The Buddha

The sculptors of Gandhara made images of me in the Hellenistic style — because Alexander's armies had passed through and left Greek craftsmen and Greek conventions. The result is a Buddha who looks somewhat Greek: wavy hair, classical drapery, a face that might be Apollo's. I find this interesting. The Dharma moved through every culture it entered and took...

There is suffering. There is the arising of suffering. There is the cessation of suffering. There is a path leading to that cessation. This is not pessimism. It is diagnosis. A physician who refuses to name illness cannot heal it.

Avoid these two extremes: devotion to sensual pleasure, which is low and unprofitable, and devotion to self-mortification, which is painful and unprofitable. The Tathagata has awakened to the Middle Way, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace.

The path to the cessation of suffering has eight factors: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. Eight does not mean difficult. It means complete. You cannot practise one while ignoring the others and call it practice. The path is not a menu.

All conditioned things are impermanent. When one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is not a lesson about loss. It is a lesson about clinging. It is clinging to permanent things in an impermanent world that creates suffering — not the impermanence itself. The flower that falls is not a tragedy. The conviction that it should not fall...

Just as a mother would protect her only child with her own life, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity. This is not a counsel of weakness. It is a description of what strength looks like when it has no enemies left to...

If you are struck by an arrow, you do not ask: who shot it? What is his caste? What wood is the shaft? You pull it out. I teach only this: suffering, and the end of suffering. Those who want metaphysical certainty about the universe before beginning to practise are like a man who refuses to let the arrow be removed until all questions are answered. The...

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. You have no quarrel with the coal. The coal does not know you are holding it. Your hand is burning while you plan your throw. The teaching is not that your anger is wrong. It is that your hand is already burned, and you have not...