Compiled by Evelyn Ruut

Evelyn Ruut was one of the great curators of talk.religion.buddhism. Each year, she gathered the best of what the newsgroup had produced — wit, Dharma, heresy, and clarity in equal measure — and posted it as a New Year's offering to the community. This collection, posted on January 4, 2006, gathers her harvest from 2002.

The contributors range across the newsgroup's intellectual community: Tang Huyen, Pema, Phongvu, Chanyom Mike Barber, Joy Vriens, and a cast of regulars who made talk.religion.buddhism one of the most philosophically alive spaces on the early internet. Their voices mix freely with classical voices — Thich Nhat Hanh, Krishnamurti, Milarepa, Shantideva, Vimalakirti, Ajahn Chah, Longchenpa, and Rumi — in a document that makes no distinction between the ancient teacher and the anonymous poster. Both can carry the Dharma.

What Evelyn chose to preserve tells us what this community cared about in 2002: the nature of self, the problem of suffering, the inadequacy of doctrine, and the strange joy that comes from seeing through everything.

Practice detachment, not withdrawal. With emotions like anger, be on the "bridge" over the river, watching the torrents below, not getting carried along in the rapids.

-- Jeff Deeney

Give up recollection! What limit is there to the pure wind circling the Earth?" - From The Blue Cliff Record by Thomas Cleary

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. --Carl Jung

"What I have instead [of a self] is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself- a troupe of players that I have internalized, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required, an ever evolving stock of pieces and parts that forms my repertoire... I am theater and nothing more than a theater." Nathan Zuckerman in the "Counterlife" written by Philip Roth.

So long as there is the desire to achieve a result, which is the desire to be psychologically secure, there must be a contradiction; and where there is contradiction, there cannot be a quiet mind. --J. Krishnamurti, 1954

Using Creationism as support for your theories will get you nowhere here. People like to think that God gives the so-called good people (whom they include themselves) these privileges as gifts. It serves to justify their greed and misdeeds. Same thing about animals and nature. God gave it to us to use. God gave us cows so we may raise them and slaughter them. God gave us chickens to raise in cramped cages so we can enjoy all-you-can-eat at Denny's. God gave us oil so we can drive our cars and pollute the air. God gave us uranium and plutonium so we can build kick-ass missles. God gave us Muslim and Commies so we could have people to fear. God gave us America so we could kill Indians and do what we want. God gave us sweatshops so we can enjoy Nike running shoes...Your Creationist/Manifest-Destiny theory is glib, ignorant, and morally bankrupt. -- Chanyom Mike Barber

This is very much the way I explain it to my children. The eye sees truth, but before that truth gets to your brain, your karma warps it somewhat. The direction of that warping has much to do with your habits. If one is in the habit of expelling hate, then your karma will modify truth by warping a little more to that spectrum, and vice-versa. Both can be dangerous, one more so than the other.

Hence, one who exhibits hate and greed, will tend to sense hate and greed in everything around them. One who exhibits love and generosity, will tend to sense love and generosity in everything around them. One who follows the middle-way, will tend to sense the truth unfettered. --Daniel T.

If you see one rat, there are probably 50 you didn't see.

If they'll do it with you, they'll do it TO you.

A person who has nothing to hide, hides nothing. - "Dr. Phil" McGraw

The Mind Monarch

People who seek the way, observe your own mind yourself. When you know the Buddha is within, and do not seek outside, then mind itself is Buddha, and Buddha is the mind. When the mind is clear, you perceive Buddha and understand the perceiving mind. Apart from mind is not Buddha; apart from Buddha is not mind. If not for Buddha, nothing is fathomed; there is no competence at all.

If you cling to emptiness and linger in quiescence, you will bob and sink herein: the buddhas and bodhisattvas do not rest their minds this way. Great people who clarify the mind understand this mystic message; body and mind naturally sublimated, their action is unchanging. Therefore the wise release the mind to be independent and free.

