Sunday, February 03, 2008

Daily Dharma: Four Paths to Success


Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Four Paths to Success

The Buddha taught about four paths or roads to success, to fulfillment.... They are four different qualities of character, each reflecting a different strength of personality. If we can recognize which of them is our own particular strength, then we can build on that power we already have; we can do what has to be done....

We can free ourselves through the power of zeal, the great desire and motivation to follow the path; we may do it through the quality of heroic effort, an effort that cannot be stopped; we may come to awakening through our absorption in and love for the Dharma; or we may experience freedom through the power of investigation, the need to know and understand. Any one of these can be our path of fulfillment.

Our work is to recognize where our own strength lies, and to practice from that place of strength, to develop it, to cultivate it, and to make it even stronger. Our great life challenge is to do the work of awakening, to see that the path of practice lies in bringing these liberating qualities of heart and mind to each moment.... The Buddha pointed out the four roads to success, the rest is up to us.

~ Joseph Goldstein, in Insight Meditation; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.


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