Avoid gossip. Avoid their feuds. Concentrate on what is essential–contact with Swami, and prayer. Associate with people you can really help in one way or another, and not with those whose curiosity is always offering you a basin for your tears.
–Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple
Be a refuge unto yourselves, Ananda. Be a lamp unto yourselves. Rely on yourselves and on nothing else….Then I exhort you, brothers: remember, all things that come into being must pass away. Strive earnestly!
–Eknath Easwaran, The Dhammapada
I would like to pass on one little bit of advice I give to every one. Relax. Just relax. Be nice to each other. As you go through your life, simply be kind to people. Try to help them rather than hurt them. Try to get along with them rather than hurt them. With that, I will leave you, and with all my very best wishes.
–Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, in Joseph Goldstein, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism
Restrain the mind from going outward; restrain the senses; turn te mind inward; suffer everything without murmuring; fasten the mind to one idea; think constantly of your real nature. Get rid of superstition. Do not hypnotize yourself into a belief in your own inferiority. Day and night tell yourself what you really are, until you realize, actually realize, your oneness with God.
–Vivekananda, What Religion Is
