What the Buddha Taught

Right speech means abstention (1) from telling lies, (2) from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity and disharmony among individuals or groups of people, (3) from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious and abusive language, and (4) from idle, useless and foolish babble and gossip. When one abstains from these forms

This Middle Path is generally referred to as the Noble Eightfold Path (Arija-Aṭṭhaṇgika-Magga), because it is composed of eight categories or divisions: namely, 1. Right Understanding (Sammā diṭṭhi), 2. Right Thought (Sammā saṇkappa), 3. Right Speech (Sammāv ācā), 4. Right Action (Sammākammanta), 5. Right Livelihood (Sammā ājīva), 6. Right Effort (

The difference between death and birth is only a thought-moment: the last thought-moment in this life conditions the first thought-moment in the so-called next life, which, in fact, is the continuity of the same series.

ignorant people get stuck in words like an elephant in the

The Buddha says: ‘O bhikkhus, this cycle of continuity (saṃsāra) is without a visible end, and the first beginning of beings wandering and running round, enveloped in ignorance (avijjā) and bound down by the fetters of thirst (desire, taṇhā) is not to be perceived.

The term ‘justice’ is ambiguous and dangerous, and in its name more harm than good is done to humanity.

Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world. This is the greatest force, the greatest energy in the world.

It is a series that continues unbroken, but changes every moment. The series is, really speaking, nothing but movement.

A child grows up to be a man of sixty. Certainly the man of sixty is not the same as the child of sixty years ago, nor is he another person.