What the Buddha Taught
According to his ‘noble discipline’ the six directions were: east: parents; south: teachers; west: wife and children; north: friends, relatives and neighbours; nadir: servants, workers and employees; zenith: religious men.
Walpola Rahula • What the Buddha Taught
The idea of moral justice, or reward and punishment, arises out of the conception of a supreme being, a God, who sits in judgment, who is a law-giver and who decides what is right and wrong. The term ‘justice’ is ambiguous and dangerous, and in its name more harm than good is done to humanity.
Walpola Rahula • What the Buddha Taught
see in order that the destruction (getting rid) of cares and troubles should be possible? (These are) wise reflection and unwise reflection. For a person who reflects unwisely there arise cares and troubles which have not yet arisen, and (in addition), those which have already arisen increase. But for him who reflects wisely, cares and troubles whi
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The Buddha once spent a night in a potter’s shed. In the same shed there was a young recluse who had arrived there earlier.1 They did not know each other. The Buddha observed the recluse, and thought to himself: ‘Pleasant are the ways of this young man. It would be good if I should ask about him’. So the Buddha asked him: ‘O bhikkhu,2 in whose name
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The Buddha says: ‘Never by hatred is hatred appeased, but it is appeased by kindness. This is an eternal truth.’1
Walpola Rahula • What the Buddha Taught
The Second Noble Truth is the Origin of Dukkha, which is desire, ‘thirst’, accompanied by all other passions, defilements and impurities. A mere understanding of this fact is not sufficient. Here our function is to discard it, to eliminate, to destroy and eradicate it (pahātabba).
Walpola Rahula • What the Buddha Taught
It is always a question of knowing and seeing, and not that of believing. The teaching of the Buddha is qualified as ehi-passika, inviting you to ‘come and see’, but not to come and believe.
Walpola Rahula • What the Buddha Taught
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.
Walpola Rahula • What the Buddha Taught
The Buddha says: ‘O bhikkhus, this cycle of continuity (saṃsāra) is without a visible end, and the first beginning of beings wandering and running round, enveloped in ignorance (avijjā) and bound down by the fetters of thirst (desire, taṇhā) is not to be perceived.