Those teachings of The Buddha such as The Four Noble Truths or the Noble Eightfold Path are timeless and reflect personal and spiritual development.

Many quotes that are handed down until today are both inspirational as well as reflecting deeper truth of reality. What can we learn, where can we be inspired from The Buddha today for everyday life and our own development?

I selected following quotations as both inspirational and helpful, regardless of where we are in personal development …

1. “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”

You become what you think about or in other words: what you focus on grows in your life and from what you take your focus away from diminishes. This is also the message of the law of attraction, recently very popular by the movie and book “The Secret “.

It means that the mind is directing our life in that way that we manifest the life around us by the thoughts and directions we take with our mind. Since everything we created around us is first created in the mind, it is the tool or the interface between our self and the material world.

Another quote of Buddha with a similar message here is “He is able who thinks he is able”. This also shows the creative power of the mind and if we are able to consciously use it in that way – avoiding negative thoughts and utilizing empowering thoughts – we use it in a supportive manner.

2. “All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?”

This is the core of personal development. It points towards the need to train and develop the mind and to free it from limits and negativity.

The other quote “The mind is the source of happiness and unhappiness.” makes the same point with the special notion of happiness. The mind used correctly – i.e. constructive, empowering, solution- and action-oriented, positive, truth-seeking – can create happiness. But used poorly – i.e. blaming, egocentric, negative, blinded by ambition or separation – it will create unhappiness for us. Training the mind is the key here.

The quote may also point to a transformation by awakening directly, where the mind becomes the servant of the self and not the creator of a self-image (the concept of the ego) as a replacement for the true self.

3. “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

This points to the abundant nature of reality. The abundance mentality says there is enough for everyone, we only have to realize and live by it. It is the opposite of a scarcity mentality, where you have the belief that you always have to fight for your part in a limited world.

4. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

5. “However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you If you do not act on upon them?”

Action is what counts. It means to be action-oriented and to actually do what we think, to prove what we believe by applying it in reality. Only if we “walk our talk” we are authentic and truthful to ourselves.

To apply yourself and your ideas in reality is like a proof-test for what we think is right and will work. If there is no action and therefore no testing in reality, the words or ideas themselves are of no real sustainable value.

Another quote for this message is “A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.”

6. “Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.”

7. “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

The so-called Inside-Out approach means to look within oneself to find the inspiration and power to act from this place. It means not to look to the outside world for liberation or happiness, but to take the responsibility for oneself and become that what we are seeking.

His second quote here “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” talks directly about this responsibility, response-ability we have inside.

8. “In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

Any perspective we have on anything is only a relative truth. There are always both (or more) sides of any story. An objective perspective or an absolute truth is very hard or maybe impossible to see. But to be aware of this and to be interested to see another perspective from another person can be very mind-opening and valuable.

The matter of perspective (also described in the 7 habits of highly effective people ) is a very powerful one and it is the core of most (if not all?) conflicts between people. One things one is right as long one stays in one’s own single perspective – needless to say, the other person has the same reality.

There is a similar quote by The Buddha that fits in here: “In seperateness lies the world’s great misery, in compassion lies the world’s true strength” which shows that if we become able to dissolve the separate perspective to a perspective of oneness with all other, we hold the key to end conflicts and to find solution and agreements suitable for everybody.

9. “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

This quote is perhaps the most difficult one to really understand. In the first place, it is not about the beautiful nature of the flower or beauty itself. What Buddha is talking about – in my humble opinion – is to see and get in touch with the life in a flower directly, without any interference by our mind by mental concepts and thoughts of the flower.

Eckhart Tolle in “A New Earth” talks about the flowering of human consciousness, maybe you want to take a look …

10. “The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”

If we are not authentic and truthful to ourselves, we build a wall around us that eventually we have to tear down again. It is then literally a resistance to the reality and our own nature where we can hide some time, but life has a way to show us our own faults in the end.

To be true to the best one knows means to come from our own best knowledge and not buy into something outside ourselves blindly, always asking: is this really true to what I know?

In resonance with this quote also is the final one by The Buddha:

The Mustard Museum

(That’s soap in a mustard bottle, which I thought was clever)Mt. Horeb, the town the Mustard Museum resides in, is also the home of trolls. You know, those little dolls with the neon hair that sticks straight up? Apparently they originated there and the residents are quite proud of it.

Anyway, the Mustard Museum made me wonder about what other strange museums are out there. I’m always up for detours on road trips. Below are a few that I found interesting – and one that I wouldn’t stop at if my life depended on it.

As you can tell by my Mustard Museum appreciation, I appreciate a museum with a sense of humor. That’s why, strange as it may seem, I would make a stop at the Museum of Funeral Customs. Its slogan is “Death is only the beginning” and the gift shop is where the fun is really at. But I’ll get to that. Among the interesting things you’ll find at the museum are a recreated 1920s embalming room, a recreated 1870 s funeral parlor, embalming equipment, a full-sized reproduction of Abraham Lincoln’s coffin, a scale-sized model of his tomb and railroad coach, and rare books on embalming dating as far back as the 16th century. The Lincoln stuff might seem a little random, but it makes sense – his tomb is in nearby Oak Ridge.