Do not say the mind monarch is empty in having no essential nature; it can cause the physical body to do wrong or do right. Neither being nor nonbeing, it is concealed and revealed without fixation. Although the essence of mind is empty, it can be ordinary and can be saintly: therefore I urge you to guard it yourself carefully - a moment of contrivance, and you go back to bobbing and sinking. - Fu Shan-hui

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. --T. S. Eliot

When you have only two dollars left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a rose with the other. - Chinese Proverb

"And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere." --Dar Williams, "The Christians and the Pagans"

People come in all shapes and sizes and colors. Some people are tall and some are short. Some are fat and some are thin. Some have dark skin and some have light skin. Some are in wheelchairs, and some use crutches, and others don't. But, no matter what people look like on the outside, they're still all human beings on the inside, and nice, decent human beings deserve our respect and good manners - no matter what they look like.

-- Myra

"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain it. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." --Abraham Lincoln (provided by Mr. Perry)

We all have the tendency to struggle in our bodies and in our minds. We believe that happiness is possible only in the future. The realization that we have already arrived, that we don't have to travel any further, that we are already here, can give us peace and joy. The conditions for our happiness are already sufficient. We only need to allow ourselves to be in the present moment, and we will be able to touch them. What are we looking for to be happy? Everything is already here. We do not need to put an object in front of us to run after, believing that until we get it, we cannot be happy. That object is always in the future, and we can never catch up to it. We are already in the Pure Land, the Kingdom of God. We are already a Buddha. We only need to wake up and realize we are already here."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, "Cultivating the Mind of Love: the Practice of Looking Deeply in the Mahayana Buddhist Tradition"

.leather...clear cutting forests, bread production, killing thousand of sentient beings in one fell swoop of unforgiving karma via one John Deere at full power. Life and death are intertwined, such as time and space are. There is no inherent duality of life or death, the one constant is suffering, regardless of life or death.more correctly, birth and death. The goal is to end suffering. The debate will be endless. There are no right or wrong answers. It is different as everyone's experience must be different. You bring up that really old question, it has never been answered to my satisfaction either. I guess I have gotten to the point where self forgiveness is much easier, regardless of what it is, if you do the very best you can, it's all you can do. The rest will drive you crazy if we try to "get it all correct" now. Very much enjoyed your post, thx for reading through mostly ramblings... -- Pema

"Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into Nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effect, the which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle." -- The Goetia of the Lemegeton of King Solomon.

The person who tells a lie, who transgresses in this one thing, transcending concern for the world beyond: there's no evil he might not do. -Dhammapada

"In the experience of yogins who do not perceive things dualistically, the fact that things manifest without truly existing is so amazing, they burst out in laughter" --Longchenpa. (from The Choying Dzod)

"The compulsive need to be right and make others wrong is a form of emotional violence." Eckhart Tolle

If there is a remedy when trouble strikes, What reason is there for despondency? And if there is no help for it, What use is there in being sad? -- Shantideva

What good is meditating on patience If you will not tolerate insult? What use are sacrifices If you do not overcome attachment and revulsion? What good is giving alms If you do not root out selfishness? What good is governing a great monastery If you do not regard all beings as your beloved parents?

--- From : The Life of Milarepa trans. by Lobsang Lhalunga

"Although the Tantrists say that one removes the water in one's ear with more water. But Tantrists are very much "Doers". One drowns in so much doing that the effect is the same, one looses touch with one's will. But it's far too artificial and imperialist for my taste." Joy Vriens posting as Ulrich Topf

When one experiences shunyata or emptiness during meditation there is an experience of Clear Light & bliss. This is the base of consciousness. Our minds are only clear light & bliss. Thoughts arising tend to obscure our perception of this nature of our minds. But thoughts are actually an intrinsic aspect of our minds & have the same clear light nature as non-conceptual mind. When we realise this, as thoughts arise, they are self-liberated without any effort on our part. We simply continue in the meditation on their intrinsic nature with disturbance. Awareness of the Clear Light then becomes continuous no matter what we are doing. All phenomena arise as self-liberated & are no longer differentiated as desirable or undesirable.

