Friday, November 24, 2006

Some Buddha's words

http://www.souledout.org/wesak/storybuddha.html
Mugging "History and Theory of Southeast Asian Architecture", reviewing the influence of Buddhism (Hinduism, Islam etc...) on SEAsian Architecture, and coming across this interesting link about life and death of the very first Buddha - Sakyamuni (Thich Ca). This is quite a nice write-up about him. But it confuses me.
In the middle part, some of his words were written as:
"Charity, knowledge and virtue are possessions that cannot be lost. To do a little good is worth more than accomplishing works of a difficult nature. The perfect man is nothing unless he pours out kindness on his fellow creatures, unless he consoles the abandoned. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy. The way of salvation is open to all. Destroy your passions as the elephant would trample down a reed hut. But I would have you know that it is a mistaken idea to believe that one can escape from one's passions by taking shelter in hermitages. The only remedy against evil is healthy reality."
I know that Buddhism conceives desires as the ultimate cause of all pains. And passion is somehow just indifferent from desires. Then for those who wanna learn much from Buddhism but don't really wanna take it seriously at present, how do they apply this specific advice? Gradually destroy all of their passions? How about those saying "life is passion" all the time?
Moment of confusion again with Buddhism @@. Hmm...


[Zen painting............................... "The Book of Tea" - Okakura Kakuzo]



1 comment:

mocphale said...

Always hope that I can find the answer myself at the end of this journey. Desire and passion @@..