The Real Failure

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

~ Buddha ~

The Wise

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.

~ Buddha ~

Good & Evil

There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.

~ Buddha ~

Reason & Common Sense

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

~ Buddha ~

Buddha on the Religious Tradition

Buddha preached a religion devoid of tradition.

Do not go by what is handed down, nor on the authority of your traditional teachings. When you know yourself: these teaching are not good: these teachings when followed out and put in practice conduce to loss and suffering, then reject them.

~ Buddha ~

(Huston Smith, The World’s Religion, p. 96)