Randomised Collection of Wise Quotes #2

Hello Everyone!

I haven't posted anything during November as I have been doing end of year examinations. With exams out of the way now I will have much more time to train and write blogs over the next two months before I embark on my last year of secondary school in February 2015.

In this blog I shall be continuing my 'Randomised Collection of Wise Quotes' series of blog posts, quoting sages and writing my interpretative understanding below each quote.

* "The source of human suffering is that everyone chooses one side and refuses to see the other side..."  -Liou Kia-Hway
This quote especially applies to wars in my opinion. War is most often based on a lack of understanding, and thus people become scared. When people are scared of the unknown they ether flee or lash out, often starting wars. This seems to be typical human nature.

* "Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself. Who will save you?. Burst out of own cocoon and come out as a beautiful butterfly, as the free soul."  -Swami Vivekananda
I really relate to this one. When many people are born, they are often probably more spiritual then they ever will be in their lives. This is because they haven't yet been forced to conform to society. When I started primary school, I was forced to not be myself. To not be authentic. If I was myself then I would be bullied pretty badly. I had formed that cocoon around myself. Some years later when my parents realised that attending mainstream school was doing me more bad then good, they took me out of school to do home education. It took me years to recover, to find myself and break out of that cocoon that formed during those years of hardship.

* "What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life tomorrow. Our life is the creation of our mind."  -Shakyamuni                                                    
I believe it was Buddha who said "with our thoughts, we make the world". Basically what I get from this is that we decide our own personal futures.

* "Becoming conscious of what we really are, that is what we call enlightenment".  -Zen Saying
A more detailed description of this topic was stated by Taisen Deshimaru: "If we understand our doubts, our sufferings, our life, with every cell in our bodies, this is enlightenment."

* "The key to cosmic awareness, to a consciousness of God, is in the understanding of the soul."  
-Rabindranath Tagore                                                                                                      
Understand yourself in order to understand the world.

* "Be not Canadian, American, German, Chinese, South African, British, Russian, Iranian, Mexican, etc. Instead be a citizen of the Earth!!!"  -Unknown
What ever silly label society gives you, in reality we are all just human beings. What ever language we use, what ever cultural practices we live by, we all have the same basic emotions. We naturally recognise our similarities as infants. When we are old enough we are sent to school to become educated. We are often taught about the difference between countries and people's rather than the similarities. Eventually some of us may realise that these differences are not what is important. What is important is that we are all human beings with the same emotions as each other. That is why we should treat others in the same way that we ourselves wish to be treated.

* "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
-George Bernard Shaw
I see so much truth in this. I know a gentleman of 94 years of age, a veteran of the Second World War. He is very involved with the church and the local community. Only last year he was president of about 7 local clubs. By being active and helping people, he has given his heart a reason to beat.

* "Nature does not rush, yet everything is accomplished."  -Unknown
There is so much truth to this. I don't even know were to start. We may rush things such as projects in life, and this can often result negatively in the short or even long term. Things often tend to work out well in the end, especially if they are let to go at there own pace - naturally. To let go of the control of many things is probably to let go of the ego. To summarise my interpretation of this teaching, I shall say: "Just let go and things will sort themselves out."

* "Simplicity is the most difficult of all things."  - Swami Ajaya
Throughout our lives we have been trained to understand complexity and to further complicate things. I see that this is necessary; however, what is also necessary is that we always remember how to keep things simple. This is difficult because society dose not promote this. And thus an imbalance has been created. It is up to the individual to rediscover simplicity. Not too many people achieve this. It is after all, "the most difficult of all things". I think that to have successfully completed the circle of simplicity to complexity to simplicity again, is part of the journey of enlightenment.

* "Our everyday life is in the realm of good and bad, the realm of duality, while Buddha nature is found in the realm of the absolute, where there is no good and no bad."  -Shunryu Suzuki
Something that is good for me is not necessarily good for someone else. My good could be your bad and my bad could be your good. So how could there be a universal good and bad? I believe that Buddha saw this, and thus he no longer saw the world as ether being separated into the good and the bad, but saw himself, the world, the universe as a single entity. He saw it as the absolute, or as some may refer to it - the whole.

* "The cosmos is everything: the stones, the mountains, the trees, the flowers, the grasses, the stars . . . all that is nature and all that is not nature, the artificial and all products that are human, material and spiritual, and space and time."  -Dogen Zenji
Everything is one. Everything has always been one. Everything will always be one. I am not different to you. Therefore, it would be senseless not to show each other anything but respect.

* "All things that have flowered return to their root. This returning to the root has a name: Quite."
-Lao Tzu.
I so have to read the Tao Te Ching! I really like this quote. I kind of understand what Lao Tzu is expressing; however, I'm not sure how to put the meaning of this teaching into words. So here's a question I have for you guys. How do you interpret this wise teaching?

Thanks for reading!

Randomised Collection of Wise Quotes #1: http://freddiesmodernkungfu.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/randomised-collection-of-wise-quotes-1.html