8/11/2019 Four Reliances

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8/11/2019 Four Reliances

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Do not accept any of my words on faith,Believing them just because I said them.

Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns,And critically examines his product for authenticity.

nly accept what passes the testBy proving useful and beneficial in your life.

The Buddha (Jnanasara-samuccaya)

&' teach on suffering and the way to end it&.

&%y teaching is not a philosophy. 't is the result of direct experience...%y teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold onto or worship.%y teaching is li e a raft used to cross the river.

nly a fool would carry the raft around after he had already reached the other shore ofliberation.&

o his favourite disciple, #nanda, the *uddha once said (from: Old Path, White Clouds by Thich Nath anh) +

&'f you were to follow the Dharma purely out of love for me or because you respect me, 'would not accept you as disciple. *ut if you follow the Dharma because you haveyourself experienced its truth, because you understand and act accordingly only underthese conditions have you the right to call yourself a disciple of the -xalted ne.&

!alama "utra# )"ummarised, the *uddha said+

&Do not believe a spiritual teaching just because! . it is repeatedly recited,

/. it is written in a scripture,0. it was handed from guru to disciple,1. everyone around you believes it,2. it has supernatural 3ualities,4. it fits my beliefs anyway,5. it sounds rational to me,6. it is taught by a respectable person,7. it was said to be the truth by the teacher,

8. one must defend it or fight for it.9owever, only when it agrees with your experience and reason, and when it is conduciveto the good and gain of oneself and all others, then one should accept the teachings, andlive up to them.&

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8/11/2019 Four Reliances

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A W anderer

Neither Muslim, nor Hindu, Buddhist, Christen or Jew.

Now I am just an ordinary Human.

I do not belong to any caste, nor do I have any nationality.

I do not belong to any religion nor do I have any labels.

I am not the product o any culture, yet culture has conditioned me.

I am the one who has been wandering or hundreds and thousands o

years in order to searchthe ultimate !ruth, the pathless !ruth, the imperishable, beyond

thought, beyond man made tradition, beyond this mechanical, arti"cial

and violent li e, beyond #ntertainment, beyond $leasure, beyond %e&,

beyond 'ear, beyond Man made (eligions, beyond (ituals, beyond

)uthorities, beyond Belie s and *ogmas, Beyond !heories, ideologies

and $hilosophies, beyond wars and beyond violence