It is easy to be a slave to the letter, and difficult to enter into the spirit easy to obey a number of outward rules, difficult to enter intelligently and self-sacrificingly into the will of God easy to entangle the soul in a network of petty observances, difficult to yield the obedience of an enlightened heart easy to be haughtily exclusive, difficult to be humbly spiritual easy to be an ascetic or a formalist, difficult to be pure, and loving, and wise, and free easy to be a Pharisee, difficult to be a disciple very easy to embrace a self-satisfying and sanctimonious system of rabbinical observances, very difficult to love God with all the heart, and all the might, and all the soul, and all the strength.
Quotes about disciple (15 Quotes)
When obedience to the Divine precepts keeps pace with knowledge, in the mind of any man, that man is a Christian; and when the fruits of Christianity are produced, that man is a disciple of our blessed Lord, let his profession of religion be what it may.
By whatever basis human desires are classified, the promise of an abundant life covers virtually all. To the spiritual it suggests escape from futility to the sensuous it calls up visions of luxury to the defeated it is a dream of success. To the idle it pledges ease to the weary, rest to the frightened it means safety to the anxious, security and to the improvident it conjures inexhaustible resources. Persuade a man that you can give him the thing he most desires and you will be his hero offer him justification for his failures and he will be your disciple assure him a boundless supply of 'loaves and fishes' and he will seek to make you king.
A disciple once complained, 'You tell us stories, but you never reveal their meaning to us.' The master replied, 'How would you like it if someone offered you fruit and then chewed it up for you before giving it to you' If your heart is straight with God, then every creature will be to you a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine.
Disciple But the Bathhouse Sutra says, 'By contributing to the bathing of monks, people receive limitless blessings.' This would appear to be an instance of external practice achieving merit. How does this relate to beholding the mind Bodhidharma ... Our true buddha-nature has no shape. And the dust of affliction has no form. How can people use ordinary water to wash an intangible body It won't work.... To clean such a body you have to behold it. Once impurities and filth arise from desire, they multiply until they cover you inside and out. But if you try to wash this body of yours, you'll have to scrub until it's nearly gone before it's clean.
A koan literally ' a public case' is a description of an entire situation, usually of a dialogue between a Zen master and his disciple the hwadu is only the central point of the exchange which is then singled out as a topic for meditation.
Following the Smell of Flowers As told by Taisen Deshimaru Roshi A master was walking in the mountains. When he came back, one of his disciples asked him 'Master, where do you go to walk 'In the mountain' Answered the master. The disciple insisted, 'But what path did you take What did you see' The master answered, 'I followed the smell of flowers, and I wandered with the young shoots.' We must let ourselves be guided by the dharma of the Buddha and have confidence in the grass and the flowers that grow, without goal or ego, naturally and unconsciously. The master's answer flows from the spring of wisdom. True wisdom is created beyond knowledge and memory.
If you don't have a teacher you can't have a disciple.
He who is the disciple of Khidr possesses sufficient inner strength to seek freely the teaching of all masters. Of this the biography of Ibn Arabi, who frequented all the masters of his day and welcomed their teachings, offers living proof.
I have been my own disciple and my own master. And I have been a good disciple but a bad master.
... just as God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, as we become more like Him, neither can we. The best people have a heightened awareness of what little of the worst is still in them Indeed, the divine discontent, the justifiable spiritual restlessness that we feel, is a natural follow-on feeling in the disciple who has taken the Lord's counsel to 'make you a new heart and a new spirit.' (Ezekiel 1831.)
No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.
Ibn Arabi was above all the disciple of Khidr an invisible master... such a relationship with a hidden spiritual master lends the disciple an essentially 'transhistorical' dimension and presupposes an ability to experience events which are enacted in a reality other than the physical reality of daily life, events which spontaneously transmute themselves into symbols.
Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man.
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.