Buddhist wisdom

Yesterday at one of the nursing homes, I was talking to a gentleman who was an artist and photographer by profession. He was pretty good at what he did, judging from the scrapbooks he has shown me, which included lots of pictures he took in Texas way back once upon a then. Turns out he minored in philosophy, and he talked about what he had learned from a philosophy of religion course in which he was exposed to major belief systems outside his own Christian (Methodist) upbringing. That conversation brought to memory some of the Buddhists sayings that I like, and I offer them here for your ponderation.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

It is one's own mind, not an enemy or foe, that lures one to evil ways.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

That first one reminds me of something one often hears in Twelve Step groups: Holding onto a resentment is like drinking poison and thinking the other person will die.

And the last quote about hatred and love sounds pretty Christian, don't you think?

And the next to last one seems straightforward until you realize that it is so easy for me to believe that there is a finite amount of happiness (freedom, equality, respect, joy, you name it) in the world and if someone else has some of it, then I must be losing some of mine. This unexamined hydraulics approach to life is behind many political and social debates.

I recall a Peanuts cartoon years ago, where Linus quotes the saying, "It is better to light one little candle than it is to curse the darkness." In the next panel, Lucy is standing outside shaking her fist at the darkened sky and shouting, "Curse you, darkness!" In the final panel, Linus resignedly says, "Of course, there will always be those who disagree."

One of the most moving moments in the Easter vigil liturgy is when the priest brings a lighted candle into the darkened church where all the people hold unlit candles, and he proclaims, "Christ, our light!" After this, candles are lit from that one candle and the light is passed from candle to candle until the entire church is lighted by the flames. The original candle burns as bright as ever, not diminished in any way.

The candle design on the side there, BTW, is one Tom did some years ago as part of a set of clip art images to be used by people working in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, the Catholic program for adults preparing for baptism and entry into the church at Easter. The photo shows a church as the smaller candles are being lit.