."
But there seems little new about this insight, traditionally known as the Four Noble Truths and regarded as the fundamental teaching of Buddhism. The first of these verities was the noble truth of suffering (dukkha) that informs the whole of human life. The second truth was that the cause of this suffering was desire (tanha). In the third noble truth, Gotama asserted that Nibbāna existed as a way out of this predicament and finally, he claimed that he had discovered the path that leads from suffering and pain to its cessation in the state of Nibbāna.
The Noble Eightfold Path [rationalized still further into a three-fold plan of acfion]: [1] Morality (sila), which consists of right speech, right action and right livelihood. This essentially comprises the cultivation of the "skillful" states… [2] Meditation (samādhi), which comprises Gotama's revised yoga disciplines, under the headings of right effort, mindfulness and concentration. [3] Wisdom (paññā): the two virtues of right understanding and right resolve enable an aspirant, by means of morality and meditation, to understand the Buddha's Dhamma, enter into it "directly" and integrate it into his or her daily life...
… he [Buddha] always insisted that he had simply discovered "a path of great antiquity, an ancient trail, traveled by human beings in a far-off, distant era.”
The Buddha's claim, echoed by all the other great sages of the Axial Age, was that by reaching beyond themselves to a reality that transcends their rational understanding, men and women become fully human.
"The holy life has been lived out to its conclusion!" he cried out triumphantly at the end of that momentous night under the bodhi tree. "What had to be done has been accomplished; there is nothing else to do!"
Even though the 'Truths make rational sense, the texts emphasize that they did not come to Gotama by means of discursive reasoning. As he sat meditating under the bodhi tree, they "rose up" in him, as from the depths of his being, He apprehended them within himself by the kind of "direct knowledge" acquired by a yogin who practices the disciplines of yoga with "diligence, ardor and self control."
It is significant that at the moment he achieved Nibbāna under the bodhi tree, Gotama did not cry "I am liberated," but "It is liberated!" He had transcended him-self, achieved an exstasis, and discovered an enhanced "immeasurable" dimension of his humanity that he had not known before. - Majjhima Nikāya, 36
Nibbāna does not give an awakened person trance. like immunity, but an inner haven which enables a man or woman to live with pain, to take possession of it, affirm it, and experience a profound peace of mind in the midst of suffering.
"He who has gone to his final rest (parinibbana) cannot be defined by any measure," the Buddha would tell his followers in later life. "There are no words capable of describing him. What thought might comprehend has been canceled out, and so has every mode of speech."
He [Buddha] uses motifs common in mythology, which has been aptly described as a pre-modern form of psychology, tracing the inner paths of the psyche and making clearer the obscure world of the unconscious mind.
"Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I will welcome it!" Gotama vowed. "But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom."
This is not a physical location: the world-tree, standing at the axis of the cosmos, is a common feature of salvation mythology. It is the place where the divine energies pour into the world, where humanity encounters the Absolute and becomes more fully itself.
The "immovable spot" is that psychological state which enables us to see the world and ourselves in perfect balance. Without this psychological stability and this correct orientation, enlightenment is impossible: that is why all the Buddhas had to sit in this place or achieve this state of mind-before they were able to attain Nibbāna.
When men and women seek salvation, in the Buddhist view, they can expect no divine support.
Reaching out with his right hand to touch the ground, he begged the earth to testify to his past acts of compassion. With a shattering roar, the earth replied: "I bear you witness!" In terror, Māra's [delusion] elephant fell to its knees and his soldiers deserted, running in fear in all directions. 34 The earth-witnessing posture, which shows the Buddha sitting in the cross-legged asana position, touching the ground with his right hand, is a favorite icon in Buddhist art. It not only symbolizes Gotama's rejection of Māra's sterile machismo, but makes the profound point that a Buddha does indeed belong to the world.
Even though the world seems to be ruled by the violence of Māra [delusion] and his army, it is the compassionate Buddha who is most truly in tune with the basic laws of existence.
the flowering trees bloomed; the fruit trees were weighed down by the burden of their fruit; the trunk lotoses bloomed on the trunks of trees... The system of ten thousand worlds was like a bouquet of flowers sent whirling through the air.
But the new Buddha could not save the world vicariously. Every single creature would have to put Gotama's program into practice to achieve its own enlightenment; he could not do it for them.
"If I taught the Dhamma," the Buddha decided, "people would not understand it and that would be exhausting and disappointing for me."
Only when we learn to live from the heart and to feel the suffering of others as if it were our own do we become truly human.
But what was he going to teach? The Buddha had no time for doctrines or creeds; he had no theology to impart, no theory about the root cause of dukkha, no tales of an Original Sin, and no definition of the Ultimate Reality. He saw no point in such speculations. Buddhism is disconcerting to those who equate faith with belief in certain inspired religious opinions.
“… my teachings are like a raft, to be used to cross the river and not to be held on to," the Buddha concluded. "If you understand their raft-like nature correctly, you will even give up good teachings (dhamma), not to mention bad ones!"
