Steve Hagen

The Buddha encouraged people to "know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome and wrong. And when you do, then give them up. And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them."The message is always to examine and see for yourself. When you see for yourself what is true-and that's really the only way that you can genuinely know anything-then embrace it. Until then, just suspend judgment and criticism.

We're never called on to do what hurts. We just do what hurts out of ignorance and habit. Once we see what we're doing, we can stop.

[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]

We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back,' and so on. But they are all stories.

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.

Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.

If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain.

[H]ow can something cease to exist that has no solid existence in the first place?

We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence

To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe.

Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see _ [it] becomes unnecessary.

There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind

[W]e have endless opportunities to forget the self _ in planting a tree for future generations; in creating a poem, a meal, a vessel of clay;

We can only be here. We can't leave. We are always here.

There's nothing you can find - _ nothing you can even imagine _ that doesn't originate, develop, or exist in relation to other things.

How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate?

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.