Musings

“Hatred is never overcome by hatred in this world. Only by non-hatred is hatred overcome – this is an eternal law.”  – A quote from the Buddha, Dhammapada Verse 5

• As long as we continue to impose our views on others, the world will be enveloped in conflict. Not until we finally relinquish this tyranny of the mind, will mankind be able to live in true peace.
• If we keep on sweeping the dirt under the rug, a day will come when there will be more dirt than there is rug to cover it. Thus, sooner or later, the dirt is bound to reappear.
• Money is the root of all money, evil is the root of all evil; mix the two, and you end up with a multi-national corporation.
• Favoritism and oppression go hand in hand – what you give to one you take from another. Don’t think you’re Robin Hood.
• If the mountain does not come to Moneyya, Moneyya does not go to the mountain.
• JFK was my boyhood hero. On the day he was assassinated, my world began to crumble, and has continued to crumble ever since. Now I understand that this is the natural order of things. It was happening all along, whether I saw it or not.
• Peaceful coexistence with our fellow humans depends upon our peaceful coexistence with the rest of creation. If we cannot learn to live in peace with our brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom, how can we expect to live in peace with our brothers and sisters in the human realm? The transformative power of this natural law could turn the world into a heavenly place; its violation, however, could turn it into a hell.
• Two is company, three’s a crowd, and the world has been at odds ever since.
• Two is company, three’s a crowd, and four is a Sangha. With morality, harmony prevails regardless of the number. Without morality, even one is too many.
• Society, like any other institution, is only as good as the sum of its members. A perfect society, in order to function as such, would have to have perfect members; however, human perfection is an ideal that few can agree on and fewer still have attained. Furthermore, as history has shown, it is not a standard that can be imposed from the outside, by such measures as manipulating the gene pool, enforced sterilization, the extermination of so-called inferiors, or any other artificial means. Thus, although the concept of a perfect society may seem tenable on paper, it can never become a reality – society is, by its very nature, imperfect because man himself is imperfect. Society is merely the mirror of man. With this understanding, we cease to blame society for its imperfections and turn within to root out our own imperfections, and that, in itself, is the greatest contribution we can make to society. 
• The basis for addiction is delusion. You may break an addiction, but delusion does not necessarily cease, but if you destroy delusion, addiction will automatically cease.
• Nowadays, an ounce of medicine requires a pound of cure. This is certainly good news for the pharmaceutical industry.
• You can spare the rod if you don’t spoil the child.
• When the stock market crashes, our trust in God also crashes. What kind of God do we worship that our faith should rise and fall with the stock market?
• Even if the entire world is against you, you should still side with the truth… but perhaps better not to tell anybody about it.
• Be careful what you preach, because sooner or later you are bound to practice it. 
• Question authority, but question first your own authority.
• The devil made me do it, but I made the devil do it.
• God helps those who help themselves, but God also helps those who help others.
• We call those who worship nature, who honor and supplicate the forces of nature, pagans and animists, but those who destroy nature, who dishonor and desecrate the forces of nature, what do they worship, and what should they be called?
• Buddhists are such pagans; they’ll worship anything, even a stone or a piece of shit. That’s why I haven’t eaten animals in more than 50 years – cause I worship their shit.
• No doubt, the internet is going to save the world, but the world it saves will be a virtual one.
• In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man can easily become the sacrificial lamb.
• There are two great dangers in this world: the first danger is to believe that one is always in the right; the second danger is to believe that someone else is always in the right. In between these two beliefs is a middle way – a path that does not veer toward either extreme; neither does it deny the basic rights of anyone or anything. To follow such a path requires freedom from bias and a willingness to examine all points of view. It asks nothing of the world, but rather is a revolution of the mind and heart, and an opening to all possibilities.
• Buddhist nationalism is a movement consisting of two mutually exclusive points of view. Those who belong to this movement call themselves Buddhists, but in striving to develop a national identity, they are unwilling to extend thoughts of loving-kindness to their fellow Muslim, Christian and Hindu countrymen. Thus, their very actions betray the teaching of him to whom they pledge their allegiance. Initially, they join together under a single banner, but ultimately end up quarrelling with one another. Battling with ghosts and demons of their own creation, they fall ever more deeply into wrong view and gradually lose sight of the true Dhamma. It is as if such persons had exchanged a valuable jewel for a trinket. 
