Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Attachment is the source of all suffering.
Interpretation
Attachment leads to suffering because it creates dependence on temporary things.
This quote by Gautama Buddha emphasizes the idea that our attachments to people, objects, and outcomes can lead to pain and suffering. By becoming overly attached, we set ourselves up for disappointment and distress when those attachments change or are lost, suggesting that finding peace requires letting go of such dependencies.
In practice
In a meditation class discussing the nature of suffering.
Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit.
There are having flowers in Spring, breezes in Summer, moon in Autumn, snows in Winter. If there is nothing worrying over you, it will be the best seasons at all times.
Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.
When a wise man is advised of his errors, he will reflect on and improve his conduct. When his misconduct is pointed out, a foolish man will not only disregard the advice but rather repeat the same error.
The tongue like a sharp knife ... Kills without drawing blood.
Be famous. Be a big social experiment in getting what you don't want. Find value in what we've been taught is worthless. Find good in what the world says is evil. I'm giving you my life because I want the whole world to know you. I wish the whole world would embrace what it hates. Find what you're afraid of most and go live there.
We were romantics in the 1990s and thought that communism was dead. But 10 years passed, and Putin came, and it became obvious that the process is reversible; that communism will, to varying degrees, return again and again.
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
I think my cultural work is more important than the adventures I did. The adventures are not important for human beings. It's the conquering of the useless.
The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous.
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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