X-Git-Url: https://feistymeow.org/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=database%2Ffortunes.dat;h=b8fc73ed3f3d49eeafe86a801146bf95c8286a09;hb=935d2dc0b6171094dd950de43bffc56f04a79ed3;hp=315d2b9175707484bec5e10208f72dfe1d27373c;hpb=6027706dda64d8c7179306263358702354efddc7;p=feisty_meow.git

diff --git a/database/fortunes.dat b/database/fortunes.dat
index 315d2b91..b8fc73ed 100644
--- a/database/fortunes.dat
+++ b/database/fortunes.dat
@@ -37964,3 +37964,109 @@ if we lack various external facilities that are normally considered necessary
 for a happy and joyful life, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful
 life.
   -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+COMPLICATED SIMPLICITY
+
+  Emptiness is the simplest and most unelaborated thing we could imagine, but
+then there is this whole literature about all these very discursive details
+with all their subpoints.  There are five paths and ten bhumis, and each path
+is divided into a number of stages, with certain numbers of obscurations
+having to be relinquished on each one of those subpaths.  Most people just
+think, "Who wants or needs to know all that?  Don’t we have too many
+thoughts already?  I thought this was about letting go of all reference
+points."
+  Of course nobody really wants to know all those details and in a sense we
+all know them already, because they are the details of the many reference
+points that we already have in our mind.  The fact that these sutras and their
+commentaries talk about our obscurations is precisely the point why they seem
+so endless and complicated—because our minds are complicated.  Emptiness is
+extremely simple, but our convoluted minds that do not get this simplicity are
+very complicated.  It is not that the Buddha and the other speakers in the
+sutras and the commentaries really like to, but they need to address each one
+of those knots in our minds, which are like knots in space.
+~
+If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have
+to be a horrible warning.
+  -- Catherine Aird
+~
+THE MIND OF CLEAR LIGHT
+
+  Is spiritual practice really worthwhile?  Is it really possible to eliminate
+from within ourselves the forces that give rise to suffering?  As is said,
+“The ultimate nature of mind is clear light.” Consciousness has many
+levels, and although the coarser levels are affected by the defiling forces,
+the most subtle level remains free of gross negativities.  In the Vajrayana
+this subtle level of consciousness is called the mind of clear light.
+  The delusions and emotional afflictions as well as the dualistic mind of
+right and wrong, love and hatred, etc., are associated only with the coarse
+levels of consciousness.  At the moment, we are totally absorbed in the
+interplay of these coarse states, so we must begin our practice by working
+within them.  This means consciously encouraging love over hate, patience in
+place of anger, emotional freedom rather than attachment, kindness over
+violence, and so forth.  Doing this brings immediate peace and calm to the
+mind, thus making higher meditation possible.
+  Then, because grasping at a self and at phenomena as being truly existent is
+the cause of all the vast range of distorted states of mind, one cultivates
+the wisdom that eliminates this ego-grasping.  To overcome ego-grasping is to
+overcome the entire host of mental distortions.
+  -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+It is the general Buddhist procedure that one’s own pleasure and pain are
+acheived by oneself and not from the outside, and that, therefore, sentient
+beings themselves must understand and implement practices to bring about their
+own happiness.  Thus, the most efficacious way to help others is through
+teaching what should be adopted in practice and what should be discarded from
+among current behavior.  There is no way to do this unless you come to know
+all of the topics involved in what should be adopted in practice and what
+should be discarded—you must become omniscient.  As mentioned earlier, there
+is no way to accomplish this except by removing the obstructions to
+omniscience, and one who has overcome, utterly and forever, the obstructions
+to omniscience is a Buddha.
+  -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+  In meditation, imagine that in front of you are three persons—an enemy, a
+friend, and a neutral person.  At that time, in our minds we have (1) a sense
+of closeness for one of them, thinking, “This is my friend”; (2) a sense
+of dislike even when imagining the enemy; and (3) a sense of ignoring the
+neutral person.  Now, we have to think about the reasons why we generate these
+feelings—the reasons being that temporarily one of them helped us whereas
+the other temporarily harmed us, and the third did neither.  However, when we
+think in terms of the long course of beginningless rebirth, none of us could
+decide that someone who has helped or harmed us in this life has been doing so
+for all lifetimes.
+  When you contemplate this way, eventually you arrive at a point where a
+strong generation of desire or hatred appears to you to be just senseless.
+Gradually, such a bias weakens, and you decide that one-sided classification
+of persons as friends and enemies has been a mistake.
+  -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+  Generally speaking, even if money brings us happiness, it tends to be the
+kind that money can buy: material things and sensory experiences.  And these,
+we discover, become a source of suffering themselves.  As far as actual
+possessions are concerned, we must admit that they often cause us more, not
+less, difficulty in life.  The car breaks down, we lose our money, our most
+precious belongings are stolen, our house is damaged by fire.  Or we worry
+about these things happening.
+  The problem is not materialism as such.  Rather it is the underlying
+assumption that full satisfaction can arise from gratifying the senses alone.
+Unlike animals whose quest for happiness is restricted to survival and to the
+immediate gratification of sensory desires, we human beings have the capacity
+to experience happiness at a deeper level, which, when achieved, can overwhelm
+unhappy experiences.
+  -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+~
+We humans are social beings.  We come into the world as the result of
+others' actions.  We survive here in dependence on others.  Whether we like
+it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives in which we do not benefit
+from others' activities.  For this reason it is hardly surprising that most
+of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.  Nor
+is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by
+concern for others.  But that is not all.  We find that not only do altruistic
+actions bring about happiness, but they also lessen our experience of
+suffering.  Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are
+motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less
+misfortune than the one who does not.  Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort
+or another are the same for us all.  But the sufferings which undermine our
+internal peace—anxiety, doubt, disappointment—these are definitely less.
+  -- H.H. the Dalai Lama
+