• Once upon a time, blood was thicker than water, but nowadays, oil is thicker than blood, and before long, water will be thicker than oil.
• In our quest for petroleum, we have created a new Holy Grail, and a crusade and inquisition to go with it.
• In the world of the spinmeister, he who spins last, spins best.
• A wise person investigates all points of view; a fool seeks advice from those who agree with him.
• I do not support conspiracy theories; neither do I conspire against them. Whatever truths they contain, I accept; whatever falsehoods, I reject. If I do not know the verity of a particular statement, I freely admit my ignorance. Only in this way am I able to maintain my neutrality.
• God may not be dead, but in the minds of most Americans, he might as well be. If he would only pay off their credit card bills, insurance premiums, and yearly taxes, you can be sure they’d be praying to him every day.
• Nowadays, what most people call “love” is actually about 25% real love and 75% attachment. However, as meager and corrupted as such love may be, 25% love is better than no love at all. Of course, if you can raise the percentage level up to 50%, that is even better, and then your love becomes a true friendship, with equal sharing and deep affection for one another; and if you can raise it up to 100%, that is the ideal – a love that is free from any attachment, completely pure and unconditioned, that asks nothing in return, is unbounded by time or space, and whose greatest joy is in giving to others. And why do I say that love without attachment is the ideal? Because attachment brings suffering.
• How can we choose between a lesser good and a greater good or a lesser evil and a greater evil if we cannot first establish what is good and what is evil? This is not as easy as most people think, since both good and evil so often lie hidden at the core of things, concealed by their outer form. Thus, if we cannot penetrate to the core of any given issue and weed out the irrelevant from the relevant, inevitably our choices will lead us in the wrong direction.
• The US will never win the war against terrorism until we (the citizens) are able to fathom its cause; only then will we have the means to eradicate terrorism at its roots. And what is the cause of terrorism? It is the greed, anger and delusion in our own hearts and minds. This is the hidden enemy and the true axis of evil in the world today, just as it has always been. If we can expose this hidden enemy, root it out and fully destroy it, by that act alone, we will do more for the cessation of terrorism than all the weapons in the world combined. 
• To act for one’s own welfare, without interfering with the welfare of others – this is called living in harmony.
• Beauty is in the eye of your plastic surgeon
• Some people pay to play, but everybody pays for having played.
• The proof is in the pudding, but the pudding got lost in the mail.
• It is not the flag that is false, but the one who waves it.
• It is the mark and distinction of our current generation to forgive others for lying, but to hold them accountable for telling the truth.
• Black lies matter; white lies also matter, but not as much.
• Let him who is without sin live in a glass house, for such a one has ceased to cast stones.
• Those who sow division amongst others will themselves be conquered.
• You can cheat some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t cheat karma.
• To date, no political party has developed a clear vision of how to deal with the fundamental social, cultural and existential issues that human beings have to face in this world. It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican, Democrat, independent, socialist, communist, anarchist, or a green/red/black/etc. party member; if you think your party is going to solve the world’s problems, you are sadly mistaken. And why is that? Because politics is based on a materialistic view of the world and essentially neglects the moral-spiritual laws that govern the universe; therefore, at best, one could say that politics espouses a partial truth, but actually, it’s worse than that – in politics, the priorities are all upside down. Of course, there may be exceptions to this rule, as there have been in the past, but most truly great political leaders either get killed off or compromised along the way, and in this day and age, they are bound to be few and far between. Therefore, whatever you do, don’t put your hope in the political process, for you are bound to end up disappointed.
• Never make the consultation of oracles, demons, the dead, prognosticators, political or financial pundits, or the position of the zodiac a substitute for good common sense. Don’t sell yourself short – always take the high moral ground, regardless of the soothsayer’s advice or the alignment of the planets. Don’t be influenced by that which itself can be influenced. Go straight to your goal, like an arrow shot by a mighty bowman.
• Compromise is a virtue when it comes to people, an art when it comes to the business deal, a blemish when it comes to beauty, a crime when it comes to the law, a lie when it comes to the truth, and damnation when it comes to the Devil.
• The flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak.
• When it comes to war, going in is always easier than getting out.
• Read my lips, but don’t believe everything you read.

Poems and Musings by Bhikkhu Moneyya
2012 – 2019