This Clear Light is not a creator of phenomena. It is the experience of the ultimate nature of phenomena. It is the base from which all phenomena from beginninglessness have arisen. It is undifferentiated by time & space. It is the Unborn, the Uncreated, beyond causes & conditions. buddhism.html

From Bob Gould - Kagyu

I don't see it that way, the buddha did not stab himself. He is like a great chess player who has to play against an invincible player (conditioned life). Fortunately he can see many moves ahead and realizes that no matter how he moves his chess pieces he will be check mated at the end (suffering and death). It is better for him to give up the game early because it is pointless to continue. --- Phongvu

You indeed, have a strange way of looking at simple thing. When one is born, one is already struck by an invisible poison arrow called death, and this arrow is not imaginary, it is real. It is just a matter of time, it may take 60, 70 or 80 years for the poison to become deadly but the poison is already there for sure. When the Buddha left home and devoted himself to spiritual practices, he was only tending to his wound and to find the cure for the deadly poison. -- Phongvu

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. - H. L. Mencken

Life lasts at the most about a hundred years. This is very short compared with geological periods. If we spend this short time doing harm our life will have been pointless. Everyone has the right to happiness but nobody has the right to destroy the happiness of others. In no event can the goal of human existence entail making anyone suffer.

-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from 365 Dalai Lama: Daily Advice from the Heart

Since I have no scruples, I also have no shame. Yes, I know I appear to have scruples but this is the beauty of morality -break morality down and what do really have? Self-absorption dressed in the sheepskin of concern. Tibetans know this, and they incorporate it into their practice generating compassion for others by envisioning them as mere aspects of themselves (ie. their mothers). This is a clear acknowledgement that morality and compassion are merely compositions - means by which the self promotes and asserts itself. There is nothing wrong with this, however - even sympathy for the devil is sympathy. It is better to love oneself and affect humility than to hate oneself and be sincere. -- Dr. Warren Krugar

Buddha wasn't anyones guru. He said, work out your own salvation. He didn't say do as I do or else. He said investigate what I have said. If you find truth in it, good. If not, no biggy. --- Dr. Ben Lau

Sir Richard Francis Burton said, "the more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself." What is the Buddha but an idealized version of the self? Dr. Warren Krugar

Being free isn't about practicing buddyism, and practicing buddyism won't get you free, merely make you a buddyist...people who follow buddy don't get free...that's why there are so damned many buddyists in the world and so few free folks...giggl. h.

---The Late Hal Hesse, of Old Freedom Monastery

Chandrakirti spoke of a mere-I that is existant. It's another I of some kind that is empty. If Karma is empty, we shouldn't be so bound by it. If you can meditate on your karma and realize it's empty, would this eliminate its illusory bonds? --- Bill Cunningham

There is no need to guard the mind against anger, only to attend to it mindfully. There is no attempt to gain control over it and dissolve it either. The emotions are not demons that needs to be transformed but mental processes that need to be understood in order to gain insight into the ind. -- Warren Krugar

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. -Plato

I'm the raft, and that river is the flow of my own life. .. -- NakedApe;)

"To be a propagandist is to be a liar. (Laughter.) Don't laugh, Sirs. Because, propaganda is merely repetition, and repetition of a truth is a lie. When you repeat what you consider to be the truth, then it ceases to be the truth. Say, for instance, you repeat the truth concerning man's relationship to property, the truth which you have not discovered for yourself; what value has it? Repetition has no value; it merely dulls the mind, and you can only repeat a lie. You cannot repeat truth, because truth is never constant. Truth is a state of experiencing, and what you can repeat is a static state; therefore it is not the truth." -- Krishnamurti

