The Karma of Questions Quotes

“The Buddhist teachings on respect for other people point in two directions. First, the obvious one: respect for those ahead of you on the path. As the Buddha once said, friendship with admirable people is the whole of the holy life, for their words and examples will help get you on the path to release. This doesn’t mean that you need to obey their teachings or accept them unthinkingly. You simply owe it to yourself to give them a respectful hearing and their teachings an honest try. give them a respectful hearing and their teachings an honest try. Even— especially—when their advice is unpleasant, you should treat it with respect. As Dhammapada 76 states,

Regard him as one who
points out
treasure,
the wise one who
seeing your faults
rebukes you.
Stay with this sort of sage.
For the one who stays
with a sage of this sort,
things get better,
not worse.”
― Thanissaro Bhikkhu, The Karma of Questions

“We start the path to the end of suffering, not by trying to drop our clingings immediately, but by learning to cling more strategically. In terms of the feeding analogy, we don’t try to starve the mind. We simply change its diet, weaning it away from junk food in favor of health food, developing inner qualities that will make it so strong that it won’t need to feed ever again. The canon lists these qualities as five:
conviction in the principle of karma—that our happiness depends on our own actions;
persistence in abandoning unskillful qualities and developing skillful ones in their stead;
mindfulness;
concentration; and
discernment.
Of these, concentration—at the level of jhāna, or intense absorption— is the strength that the Buddhist tradition most often compares to good, healthy food”
― Thanissaro Bhikkhu, The Karma of Questions