“I am preaching a cure for these unhappy conditions here and now," the Buddha told the philosophically inclined bhikkhu, "so always remember what I have not explained to you and the reason why I have refused to explain it."
People who had "Gone Forth" into holiness, he said, should avoid the two extremes of sensual pleasure, on the one hand, and excessive mortification on the other. Neither was helpful, because they did not lead to Nibbāna. Instead, he had discovered the Eightfold Path, a happy medium between these two alternatives, which, he could guar-antee, would lead the monks directly to enlightenment. Truth of Suffering, the Truth of the Cause of Suffering, the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering or Nibbāna, and the Path that led to this liberation.
First, he made the bhikkhus see the Truth. Next, he explained what had to be done about it: suffering had to be "fully known"; Craving, the Cause of Suffering, had to be "given up"; Nibbāna, the Cessation of Suffering, had to "become a reality" in the heart of the Arahant; and the Eightfold Path must be "followed." Finally, the Buddha explained what he had achieved: he had understood dhukkha "directly"; he had abandoned craving; he had experienced Nibbāna; he had followed the Path to its conclusion.
"The Dhamma has been preached to good effect. Live the holy life that will end your suffering once and for all. "
The Chain [of Dependent Causation (Paticca-samuppada)] traces the life cycle of a sentient being through twelve conditioned and conditioning links, illustrating the transitory nature of our lives and showing how each person is perpetually becoming something else. On [1] ignorance depends [2] kamma; on kamma depends [3] consciousness; on consciousness depends [4] name and form; on name and form depends [5] the sense organs; on the sense organs depends [6] contact; on contact depends [7] sensation; on sensation depends [8] desire; on desire depends [9] attachment; on attachment depends [10] existence; on existence depends [11] birth; on birth depends [12] dukkha: old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief and despair.
The Buddha did not believe that "consciousness" was the kind of permanent, eternal Self sought by the yogins, but saw it as a last flickering energy, like a flame that leaps from one wick to another. A flame is never constant; a fire which is lit at nightfall both is and is not the fire that is still burning at daybreak.
A person should be regarded as a process, not an unchangeable entity.
He [Buddha] divided the human personality into five "heaps" or "constituents" (khandhas): the body, feelings, perceptions, volitions (conscious and unconscious) and consciousness, and asked the bhikkhus to consider each khandha in turn.
"This is not mine; this is not what I really am; this is not my self." - Vinaya: Mahāvagga, 1:6; Samyutta Nikāya, 22:59
The Buddha liked to use such metaphors as a blazing fire or a rushing stream to describe the personality; it had some kind of identity, but was never the same from one moment to another. At each second, a fire was different; it had consumed and re-created itself, just as people did. In a particularly vivid simile, the Buddha compared the human mind to a monkey ranging through the forest: "it grabs one branch, and then, letting that go, seizes another."
Not only does the idea of "self" lead to unskillful thoughts about "me and mine" and inspire our selfish cravings; egotism can arguably be described as the source of all evil: an excessive attachment to the self can lead to envy or hatred of rivals, conceit, megalomania, pride, cruelty, and, when the self feels threatened, to violence and the destruction of others.
As the Buddha himself had learned, an understanding of the First Noble Truth of dukkha meant empathizing with the sorrow of others; the doctrine of anattā implied that an enlightened person must live not for her- or himself but for others.
The Buddha, however, gently explained that Yasa had become an Arahant and would now find it impossible to live the life of a householder. He was no longer afflicted by the cravings and desires that would enable him to fulfill a householder's reproductive and economic duties; he would require hours of silence and privacy for meditation that would not be possible in a family home. He could not return.
Go now, the Buddha told his sixty bikkhus, and travel for the welfare and happiness of the people, out of compassion for the world, for the benefit, welfare and happiness of gods and men. No two of you go the same way. Teach the Dhamma, bhikkhus, and meditate on the holy life. There are beings with only a little desire left within them who are languishing for lack of hearing the Dhamma; they will understand it.
"Which is better for you?" the Buddha asked. "To look for a woman or to find yourselves?"
… the texts tell us that the Buddha challenged the whole caste system: "It is not simply birth that makes a person a brahmin or an outcaste, insisted, "but our actions (kamma)."
"Bhikkhus," the Buddha began, "everything is burning." The senses and everything that they feed upon in the external world, the body, the mind and the emotions were all ablaze.
… the Buddha denied that there was any such thing as a constant personality. He would have regarded the obstinate belief in a sacred, irreducible nub of selfhood as an "unskillful" delusion that would get in the way of enlightenment.
He [the Buddha] owed his liberation precisely to the extinction of the unique traits and idiosyncrasies that Western people prize in their heroes. The same goes for his disciples.
To keep such essential teaching from lay folk seems unfair, but the idea that everybody should be on the same spiritual footing is essentially modern. Premodern religion was nearly always conducted on two tiers, with an elite who spent their whole lives studying and meditating on scripture, and gave instruction to the inevitably more ignorant laity.
There is a lay version of the Fire Sermon, in which the disciple is urged to tend the three "good fires": taking care of his dependents; caring for his wife, children and servants; and supporting the bhikkhus in all the different sanghas. But, as always, the cardinal virtue was compassion.