I recall mentioning some time ago that the Zen master I knew had such a wonderful positive view of life. He lived in a world that was populated by buddhas. He truly saw the buddha nature in everyone and spoke to all with such kindness and such respect. The Navajo people also have a philosophy similar to that, where one "walks in beauty" seeing the good everywhere in everyone, not the bad. I realized that there is a great deal of wisdom in that view, and it is ultimately so much kinder to oneself and others to speak to the buddha within, with the buddha within. It makes a difference whether you choose to see buddhas all around you or a bunch of "idiots" who "don't get it." Evelyn Ruut

"Samatha and vipassana are not different techniques. Rather, they are different consequences of the same set of techniques. If a certain kind of meditation is done and one experiences peace, then it is ipso facto a samatha practice. But if one gains insight into the nature of dharmas as impermanent, unsatisfactory and impersonal, then that insight is called vipassana, and whatever one does to gain that insight can be considered vipassana meditation." Richard Hayes - "Mubul"

This is a typical example of the Buddha explaining something casually and of some people jumping on it, taking out a patent on it and building very accurate machines with unfailable tracking systems with it.

Everybody, all right then, most of us here think they got somehow hold of the core teachings of Lord Buddha. Others may have got hold of the ears, the tail, a whisker, but we got hold of the heart!

But then you are taking it too literally, in my opinion. You are not using it as a remedy but as some sort of absolute truth. I think we have been misled by monotheistic religions who have this absolutist take on the world and we tend to use their approach when we approach other religions or rather more philosophical ways of life. I don't see Buddhism (a simple raft) and even less Stoicism as wanting to dictate our world-view. They teach a method, which you can use or not use and if you don't want to use it that's fine.

--Ulrich Topf

"What I have instead [of a self] is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself- a troupe of players that I have internalized, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required, an ever evolving stock of pieces and parts that forms my repertoire... I am theater and nothing more than a theater." Nathan Zuckerman in the "Counterlife" written by Philip Roth. - Provided by Naked Ape.

"A Buddhist is not a slave to a book or to any person. Nor does he sacrifice his freedom of thought by becoming a follower of the Buddha. He can exercise his own free will and develop his knowledge even to the extent of attaining buddhahood himself, for all are potential Buddhas." -- Ven. Narada Maha Thera "What is Buddhism"

"The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings." -- Buddha

The voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

-- Marcel Proust

"Whenever you are able, have a "look" inside yourself to see whether you are unconsciously creating conflict between the inner and outer, between your external circumstances at that moment---where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing---and your thoughts and feelings. Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in opposition to what is?" Eckhart Tolle

Nothing different is seen; things are seen differently. That is all. -- voidtech

Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. --Mahatma Gandhi

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. --Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I am still an agnostic, with pantheistic overtones. The sight of plants and children growing inclines me to define divinity as creative power, and to reverence this in all its manifestations ."

--- Will Durant from "A dual autobiography"

I always ask the teacher if his shit stinks. If it does not stink I look for another teacher.

---- Stavros.

"If you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you." -- Benjamin Franklin

"There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"When in despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible,

but in the end they always fall." - Mahatma Gandhi

"If the wine drinker has a deep gentleness in him, he will show that, when drunk. But if he has hidden anger and arrogance, those appear, and since most people do, wine is forbidden to everyone." ---Jelaluddin Rumi (provided by Naked Ape)

Men are afraid to forget their own minds, fearing to fall through the void with nothing to which they can cling. They do not know that the void is not really the void but the real realm of the Dharma.

--Hin Yun, 9th century Zen master

Something else also is going on, more elaborate than just 'fears.' A dominant function of ego is threat assessment and problem solving. The beauty of working on the illusion of self is that the ego isn't needed to protect the self any more, and threat assessment stops being a dominant force in one's life. As such, one is free to be fully compassionate. We don't have to stop worrying about ourselves before we can care about other people, but the deeper, more satisfying capacity for compassion is impaired by all the ego chatter.

