If people become accustomed to lying, they will unconsciously commit every possible wrong deed. Before they can act wickedly, they must lie and once they begin to lie they will act wickedly without concern.
Be it known that Men of dull faculties and slight wisdom, They who cling proudly to signs, Cannot believe in this Dharma. Now I, joyfully and fearlessly, In the midst of the bodhisattvas Frankly casting aside my expedient devices, Merely preach the Unexcelled Path.
If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself.
Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any one part of the lute.
The man who foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my most ungrudging love; and the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me.