But the gift shop is where the fun comes in. Here you can purchase shirts that say “I Dig the Museum of Funeral Customs” or “Everybody’s Gotta Go Sometime”. Sweet tooth? Dig into a chocolate coffin. Coffin paperweights are also available. Makes me wonder what people at the office would say if you were using one of those to keep your files in order. (Photo by Wikipedia user Mycota)

The Pirate Soul Museum, Key West, Fla.

Pirate Soul was started by Pat Croce, the former president of the Philadelphia 76ers, Olympic commentator and writer. It boasts a pretty impressive collection of pirate memorabilia, and we’re not talking about Johnny Depp (although I would probably visit that museum too). Croce has managed to get his hands on Blackbeard’s dinner plate, a real Dutch East India Company cannon, the 1699 Journal of Captain Kidd’s Last Voyage, gold retrieved from Blackbeard’s warship and one of two authentic Jolly Roger flags left in the entire world. So next time you’re in Key West, tear yourself away from Fantasy Fest, Ernest Hemingway’s house and Sloppy Joe’s Bar and hit up Pirate Soul… arrrrrr!! (sorry, couldn’t resist)

I might be embarrassing myself by admitting this, but I do love Jack Daniels. So this museum would be right up my alley. It takes us through the history of whiskey from the Colonial days through the 1960s. Artifacts include Abraham Lincoln’s liquor license, prescriptions for the medical use of alcohol and an exhibit on George Washington, who was the federal union’s largest whiskey distiller after his Presidential terms were up.

The Oscar Getz Museum is just one of the stops on the American Whiskey Trail, which has stops all along the east coast and Kentucky.

“Art too bad to be ignored”. And with a tagline like that, how could you? This 400+ piece collection is located in the Dedham Community Theater. About 30-40 pieces are displayed at any one time.

The piece above is Lucy in the Field with Flowers and it is the art responsible for the birth of this museum. One of the founders of the museum spotted this lovely work in a trash pile on the streets of Boston and decided he had to have it. Actually, a lot of the work acquired by the Museum of Bad Art has been saved from the curb. Another popular scouting spot seems to be the Salvation Army. I can’t believe I was in Boston last month and I didn’t know this museum existed then.

I’m only a few hours away from the Spam Museum, so it’s kind of surprising I haven’t hit up this weird spot yet. At the museum, you can try your hand at packaging Spam, see how Spam was used during wars and check out old-school Spam advertising. The Web site also mentions a Spam Spa, but they’re kidding… I think. Of course, there’s all kinds of Spam memorabilia for you to buy as well. Spam earrings? They’ve got ‘em. Spam flip-flops? Got ‘em. Necktie? Yep. Lapel pin, mouse pad, three-legged pig figure, full-sized Spam costume? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

I can attest to this one. I lived in the Philly area for about a year and kept putting the Mütter Museum off. The weekend we found out we were moving again, we immediately hit up this Museum of medical oddities. It didn’t disappoint. There’s all kinds of bizarre stuff, from a tumor removed from Grover Cleveland’s jaw to a corpse that turned into soap to a plaster cast of Siamese twins. It’s really fascinating stuff. The museum itself is located in a really unassuming building of the College of Physicans of Philadelphia, but it’s definitely worth seeking out.

I have never found anything remotely funny about clowns. They scare me, and not in a good way. But if you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll find exhibits dedicated to Bozo, Emmett Kelly and Red Skelton, among others. Willard Scott gets a tribute because he played both Bozo and Ronald McDonald before moving on to the Today Show. You’ll also find out about the history of clowns and the different categories of clowns. If anyone has been there, let me know if you still have nightmares.

Jesus Christ didn’t need fancy churches, but thank goodness that some people didn’t listen too well and built magnificent buildings to glorify God. Today, there are thousands of churches: some small and simple, whereas others are humongous and ornately decorated.

Let’s take a look at some divinely designed churches around the world, both classic and modern in style:

Las Lajas Cathedral

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Las Lajas, or the Las Lajas Cathedral [wiki] in Colombia, was built in 1916 on a site where, according to local legend, the Virgin Mary appeared. The story goes like this: an Indian woman named María Mueses de Quiñones was carrying her deaf-mute daughter Rosa on her back near Las Lajas (“The Rocks”). Weary of the climb, the María sat down on a rock when Rosa spoke (for the first time) about an apparition in a cave.

Later on, a mysterious painting of the Virgin Mary carrying a baby was discovered on the wall of the cave. Supposedly, studies of the painting showed no proof of paint or pigments on the rock – instead, when a core sample was taken, it was found that the colors were impregnated in the rock itself to a depth of several feet.

Whether true or not, the legend spurred the building of a gothic church worthy of a fairy tale.

