Guest Post: Discovering Buddha's Words

A great person and friend emailed the following insight:

I didn’t realize there were actual, transcribed, teachings of the Buddha. Here are allegedly some of his words. I’ve heard this idea in other forms but for some reason, it hit me in this form. From the excerpts I’ve read, if it really is he, the Buddha’s voice is pleasing to hear.

Below he talks of two extremes---self-indulgence and self-mortification----that later, are supplanted by the idea of a “middle way.”

"There are two extremes, O bhikkhus, which the man who has given up the world ought not to follow-the habitual practice, on the one hand, of self-indulgence which is unworthy, vain and fit only for the worldly-minded and the habitual practice, on the other hand, of self-mortification, which is painful, useless and unprofitable.”

I don’t know about you, but self-indulgence (material ambition, greed, smoking, overeating) and self-mortification (beating myself up constantly; being suspicious and resentful of others in a way that eats me alive; exploring terror and anxiety) are the two extremes between which I find myself often stretched.

Greed is interesting. I never would have thought of myself as having it (likewise what I called “material ambition”). But I realize how much airspace is devoted, in my mind, to thinking about what I want to get and have. Or obsessing about, for example, the scratch in my car that makes it look less new; pants that don’t fit; what people think of what my hair looks like; having to have the right pair of sunglasses. All of these, by the way, relate directly to how others see me. I don’t even try to hide it.

I’m not going to go around quoting Buddha. But I dug this, and other readings. Here’s some more of Buddha's words:

http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/bud-ser.html