The collection / 9 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

The Buddha taught complete honesty, with the extra instruction that everything a person says should be truthful and helpful.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

02Undated

Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

03Undated

The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

04Undated

I think they paid attention to their lives and became wise. For those of us who don’t arrive at wisdom naturally, meditation is one way to get there through practice.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

05Undated

Buddha also said that the Dharma, like a bird, needs two wings to fly, and that the wing that balances Wisdom is compassion.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

06Undated

Mindfulness, the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience, is at the heart of what the Buddha taught.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

07Undated

The Buddha said that there are three times that a person should consider the consequences of any action: before, during, and after. “One should reflect thus,” he said. “‘Is what I am about to do . . .’ or ‘Is what I am currently doing . . .’ or ‘Is what I just did . . . for my own well-being and for the benefit of all others?

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

08Undated

The Buddha’s criteria for Wise Speech include—in addition to the obvious expectation that speech be truthful— that it be timely, gentle, motivated by kindness, and helpful.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote

09Undated

The next-to-last sentence that the Buddha is reported to have spoken as he was dying, before his final sentence of encouragement to his community, was “Transient are all conditioned things.

Sylvia Boorstein / quote