Buddha

Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama)

c. 563-483 BCE, Indian Prince, Mystic, Founder of Buddhism

Action / Effort
Words do not matter, what matters is Dharma. What matters is action rightly performed.
Dhammapada

Actualization / Fulfillment
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha , Thomas Byron, ed., 1976

Adversity
Even loss and betrayal can bring us awakening.

Anger
One who controls occurring anger as one would a chariot gone off the track, that one I call a charioteer; other people just hold the reins.
The Dhammapada , Thomas Cleary, tr.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger … Let a man overcome anger by love.

Attachment
Avoid attachment to both what is pleasant
And what is unpleasant.
Losing the pleasant causes grief.
Dwelling on the unpleasant also causes grief.
Do not cling to the pleasant.
Let it pass,
So that the separation will not diminish you.
Clinging to what is dear brings sorrow.
Clinging to what is dear brings fear.
To one who is entirely free from endearment
There is no sorrow or fear.
Dhammapada

The thoughtful exert themselves; they do not relish attachment. Like swans leaving a lake, they abandon one attachment after another.
Ibid.

Those in whom the mind is correctly cultivated in the limbs of perfect enlightenment, who have no attachments and enjoy being free from grasping, and who have stopped all compulsion, attain perfect nirvana here in this world.
Ibid.

Attention / Awareness
Consciousness has no origin and is an illusion arising from the six organs and sense data … Ignorant worldlings think wrongly that it is causal, conditional and due to the self as such, according to the way their consciousnesses differentiate and discriminate while they do not know that the language they use has no real meaning.
Surangama Sutra , Upasaka Lu K'uan Yu (Charles Luk), tr., 1966

Attention is living; inattention is dying.
The attentive never stop; the inattentive are dead already.
Dhammapada , 21, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, tr.

Autonomy / Control
Motivate yourself by yourself; examine yourself by yourself. Thus self-controlled and fully conscious, you will live happily. For the self is master of the self; the self is the resort of the self. So control yourself, as a trader does a good horse.

It is better to
Conquer yourself
Than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
Dhammapada

For one who is self-controlled and always disciplined in action, victory over the self is better than victory over others.
Ibid.

Being / Essence / Soul
You should know that the essential Bodhi is wondrous and bright, being neither cause nor condition, neither self as such nor not self as such, neither unreality nor not unreality, for it is beyond all forms and is identical with all things. How can you now think of it and use frivolous terminology of the world to express it? This is like trying to catch or touch the void with your hand; you will only tire yourself, for how can you catch the void?