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By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another.
from the Dhammapada.
We used to recite this for each training in the martial art I used to practice, although the lines were slightly different:
By doing evil, I contaminate myself. By not doing evil, I purify myself.
A new monk came up to the master Joshu. “I have just entered the
brotherhood and I am anxious to learn the first principle of Zen,”
he said. “Will you please teach it to me?”
Joshu said, “Have you eaten your supper?”
The novice answered, “I have eaten.” Joshu said, “Now wash your
bowl.”
http://spiritualinquiry.com/zen-stories/wash-your-bowl/
O Buddha, the gold vein of thy sermon of mercy ran through gloom-gorged, rocky hearts, and illumined their darkness.
Thou loftiest soarer of renunciation's skies, beneath thy God-lifted eyes, the kingdom of sense-comfort, the rivers of gross greed, the vast and lust-scorched deserts of desire, the tall trees of temporal ambition, the cactus plants of prickly world-worries—all melt into invisible smallness.
Buddha, the arc-light of thy sympathy sought to melt the hardness of cruel hearts. Once thou didst save a lamb by offering thyself in its stead.
Thy solemn thoughts still silently roam through the ether of minds, searching for ecstasy-tuned hearts. Seated beneath the banyan bodhi tree, thou didst make a solemn tryst with the Spirit:
"Beneath the banyan bough,
On the sacred seat I take this vow:
Let derma, bones, and fleeting flesh dissolve;
Until the mysteries of life I solve,
And receive the all-coveted Priceless Lore,
From this place I shall stir, never, nevermore."
Thou symbol of sympathy, incarnation of mercy, give us thy determination, that we may seek truth as doggedly as thou didst. Bless us, that we may be awakened, like thee, to seek remedy for the sorrow-throbs of others as we seek it for ourselves.
- P.Yogananda, Whispers from Eternity
"When you are compassionate with yourself and others, your world
becomes compassionate. "
~ Gary Zukav, "Seat of the Soul," as quoted in Science of Mind
magazine, May, 2006, Vol. 79 No. 5.
May I never use cruel sarcasm, which, like flies, alights on the open wounds of man and thus swells his troubles. I would emulate Thy lovable bee, attracted by the nectar of sweetness in the heart hives of others.
"Ill will refers to the desire to punish, hurt or destroy. It includes sheer hatred of a person, or even a situation, and it can generate so much energy that it is both seductive and addictive. At the time, it always appears justified for such is its power that it easily corrupts our ability to judge fairly. It also includes ill will towards oneself, otherwise known as guilt, which denies oneself any possibility of happiness. In meditation, ill will can appear as dislike towards the meditation object itself, rejecting it so that one's attention is forced to wander elsewhere.
The Lord Buddha likened ill will to being sick. Just as sickness denies one the freedom and happiness of health, so ill will denies one the freedom and happiness of peace.
Ill will is overcome by applying Metta, loving kindness. When it is ill will towards a person, Metta teaches one to see more in that person than all that which hurts you, to understand why that person hurt you (often because they were hurting intensely themselves), and encourages one to put aside one's own pain to look with compassion on the other. But if this is more than one can do, Metta to oneself leads one to refuse to dwell in ill will to that person, so as to stop them from hurting you further with the memory of those deeds. Similarly, if it is ill will towards oneself, Metta sees more than one's own faults, can understand one's own faults, and finds the courage to forgive them, learn from their lesson and let them go. Then, if it is ill will towards the mediation object (often the reason why a meditator cannot find peace) Metta embraces the meditation object with care and delight. For example, just as a mother has a natural Metta towards her child, so a meditator can look on their breath, say, with the very same quality of caring attention."
http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebmed051.htm
From: The Five Hindrances (Nivarana) by Ajahn Brahmavamso
"The second aspect of true love is karuna,
the intention and capacity
to relieve and transform suffering and lighten sorrows.
Karuna is usually translated as "compassion"
but that is not exactly correct.
"Compassion" is composed of
com ("together with")
and passion ("to suffer").
But we do not need to suffer
to remove suffering from another person.
Doctors, for instance,
can relieve their patients' suffering
without experiencing the same disease in themselves.
If we suffer too much,
we may be crushed and unable to help.
Still, until we find a better word,
let us use "compassion" to translate karuna."
From: "The Four Immeasurable Minds"
in "The heart of the Buddha's teaching:
transforming suffering into peace, joy and liberation:
The Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path
and other basic Buddhist teachings"
by Thich Nhat Hanh, Parallax Press, 1998
This earth is higher than all the heavens; this is the greatest school in the universe.
Vivekananda
Transliteration
Anandena jatani jivanti
Anandam prayantyabhisam visanti
Translation
From Delight we came into existence.
In Delight we grow.
At the end of our journey’s close,
Into Delight we retire.
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him.
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. "
- Lord Buddha
"You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Friends, similarly you cannot see God because of your ignorance, but say not that there is no God."
Sri Ramakrishna
"The ideal of Vedanta is that all wisdom and all purity are in the soul already, dimly expressed or better expressed--that is all the difference. The difference between man and man, and all things in the whole creation, is not in kind but only in degree. The background, the reality, of everyone is that same Eternal, Ever Blessed, Ever Pure, and Ever Perfect One. It is the Atman, the Soul, in the saint and the sinner, in the happy and the miserable, in the beautiful and the ugly, in men and in animals; it is the same throughout. It is the shining One. The difference is caused by the power of expression. In some It is expressed more, in others less, but this difference of expression has no effect upon the Atman."
Vivekananda
If it is true that you cannot do good without doing evil, and whenever you try to create happiness there will always be misery, people will ask you, "What is the use of doing good?" The answer is in the first place, that we must work for lessening misery, for that is the only way to make ourselves happy. Every one of us finds it out sooner or later in our lives. The bright ones find it out a little earlier, and the dull ones a little later. The dull ones pay very dearly for the discovery and the bright ones less dearly. In the second place, we must do our part, because that is the only way of getting out of this life of contradiction. Both the forces of good and evil will keep the universe alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies. That lesson we shall have to learn, and it will take a long, long time to learn it.
Swami Vivekananda
The teachers of the science of Yoga, therefore, declare that religion is not only based upon the experience of ancient times, but that no man can be religious until he has the same perceptions himself. Yoga is the science which teaches us how to get these perceptions. It is not much use to talk of religion until one has felt it. Why is there so much disturbance, so much fighting and quarrelling in the name of God? There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, because people never went to the fountainhead; they were consent only to give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same. What right has a man to say he has a soul if he does not feel it, or that there is a God if he does not see Him? If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. The modern idea, on the one hand, with the "learned" is that religion and metaphysics and all search after a Supreme Being are futile; on the other hand, with the semi-educated, the idea seems to be that these things really have no basis, their only value consists in the fact that they furnish strong motive powers for doing good to the world. If men believe in a God, they may become good, and moral, and so make good citizens. We cannot blame them for holding such ideas, seeing that all the teaching these men get is simply to believe in an eternal rigmarole of words, without any substance behind them. They are asked to live upon words; can they do it? If they could, I should not have the least regard for human nature. Man wants truth, wants to experience truth for himself; when he has grasped it, realised it, felt it within his heart of hearts then alone, declare the Vedas, would all doubts vanish, all darkness be scattered, and all crookedness be made straight. "Ye children of immortality, even those who live in the highest sphere, the way isf ound; there is a way out of all this darkness, and that is by perceiving Him Who is beyond all darkness; there is no other way."
Swami Vivekananda
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
-Swami Vivekananda