Humans are thinking animals! Since the beginning of time, there have always been people who fantasize, who have delusions, who dream—and many who have ideals. When we lie in our beds at night, we should be free from worry. Yet thoughts about our lives often arise then; thoughts about family, country, or even the world.…
All religions have their rules and precepts that must be followed. The Buddhist precepts are special because they are mostly concerned with the cultivation of morality. We can only attain inner wisdom and realize the highest levels of truth after we are good and moral people. For a Buddhist, the only way to truly respect the Buddha is by perfecting his or her human character.
Control of the body means that we know when to act, and when not to act and that we know how to behave with moderation.
Look at the beauty of nature: the crystal blue sky, the floating white clouds, the colorful hues of a rainbow after it rains, and the twinkling stars at night. Go climb to the top of a mountain at night, when the moon is bright and the air is crisp, and as far as the eye can see, you can appreciate the panoramic beauty of nature and the vast openness of the universe.
The Buddha often explained emptiness and impermanence by getting people to think about how phenomena arise, change, and decline.
Harmony and beauty within our lives and within our communities often fail due to our insistence on the duality of self and others. When we maintain the duality of self and others, we develop disproportionate levels of love and hatred, attraction and repulsion for other people, which throws our relationships out of balance; the capacity for affinity becomes dormant. We judge everyone around us, putting people into categories such as good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable, worthy and unworthy.