Arrows of Wisdom
On training (Buddha): 1
My mind is without leaks, free, long cultivated, and well-trained.
On perplexity (2 Corinthians 4:8):
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
On retraction (Meister Eckhart):2
God is not found in the soul by adding, but by a process of subtraction.
On flexibility (Dào Dé Jīng, 76):
The stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The soft and yielding is the disciple of life.
On balance (Daniel 5:27):
TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
On self-realization (Sureśvara): 3
Failure to attain self-realization, due to dependency on one's own experience is ignorance, the seed of saṃsāra, whose dissolution is the liberation of the soul.
On generation (Psalm 22:30):
A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
On pruning (John 15:2):
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
On cooling (Therīgāthā): 4
Sīti-bhūtamhi nibbutā I am become cool, extinguished [enlightened].
On brooding (Yājñavalkya): 5
Having known That alone, the steady brāhmaṇa should cultivate insight, but not brood over many words, for that is the mere wearying of speech.
On discernment (Patañjali): 6
The flow of discriminative knowledge is the means of cessation."
On descent (Nietzsche):7
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under. I love those who do not know how to live, except by going-under, for they are those who are the going-across.
On Delusion
From the Aṭṭhakavagga: 8
A creature stands in a cave, thickly veiled; standing fast in delusion, far from detachment— such a one is far from relief from the pleasures that exist in the world. Bound to becoming, which flows from desire, these are hard to release, and there is no external salvation. Such look forward or backward, grasping, for sensual pleasures, these, and those long gone. Greedy for pleasures, devoted, infatuated, Miserly, they are stuck on an uneven path. And brought to suffering end they lament, "What will become of us when we pass from here?" Therefore train here! right here and now; and come to recognize what is wrong in this world, and knowing this, not walk down the uneven path, For the wise say this life is short. I see in the world men floundering, thrashing about with craving for existences. Base people wail in the jaws of death, With craving not gone from this or that existence. See them thrashing in the midst of what they call "mine" Like fish in a vanishing puddle, their stream cut off. Having seen this, walk unencumbered; let no new hook of becoming snag thy heart. Having extinguished desire from either extreme, having thoroughly understood touch, without greed, without deeds that bring self-reproach; The wise one is not stained by the seen or the heard. Having comprehended perception, he crosses the flood. Unmired by possession, the barb of longing pulled from the flesh, Wandering vigilant, he longs neither for this world nor the next.
On reward
From the Bhagavad Gita:9
You have the right to work, but only for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either. Be steadfast in your duty, and even-tempered in success and failure; for it is this evenness of temper which is meant by Yoga. Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. Seek refuge in divine knowledge and insight, O Arjuna. They who work selfishly for results are miserable. One who is endowed with clear discernment let's fall—right here, in this life—the twin cloaks of "virtue" and "vice"; no trace of either clings to him. So practice yoga, that art of working skillfully.
On conditioning
From the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa10:
Then the elder Śāriputra said to the Brahmā Jaṭī "But we, O Brahmā, see this great earth with its highs and lows, its thorns, its precipices, its peaks, and its abysses, entirely filled with refuse!" [...] Then the Lord Budha with his big toe pressed this billion-world galaxy and at that moment the galaxy stood heaped with many hundreds of thousands of jewels— Studded with many hundreds of thousands of jewels— just as the Infinite-Dimensional-Jewel-Array, the world-system of the Tathāgata Ratnavyūha, so did this world-system appear.
Footnotes
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From the Dhaniya Sutta of the Sutta Nipāta. Pali: Cittaṁ mama anassavaṁ vimuttaṁ / dīgharattaṁ paribhāvitaṁ sudantaṁ / pāpaṁ pana me na vijjati / tasmā vassa deva yathā icchasi, devo vassatu. Translation: My mind is without leaks, free / long cultivated, and well-trained / Nothing evil is found in me / Therefore rain, O sky, if you wish — let it rain. ^
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Meister Eckhart, Existimo quod non sunt condignae, sermon on Romans 8:18. Latin: Nihil apponendo, sed subtrahendo in anima invenitur deus. ^
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From Naiṣkarmya Siddhi 1.7. Sanskrit: aikātmyāpratipattir vā svātmānubhava-saṃśrayā / sā ‘vidyā saṃsṛter bījaṃ tan-nāśo muktir ātmanaḥ. ^
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From the Therīgāthā (1.1), the Verses of the Elder Nuns. ^
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From the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.4.21). Sanskrit: Tam eva dhīro vijñāya prajñāṁ kurvīta brāhmaṇaḥ, nānudhyāyād bahūñ śabdān vāco viglāpanaṁ hi tat. ^
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From the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, 2.26. Sanskrit: viveka-khyātir aviplavā hānopāyaḥ ^
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Zarathustra’s Prologue. ^
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This verse, Guhaṭṭhaka Sutta—“The Eight-Versed Discourse on the Cave”, is from the Aṭṭhakavagga, perhaps the oldest surviving collection of Buddhist verses. ^
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Bhagavad Gita 2:47-50. The last verse contains the alliterative Sanskrit phrase yogāya yujyasva yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam. In particular, yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam might best be translated as the art of excellent work. ^
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The Teaching of Vimalakirti, the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa. ^