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No Flattering
- At
the Sagely City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, flattery is prohibited. No one
should say things to play up to people or praise them.
- Why
have some people returned to lay life? It's because they liked being
flattered. The left-home people here are all young, including the
acting abbot. Flattering them is tantamount to pushing them back to
laylife a little sooner.
- The City of Ten Thousand
Buddhas does not stand on politeness. Dharma is spoken for its own
sake; it's not used to engage in social politeness. I don't allow my
disciples to go around flattering people. That is most disgusting
behaviour.
- One of my lifelong commitments has been
to refrain from praising people and to never deliberately slander
anyone. I just tell things the way they are, without adding or
subtracting anything. Because of that, at the City of Ten Thousand
Buddhas no one says the words "thank you." We follow the motto "the
straight mind is the Way-place."
Vajra Bodhi Sea, September 1996
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