This is a genuine quote from the Buddhist scriptures. It’s from the Dhammapada:
“All experiences are preceded by mind, having mind as their master, created by mind.” The Buddha Click To Tweet
This is a genuine quote from the Buddhist scriptures. It’s from the Dhammapada:
“All experiences are preceded by mind, having mind as their master, created by mind.” The Buddha Click To Tweet
My mind creates every experience which I live. I cannot blame no one about my life which is going good or bad, because all events, they are born first in my mind! So I am totally responsible for everything around me!
If you are responsible for everything around you, then you are responsible for the actions of others. Which means they have no free will. Which means you’re some kind of god, right? (I guess you’re responsible for this comment!)
Hello Bodhipaksa: how are you? Really it’s a great surprise to me to receive your comment to my interpretation about Buddha’s quote. Thank you very much! Yes, indeed the world around me reacts according to my action! In every single minute in our lives, we are acting and receiving an answer about that act ! The way that the world ( people ) will react it dependents a lot of their spiritual level, but regularly they will react in the same way you acted towards them! If I am a good person, it will be very difficult that people will come to hate me! Even if I am good to an animal, he will answer to my kindness with kindness! Compassion atracts compassion! Hate atracts hate! So, yes, we are really responsible for the way the people will come to treat us! This is a very simple law! Finally, about your question if I am responsible to your comment, yes, I am because if I hadn’t published it here, you for sure wouldn’t have caught your computer to write what you wrote! Do you agree? A great hug from Brazil my friend!
I absolutely agree and I am glad, to finally read something, that goes in accordance with my own thinking.
Still not satisfied with my considerations, I come back to finish them : yes, you’re totally right when you say I am responsible for the actions of others, and it may be tragic: if you look at the story, you will see Hitler, a kind of a human god. How many people killed others people inspired in him? How many people were blind following his orders? A bad god who had the will of the people in his total control! That is because sometimes people forget their free will to make what someone says! Notwithstanding, if we continue in the path of the story, we will find Gandhi, the Indian politician, and we will see him controling the people towards the good! A kind of a good god he was! So, everything that Hitler made, this was first as a thought in his mind, also Gandhi! And Hitler, and Gandhi had the due return of their thoughts!
Yes, so vety true. Thank you.
Hi, could you please explain to me this quote? I still find it difficult to comprehend.
I don’t I am responsible for all the things happening around me as there are many different combination of minds.
Every one have their own mind and I am definitely not doing anything to what is happening within them right from the beginning.
However, I do know that I am able to attract specific people to help me with specific task. I am only responsible for how I respond to what happens to me.
Hi, Suzanne.
You’re absolutely right that you’re not responsible for all the things happening around you. What the quote means is that your mind shapes how you experience those things — for example are they a source of happiness or suffering. You might, for example, see talking in public as terrifying, while another person might see it as fun. your individual minds interpret the same event in different ways, producing different experiences of the same thing.
Note that I didn’t say you are “responsible” for how you experience those things. Your mind has been conditioned by many factors, including some that are genetic or epigenetic, that you had no control over. But decisions you make also shape your mind. You might allow anxiety to run rampant, increasing your suffering. Or you might do things that help you be calmer, and to see the public talk as less threatening. So your mind is conditioning itself, training itself, and changing how it experiences things.
Does that make more sense?
There are Buddhists who believe (or who try to believe) that the Buddha taught that we do literally create the world around us. That’s very much not what the Buddha taught!
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Thank you.
Hello,
It is very exciting that science is finding more evidence to support this finding. For instance we could look at “How Emotions Are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett. Her writings, and those of other researchers, suggest that even perception of the external world depends on what is happening in our mind. (It is because the perception is “predicted” by the mind). I am staggered and in awe that the Buddha was able to become aware of this through his application to self-study.
Creation is not a one way flow, and no one or no thing is ever separate from the oneness of consciousness.
You might be interested in Seb Pearce’s New-Age Bullshit Generator website. Just visit the site, click on the button that says “reionize electrons,” and you’ll get statements very similar to what you just posted.
What we experience is the result of our internal environment, is my interpretation of the quote. I think that’s a simplified sway of what you guys were saying. Do you think that is accurate?
Fully agree with you Danny.
Very accurate.
Thanks.
I would have said: “My point of view, thoughts and feelings are acting on the way I may experience something”.
Feels good to know Buddha had the same beliefs. I knew this before
I started studying Buddhism! I grew up Lutheran but already at such a young age I knew so much of it made no sense! I’m surprised in today’s enlightend world more people aren’t Buddhists or another enlightend faith!
Feels good to know Buddha had the same beliefs. I knew this before even studying Buddhism! I grew up Lutheran and even as a small child knew most of the bible just wasn’t even true!
“Just as surely as the wheel of the cart follows the hoof print of the ox.”