According to legend, Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, was a Hindu prince. In the sixth to fifth centuries BCE, he abandoned his position and wealth to pursue enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic. He eventually attained his goal and founded Buddhism in India by teaching others about his path.
Despite most of his life’s details being legends, Siddhartha is regarded as an actual historical figure and the younger contemporary of Mahavira (also known as Vardhamana), who founded the principles of Jainism not long before Siddhartha’s time.
● Those truly wise will remain unmoved by feelings of happiness and suffering, fame and disgrace, praise and blame, gain and loss. They will remain calm like the eye of a hurricane.
● In the same way, … scatter your Body, your feeling, your perception, your predispositions, and your discriminative consciousness, break them up, knock them down, cease to play with them, and apply yourself to the destruction of craving for them. Verily, … the extinction of craving is Nirvana.
● What is this world condition? The body is the world condition. And with Body and form goes feeling, perception, consciousness, and all the activities throughout the world. The arising of form and the ceasing of form-everything that has been heard, sensed and known, sought after and reached by the mind-all this is the embodied world, to be penetrated and realized.
● Live contemplating the Body through mindfulness. Live contemplating feelings. In this way, you will be aware of and control wrong desires.
● How does one stay mindful? Where feelings are known as they arise, known as they persist, known as they pass away. Thoughts are known as they arise, as they persist, known as they pass away. Perceptions are known as they arise, as they persist, and as they pass away. This is how a monk stays awake.
● In the same way, … scatter your Body, your feeling, your perception, your predispositions, and your discriminative consciousness, break them up, knock them down, cease to play with them, and apply yourself to the destruction of craving for them. Verily, … the extinction of craving is Nirvana.
● Our mind is full of anger, jealousy, and other negative feelings. Yet we do not realize that these are incompatible with inner peace and joy.
● Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we are interconnected systems of interdependence, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness. Investigating in this way, we realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any part of the lute.
● Don’t trust people whose feeling change with time—Trust people whose feelings remain the same, even when the time changes.
● A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again, but if he is peaceful, loving, and fearless, he is called wise.
● Silence the angry man with love. Silence the ill-natured man with kindness. Silence the miser with generosity. Silence the liar with truth.
● Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take action. Take action, and your feelings will change.
● We are what we think. All that we are arises from 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.
● In this world, hate has never yet been dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible
Conclusion
Buddhism says that honest emotions ultimately lead to bliss while nonvirtuous emotions lead to suffering. Early Buddhist ethics include all aspects of the spiritual journey, including words, deeds, and thoughts. The word “right” here refers to the best or most efficient ways to achieve liberty; it does not indicate “wrong” in contrast to it. Instead, it means “perfect” or “complete.” This does not imply, nevertheless, that the Buddha expects all of his followers to adhere to the highest standard of moral behavior.