“Gain/loss, status/disgrace, censure/praise, pleasure/pain: these conditions among human beings are inconstant, impermanent, subject to change.
Knowing this, the wise person, mindful, ponders these changing conditions. Desirable things don’t charm the mind, undesirable ones bring no resistance.
His welcoming and rebelling are scattered, gone to their end, do not exist.
Knowing the dustless, sorrowless state, he discerns rightly, has gone, beyond becoming, to the Further Shore.”
—Excerpt from the Lokavipatti Sutta
“All conditioned things are impermanent — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.
All conditioned things are unsatisfactory — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.
All things are not-self — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.”
— Dhp XX PTS 277-279 Translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita
“Alert to the needs of the journey, those on the path of awareness, like swans, glide on, leaving behind their former resting places.”
— Dammapada v. 91. Translated by Ajahn Munindo.
“And when he knows that these five hindrances (desire, hatred, dullness, restlessness and doubt) have left him, gladness springs up in him on realizing that; joy rises in him thus gladdened, and so rejoicing all his frame becomes at ease; being thus at ease he is filled with a sense of peace, and in that peace his heart is stayed.”
— Digha Nikaya 2.75 according to Ajahn Amaro in Roots and Currents, pg. 81
“…Just as the ocean has a gradual shelf, a gradual slope, a gradual inclination, with a sudden drop-off only after a long stretch; in the same way this Dhamma & Vinaya has a gradual training, a gradual performance, a gradual practice, with a penetration to gnosis only after a long stretch…” — from the Uposatha Sutta: A Gradual Training
“… May all beings be at ease. Whatever living beings there may be, whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, the great or the mighty, medium, short or small, the seen and the unseen, those living near and far away, those born and to be born — may all beings be at ease.
Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings; radiating kindness over the entire world: spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection. This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense-desires, is not born again into this world.
From the Khuddaka Nikaya, Sutta Nipata 9
“Like an elephant in battle endures an arrow shot from bow
so will I endure abuse, for many people are unvirtuous…”
From the Chapter about the Elephant, Minor Collection, translated by Bhikkhu Anandajoti
“So you should train like this: ‘We will be grateful and thankful. We won’t forget even a small thing done for us.’ That’s how you should train.”
— A Jackal (2nd), Linked Discourses (20). Translated by Ajahn Sujato
“… admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life.” — from the Upaddha Sutta: Half (of the Holy Life)
“It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them. — from the Kalama sutta
“O monks, the well-instructed noble disciple, seeing thus, gets wearied of form, gets wearied of feeling, gets wearied of perception, gets wearied of mental formations, gets wearied of consciousness. Being wearied he becomes passion-free. In his freedom from passion he is emancipated. Being emancipated there is the knowledge that he is emancipated. He knows: birth is exhausted, lived is the holy life, what had to be done is done, there is nothing more of this becoming.” — From Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic
“Of all the paths the Eightfold Path is the best; of all the truths the Four Noble Truths are the best; of all things, passionlessness is the best; of men, the Seeing One (the Buddha) is the best.
This is the only path; there is none other for the purification of insight. Tread this path, and you will bewilder Mara.
Walking upon this path you will make an end of suffering…”
— Maggavagga: The Path, DHP 273-275. Translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita
“These three ways lead to radiant abiding:
Asserting the truth,
Not yielding to anger
And giving, even if you have only a little to share.”
— Dhammapada, v. 224
Buddhangkura Buddhist Temple 