Wise words from Monkey Narrator

The Japanese TV series of Monkey (King) based on the Chinese literary master piece Hsi yu chi was my first introduction to Buddhism and I guess was the seed from which it eventually grew. Here are the closing words of wisdom for the first 15 episodes which I am finding evber more useful and profound.

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02. Monkey was trapped by desire and released by a boy priest. An abbot died for greed. The Buddha taught: whatever you do, you do to yourself. We want so much when we need for so little, but the illumined man wants for nothing.

03. The monstrous is only a question of opinion. To some of us opinions are so precious that we will die for them, again and again.

04. Love is no escuse. Like a mountain, a good man is visible from afar

 said the Buddha. What is Goodness? you already know. If Goodness is like a mountain sometimes it is equally hard to achieve and someone must first find the way. The master goes beyond the boundless land and nothing, neither men nor demons nor gods, nothing in all creation, can hold him. Monkey is magic, a god an immortal, but he is less than the Buddha in you!

05. Youth and love, sage or fool, whatever one says about them may be right. The world is a product of mind, and love and youth make their own reality.

06. You are your only master said the Buddha. To straighten out the crooked you must first do a more difficult thing, you must straighten yourself as even monkey learned.

07. Certainly all of us and everything is the eternal omnipotent

 Buddha.

08. Not everyone can say they are gods, but Buddha himself said everyone was Buddha if we can but realise it.

09. Change is the only certainty. Yin Ching lied to save her mother. She said you can't help what you are. But you can! you can choose. With a cold father and a mad mother Yin Ching chose goodness for hertself. The bUddha said: your work is to discover your work, then with all your heart to give yourself to it. No one purifies another.

10. The winner sows hatred because the loser must suffer. Give up winning and losing then find joy.

11. As there are questions which have no answers, so there are answers to questions that were never asked - opposites balance both are essential. Everything that ever was is essential to make what is.

12. Sometimes to make the stupid grow discipline is essential. The wrong in stealing something so useless as jewels is less that they belong to someone else and more that you offend against yourself by coveting them at all.

13. If life is a gift can it ever be right to refuse part of it? A few rare souls may transcend individual love and love everyone, no one is diminished by that. If Tripitaka has not yet reached this state, one day he may.

14. Evil destroys! it opposes even other evil. Evil must have good to feed upon. Goodness nourishes itself. When evil has conquererd the Good, evil dies. Then, the Good will grow again. In these truths is a hope for the world.

15. Grey hairs do not make a wise man. A man may waste a lifetime digging up a mountain in search of mythical crows eggs. A man may waste a lifetime growing rich or chasing power. What is a life that's not wasted? Perhaps one in which we learn, a little.