One day King Pasenedi and his wife had a discussion in which each admitted that nothing was dearer to them than their own selves. This was obviously not a view that the Buddha could share, but when the king told him about this conversation, the Buddha did not chide him, launch into a discussion of anattā, or preach a sermon on the Eightfold Path. Instead, as usual, he entered into Pasenedi's viewpoint, and built on what was in his mind—not on what the Buddha thought should be there.
… the Buddha concluded, "a person who loves the self, should not harm the self of others.”
"do not be satisfied with hearsay or taking truth on trust."
"That is why I told you not to rely on any teacher," the Buddha concluded. "When you know in yourselves that these things are helpful' (kusala) and those 'unhelpful' (akusala), then you should practice this ethic and stick to it, whatever anybody else tells you."
Let all beings be happy! Weak or strong, of high, middle or low estate, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far away, alive or still to be born—may they all be entirely happy! Let nobody lie to anybody or despise any single being anywhere. May nobody wish harm to any single creature, out of anger or hatred! Let us cherish all creatures, as a mother her only child! May our loving thoughts fill the whole world, above, below, across—without limit; a boundless goodwill toward the whole world, unrestricted, free of hatred and enmity!
Hatred, the Buddha said, was never appeased by more hatred; it could only be defused by friendship and sympathy.
The story tells us a good deal about the early Sangha. There was no tight organization and no central authority. It was closer to the sanghas of the old republics, where all the members of the council were equal, than to the new monarchies. The Buddha refused to be an authoritative and controlling ruler, and did not resemble the Father Superior of later Christian religious orders.
The Patimokkha ("bond") Refraining from all that is harmful, Attaining what is skillful, And purifying one's own mind; This is what the Buddhas teach. Forbearance and patience are the highest of all austerities; And the Buddhas declare that Nibbāna is the supreme value. Nobody who injures others is a true monk. No faultfinding, no harming, restraint, Knowing the rules regarding food, the single bed and chair, Application in the higher perception derived from meditation — This is what the Awakened Ones teach.
The message seems to be that it is not by protecting and defending yourself that you survive, but by giving yourself away.
Had the brahmin ever seen a red lotos that had begun its life underwater rising above the pond, until it no longer touched the surface? the Buddha asked. "So I too was born and grew up in the world," he told his visitor, "but I have transcended the world and am no longer touched by it."
"Remember me," the Buddha told him, "as one who has woken up.
The Order would not decline as long as monks avoided such unskillful pursuits as "gossiping, lazing around, and socializing; as long as they have no unprincipled friends and avoid falling under such people's spell; as long as they do not stop halfway in their quest and remain satisfied with a mediocre level of spirituality." If they failed in this, the Sangha would become indistinguishable from any secular in-stitution; it would fall prey to the vices of the monarchies and become hopelessly corrupt.
"Each of you must make himself his island, make himself and no one else his refuge."
How could the bhikkhus become self-reliant? They knew the answer already: by meditation, concentration, mindfulness and a disciplined detachment from the world. The Sangha needed no one to govern it, no central authority. The whole point of the Buddhist lifestyle was to achieve an inner resource that made such dependence quite ludicrous.
"I have only taught you things that I have experienced fully for myself," he said.
Above all, they must live for others. The holy life had not been devised simply to benefit the enlightened, and Nibbāna was not a prize which any bhikkhu could selfishly keep to himself. They must live the Dhamma "for the sake of the people, for the welfare and happiness of the multitude, out of compassion for the whole world, and for the good and well-being of gods and men.”
Like those monotheists who preferred to speak of God in negative terms, the Buddha sometimes preferred to explain what Nibbāna was not. It was, he told his disciples, a state where there is neither earth nor water, light nor air; neither infinity or space; it is not infinity of reason but nor is it an absolute void ... it is neither this world or another world; it is both sun and moon.
When the Buddha tried to give his disciples a hint of what this peaceful Eden in the heart of the psyche was like, he mixed negative with positive terms. Nibbāna was, he said, "the extinction of greed, hatred and delusion"; it was the Third Noble Truth; it was "Taintless," "Unweakening," "Undisintegrating," "Inviolable," "Non-distress," "Non-affliction," and "Unhostility."
No Buddhist could ever rest on past achievements; the Sangha must always press forward to bring help to the wider world.
"You may be thinking, Ananda: 'The word of the Teacher is now a thing of the past; now we have no more Teacher.' But that is not how you should see it. Let the Dhamma and the Discipline that I have taught you be your Teacher when I am gone.
All individual things pass away. Seek your liberation with diligence."
As a flame blown out by the wind Goes to rest and cannot be defined, So the enlightened man freed from selfishness Goes to rest and cannot be defined. Gone beyond all images— Gone beyond the power of words.
In Vedic India, ritual actions had been called karma ("deeds"). The Buddha, however, had no interest in sacrificial ritual. He redefined karma as the intentions that inspired our ordinary actions. Our motives were internal karma, mental actions that were far more important than ritual observance, and just as important as external actions.
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