-- Lee Rodgers (Leebert)

Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own and says, "My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body." Learn the source of sorrow, joy, love, hate. If you carefully investigate these matters you will find him in yourself. --Monoimus, a Gnostic teacher. .. (provided by naked ape)

When will we stop killing people who kill people in order to teach them that killing people is wrong? --By somebody

Buddhism is about moving through the world skillfully in peace with yourself and others, not about making a public spectacle, telling others how they should believe or what they should do. You can hopefully manage to live your life according to your conscience without being too much of a preacher....... Evelyn Ruut

"When angry we condemn others, and that very condemnation is a justification of ourselves. Most of us do not mind being angry, we find an excuse for it. The self wants reinforcement. Why should we not be when there is mistreatment of others or ourselves? So we become righteously angry. We never say just angry and stop there. We justify with elaborate explanations of its cause." - J. Krishnamurti.

"Anger is like holding a hot coal in your hand with the intention of flinging it at another." -- Shakyamuni Buddha

Ramana himself said that silence was the most powerful teaching; but if you couldn't get that, he'd be willing to talk. (Robert Epstein)

When Ramana was silent, it is said that he was attempting to transmit his level of awareness, as such, to any receptive devotees that were present. The same was said of Nisargadatta Maharaj. People that were just in his presence became more aware.

--(poster, bodhisattva)

Who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking." ---Jeluladdin Rumi

"Like the Lotus which cannot grow not on high ground but only in low marshy land, those who have entered nirvana by cutting off all klesa (defilement) will not develop into Buddhahood; whereas sentient beings in the mire of klesa eventually will. Like paddy seeds that cannot grow in space but only in manured fields; those who have cut off all klesa cannot progress into the Buddha Dharma whereas beings whose klesa are endless may one day do so. Thus all kinds of klesa are the seeds of the Tathagata. This is like a man who cannot obtain precious pearls if he does not dive into the sea. Likewise, a man who does not dive into the sea of klesa will never find the pearl of savajna."

-- Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutta.

"Learn to wish that everything should come to pass exactly as it does." Epictetus

"Free your ass and your mind will follow" - Bootsie Collins

"The Dhamma of the Buddha is not found in books. If you want to really see for yourself what the Buddha was talking about, you don't need to bother with books. Watch your own mind. Examine to see how feelings come and go, how thoughts come and go. Don't be attached to anything. Just be mindful of whatever there is to see. This is the way to the truths of the Buddha. Be natural. Everything you do in your life is a chance to practice. It is all Dhamma. When you do your chores, try to be mindful. If you are emptying a spittoon or cleaning a toilet, don't feel you are doing it as a favor to anyone else. There is dharma in emptying spittoons. - Ajahn Chah

"Meditation is the way of total transformation of man's mania. Man is caught in principles and ideologies which prevent him from putting an end to the conflict between himself and another. The ideology of nationality and religion and the obstinacy of his own vanity is destroying man. This destructive process goes on throughout the world. Man has tried to end it through tolerance, conciliation, through the exchange of words, and the face-saving devices but he remains entrenched in his own conditioning."

-- J. Krishnamurti

Nirvana is just another aspect of the same daily world as we deludeds perceive, only it's without the interpretation and a concept is already an interpretation. Nothing else has changed. - Tang Huyen

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

--Bertrand Russell

"The third sense of happiness is our companions. It is obvious that when you are mentally calm you are honest and open-minded. Even if there is a big difference of opinion you can communicate on a human level. You can put aside these different opinions and communicate as human beings. I think that is one way to create positive feelings in other people's minds. -- HHDL"

Colophon

Originally posted by Evelyn Ruut to talk.religion.buddhism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.zen, alt.philosophy.zen, and alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan on January 4, 2006, as her annual retrospective of the newsgroup's best contributions from 2002. Ruut was one of talk.religion.buddhism's most dedicated members, known for her compilations of wisdom from the group's many traditions. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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