History
In Buddhism, instead of looking for any external saviour, most Buddhists believe one can take refuge in oneself. From the Dhammapada:
160. One truly is the protector of oneself, who else could the protector be? With oneself fully controlled one gains a mastery which is hard to gain. 165. By oneself is evil done, by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone, by oneself is one purified. Purity and impurity depend on oneself--no one can purify another.The Mahaparinibbana sutta states, "For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone."
Read more about this topic: Refuge (Buddhism)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)