Karma

"The crucial factor influencing how well we can respond in any given situation seems to be the level of mindfulness we can bring to bear upon the moment. If we don't care to be present, unconscious decision-making systems will function to get us through to the next moment, albeit in the grips of (often flawed) learned behaviors and conditioned responses. If, on the other hand, we can increase the amount of conscious awareness present by manifesting mindfulness, we expand the range of our possible responses. Even if disposed to anger, we can choose to act with kindness. This is the essence of our freedom in an otherwise heavily conditioned system."

-Andrew Olendzki - "Karma in Action" Tricycle Magazine Winter 2008

Desire traps

...Know it in line with its truth. Don't resist it. Don't set up any desires, because the setting up of desire is a deficiency, a hunger. And hunger, no matter when or what the sort, is pain: Hunger for sleep is pain, hunger for food is pain, hunger for water is pain. When was it ever a good thing?

- Ajahn Maha Boowa

Less proliferation to make room

Some people have an idea that peace and happiness are synonymous with doing nothing, having no duties or responsibilities, being looked after by others. That's rather a result of laziness. To gain peace and happiness one has to make unrelenting effort in one's own heart. One can't achieve it through proliferation, by trying to get more, only by wanting less. Becoming emptier and emptier, until there is just open space to be filled with peace and happiness. As long as our hearts are full of likes and dislikes, how can peace and happiness find any room?

- Ayya Khema

Present

They do not lament over the past,
they yearn not for what is to come,
they maintain themselves in the present,
thus their complexion is serene.

Samyutta Nikaya 1.10

Helping others

If a man going down into a river,
swollen and swiftly flowing,
is carried away by the current -
how can he help others across?

Sutta Nipata

Inside-out

There is no opening in us through which peace can
enter. We have to start within and work outward. Unless that becomes clear to us, we will always find another crusade.

- Ayya Khema

Separate kamma

"Do not torture yourself for the wrongdoings of others."

Accidental Dharma


I guarantee you can use this to counter the actions of a rude person you come in contact with. It should take no more than 24 hours. It's so cool to feel the freedom that you are able to accept bad things vs. the habitual leap to righteous indignation that only hurts yourself. I've used it twice today :)
-xinu