In thinking, “This is I” and “That is mine”, he binds himself with his self, as does a bird with a snare.
A good marriage is where both people feel like they're getting the better end of the deal.
If you wish to be free, know you are the Self, the witness of all these, the heart of awareness. Set your body aside, sit in your own awareness. You will at once be happy, forever still, forever free.
Burnt offerings, sacred feasts, intense meditations, puja and taking millions of cleansing baths at sacred shrines of pilgrimage: the merits of all these can be obtained by enshrining Lord within your heart for a fraction of a second.
In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.
Fasting in the monastic community is considered an ascetic practice, a “dhutanga” practice. Dhutanga means “to shake up” or “invigoration”. The Buddha, as is well known, emphasized moderation, the Middle Way that avoids extremes, in all things. Fasting is an additional method that one can take up, with supervision, for a time.
