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“Since my first meaningful contact with Buddhism, some eighteen years ago, I have been surprised, amazed, frustrated, and perplexed by this diversity – I will not try to measure the proportion of each.”
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“I remain convinced that to be sceptical is not to be irreligious, nor is it to lack faith. However, it does bring with it its own dangers, particularly the twin poisons of superiority and cynicism”
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“I remain convinced that royal patronage and material wealth are not necessarily markers of spiritual health.”
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“The idea of a previous golden age contrasted with the present corrupt one is common in religious traditions, no less in Buddhism, probably from the start.”
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“I suspect that corruption of one sort or another has been present in the Buddhist tradition from the time of the Buddha, be it the corruption of the mere nominal membership of the Saṅgha, or that of a more vicious character.”
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Si bien estoy de acuerdo en que el Darma es esencialmente ahistórico, ya que habla de verdades universales y aborda la situación humana universal, su historia nos revela los intentos de nuestros predecesores de implementar esas doctrinas y prácticas en la sociedad, y de lidiar con el mayor obstáculo para lograr ese objetivo, a saber, la naturaleza humana. Como budistas modernos ignoramos las lecciones de nuestra propia historia a nuestro riesgo. (Pág. 27)
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“upa-ni-ṣad means ‘to sit near”
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“Vedānta, the ‘end or culmination of the Veda’.”
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“The parivrājaka was a person who, dissatisfied with the restrictions of this developing society and with the ritualism of established religion, left their home and their role in society in order to wander at will in the world, supported by alms and seeking spiritual liberation.”
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“the Ājīvakas – determinists, who were preoccupied with exact analysis of the present, and who held that all beings will progress towards perfection regardless of their own efforts;”
“the Lokāyatas – materialists, rather hedonistic in outlook, as they denied causality and said that one should act just as one pleases;”
“the ‘sceptics’ – usually scorned as amarāvikkhepikas (‘eel-wrigglers’) in the Buddhist texts – who neither affirmed nor denied any particular doctrine or belief;”
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“The Āriyapariyesana Sutta6 gives us an account of the Buddha-to-be’s early career and Enlightenment, described in terms of the ‘Noble Quest’; similar ground is covered in the Bhayabherava, Dvedāvittaka, and the Mahāsaccaka Suttas.7 The Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta8 gives an account of the last months of the Enlightened One’s life.”
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“vayadhammā saṁkhārā, appamādena sampādetha, ‘All compounded things are liable to decay; strive with mindfulness.”
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“yathā-bhūta-jñāna-darśana, ‘knowing and seeing things as they really are”
Nota: por eso es importante lo que dice Khyentse, o en otros textos he leído sobre la “cualidad” de la mente: cognitiva y consciente, es decir, que “conoce” y que “percibe”.
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Cómo conoció y vio el mundo el Buda luego de la iluminación?
“three lakṣaṇas, three qualities or marks. These are anitya, duḥkha, and anātman, or, in English, the ‘transitory’ or ‘impermanent’, the ‘painful’ or ‘unsatisfactory’, and ‘that devoid of a self’ or ‘essence’.”
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“subjective states of mind are experienced as perceptible worlds which, though they may last for aeons, are bound to a dissolution upon the exhaustion of the mental impulses that created them.” (Pág. 73)
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“This famous teaching follows an ancient medical formula, in which one first states the nature of an illness, then the conditions which have given rise to its existence, next whether the condition can be cured, and finally the means for bringing about that cessation.”
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“the āryāṣṭāṅgikamārga, the Eightfold Path of the Āryas, or Noble Ones,”
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“The very existence of the leaf as an entity is inseparably tied up with its colour and its other attributes.”
“To abstract fixed entities from the continuous flux of changing events around us, and to say that change is something that happens to these ‘fixed entities’, is delusion.”
(Pág. 80)
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“He taught that things neither exist permanently, nor have absolutely no existence. Like the leaf, where a red leaf arises in dependence upon a green leaf, neither entirely different from its cause, nor wholly the same, so all other conditioned things arise in dependence upon other factors, neither entirely different nor wholly the same.” (Pág. 81)
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“The general principle he termed pratītya-samutpāda, the principle of ‘dependent origination’.”
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“The Buddha realized that what the Upaniṣads described as sat, existence, was anitya, impermanent; what was cit, mind, was really anātman, lacking selfhood; and what was thought to be ānanda, bliss, was really duḥkha, unsatisfactory.”
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“Thus we can see that the Eightfold Path falls into three divisions: śīla (ethics), samādhi (meditation), and prajñā (wisdom), a threefold division of the path that became almost ubiquitous.”
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“the five skandhas: rūpa, forms; vedanā, feelings; saṁjñā, determinate perceptions; sāṁskāra, volitions; and vijñāna, consciousnesses.”
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“This ‘object-ness’ has four primary forms: hardness, fluidity, heat, and vibration, denoted by the terms earth, water, fire, and air.” (Pág. 226)
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“It was a religion of wealthy monastic endowments, and was patronized by kings, especially foreign invaders who wished to find support against the brahmaṇical orthodoxy of Indian society, who regarded foreigners as among the lowest of the low in social and religious terms.” (Pág. 244)
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“the goal of full Buddhahood came to be seen as superior to that of arhatship, so the layperson as a potential Bodhisattva also gained in importance. In this respect the impact of the Jātaka stories, always one of the most popular teaching media, in which the historical Buddha-to-be appears as ordinary people or even as various animals, must have been significant.” (Pág. 246)
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