POINT OF DEPARTURE

We feel from an early age that we are being lied to, are being betrayed. But by whom? By what? At the same time, we feel ourselves a lie. When we open our mouths we do not know who is speaking. We spend years in formal education, which we argue to ourselves is worth the effort. It is stimulating, and entertaining even, but of what use is it in the end? It leaves us with the real question, what is worthwhile doing? What we really want is salvation.

“Seek out your own salvation with diligence,” the Buddha said. “Try it, see for yourself.”

The Buddha said, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of salvation than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere.”

When we are suffering, we are as much in need of our compassion as is any other being, and we are equally deserving of it.

In the end, only the individual can attain his own salvation. The Buddha can merely teach that there is a Way. It is the individual’s responsibility to follow it. “Abide with oneself as an island, with oneself as a refuge. Seek no external refuge.”

Be assured that the Buddha's teachings "conduce to dispassion and not to passions, to detachment and not to bondage, to decrease of worldly gains and not to their increase, to frugality and not to covetousness, to content and not to discontent, to solitude and not to company, to energy and not to sluggishness, to delight in good and not to delight in evil. Of such teachings you may with certainty affirm that this is the Norm, this is the discipline, this is the Master’s message."