9.16.10
I present to you the Dalai Lama on "true spirituality":
"In general, it is possible to indicate your particular religious or spiritual way of life through external means, such as wearing certain clothes, or having a shrine or altar in your house, or doing recitations and chanting, and so on. There are ways of demonstrating that externally. However, these practices or activities are secondary to your conducting a truly spiritual way of life, based on the basic spiritual values, because it is possible that all of these external religious activities can still go along with a person's harboring a very negative state of mind. But true spirituality should have the result of making a person calmer, happier, more peaceful.
All the virtuous states of mind - compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, caring, and so on - these mental qualities are genuine Dharma, or genuine spiritual qualities, because all of these internal mental qualities cannot coexist with ill feelings or negative states of mind.
So, in engaging in training or a method of bringing about inner discipline within one's mind is the essence of a religious life, an inner discipline that has the purpose of cultivating these positive mental states. Thus, whether one leads a spiritual life depends on whether one has been successful in bringing about that disciplined, tamed state of mind ((Please note - TAMED - as in the Little Prince = loving and cherishing people) and translating that state of mind into one's daily actions."
-The Art of Happiness
"In general, it is possible to indicate your particular religious or spiritual way of life through external means, such as wearing certain clothes, or having a shrine or altar in your house, or doing recitations and chanting, and so on. There are ways of demonstrating that externally. However, these practices or activities are secondary to your conducting a truly spiritual way of life, based on the basic spiritual values, because it is possible that all of these external religious activities can still go along with a person's harboring a very negative state of mind. But true spirituality should have the result of making a person calmer, happier, more peaceful.
All the virtuous states of mind - compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, caring, and so on - these mental qualities are genuine Dharma, or genuine spiritual qualities, because all of these internal mental qualities cannot coexist with ill feelings or negative states of mind.
So, in engaging in training or a method of bringing about inner discipline within one's mind is the essence of a religious life, an inner discipline that has the purpose of cultivating these positive mental states. Thus, whether one leads a spiritual life depends on whether one has been successful in bringing about that disciplined, tamed state of mind ((Please note - TAMED - as in the Little Prince = loving and cherishing people) and translating that state of mind into one's daily actions."
-The Art of Happiness
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