Sagrada Familia

The church’s design is rich with Christian symbolism, with façades featuring intricate details describing the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Perhaps the most awe inspiring is the eighteen towers representing the 12 Apostles, 4 Evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and a central tower – the tallest of them all – representing Christ.

The construction of the Sagrada Familia basilica started in 1882, directed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who devoted his life to it. When people said that the construction had taken a very long time, Gaudí replied that he was building the church for God, and that his client wasn’t in a hurry. He then became known as “God’s Architect.”

In 1926, Gaudí got run over by a street car. Because of his raggedy attire and empty pockets, no one wanted to take him to the hospital. Eventually, he was taken to a pauper’s hospital where no one recognized him until his friends found him and tried to move him to another hospital. Gaudí refused, saying that he belonged with the poor, and died a few days later.

Because Gaudí refused to work with blue prints, preferring to use his imagination and memory instead, construction of La Sagrada Familia was halted after his death. Part of the church was even burnt during the Spanish Civil War. Construction of La Sagrada Familia was restarted afterwards and continues until today.

St. Basil’s Cathedral

As its name implies, St. Basil’s Cathedral on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, is named after Saint Basil (who is also known as Basil Fool for Christ). The story goes that in the 1500s, an apprentice shoemaker/serf named Basil stole from the rich to give to the poor. He also went naked, weighed himself with chains, and rebuked Ivan the Terrible for not paying attention in church. Most of the time, admonishing anyone with name “the Terrible” wasn’t such a good idea, but apparently Ivan had a soft spot for the holy fool (as Basil was also known) and ordered a church to be built in his name after Basil died.

St. Basil’s Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church, sports a series of colorful bulbous domes that taper to a point, aptly named onion domes, that are part of Moscow’s Kremlin skyline (although the church is actually not part of the Kremlin).

Oh, and Ivan the Terrible lived up to his name after he supposedly blinded the architect who built the church so he would not be able to design something as beautiful afterwards.

Hagia SophiaTechnically, Hagia Sophia (Greek for the Church of the Holy Wisdom of God) is no longer a church, it is now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. It began its life as an early Christian church, then rebuilt as the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople, then a mosque when the city fell to the Turks in 1453 before it finally became a museum.

Hagia Sophia as we know it today was completed by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in 537. When completed, the temple was so large and richly decorated that Justinian proclaimed “Solomon, I have surpassed thee!”. It remained the largest church for one thousand years after it was completed.

Hagia Sophia is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture, with a large central dome and interior intricately decorated with mosaics, marbles, and stone inlays. The dome, often referred to as the vault of heaven, was a new architectural feature at the time, necessitating the invention of a new pillar support system.

Today, the restoration of Hagia Sophia is a delicate balance of restoring Christian iconographic mosaics under historic I
slamic art, which would have to be destroyed to reveal the work underneath.

St. Peter’s Basilica

The largest religious building in the world, not to mention the center of Christianity, I suppose, belongs in this list. St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City is built over the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle, and is the largest church in the tiny country. It is truly immense: the church covers an area of 5.7 acres (2.3 ha) and has a capacity of over 60,000 people.

Before St. Peter’s Basilica as we know it was built, there was already a church there built in 324 C.E. by Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome. That church lasted for about 1,200 years until the crumbling structure was torn down to build the modern-day basilica. St. Peter’s Basilica was built by the who’s who of the Renaissance era: Michelangelo designed the dome, Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the main square, and Donato Bramante was the first architect of the church

Notre Dame de Paris or simply Notre Dame is the quintessential example of Gothic Architecture. Construction of the church started in 1163, when Bishop Maurice de Sully decided to build a cathedral befitting his status as the bishop of Paris. Notre Dame was completed some 200 years later – one of the first European cathedrals to be built on a truly monumental scale.

A particularly striking feature of Notre Dame are its Rose Windows – massive (at the time they were the largest windows in the world) circular stained glass windows that depict scenes from the bible.

Legend has it that when Notre Dame’s bell “Emmanuel” was recast in the 1600s, women threw their gold jewelry into the molten metal to give the bell its unique ring.

At the end of the 18th century, during the French Revolution, the church was ransacked, its treasures plundered and many of the statues of saints were beheaded. Notre Dame was dedicated to the Cult of Reason and then the Cult of the Supreme Being – for a while, it was even used as a barn!

In 1831, Notre Dame was made famous by Victor Hugo, who wrote “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” about Quasimodo, a hunchback bell ringer who fell in love with the Gypsy Esmeralda. The popularity of the book spurred a gothic revival in France and helped the restoration of the cathedral back to its original splendor

Hallgrímskirkja
Hallgrímskirkja (Icelandic for the Church of Hallgrímur), the tallest building in Iceland, is named after Hallgrímur Pétursson, a 17th century poet and clergyman.

The church’s unusual design (some had likened it to a rude hand gesture) is supposed to represent volcanic columns rising between the steeple tower – a reference to Iceland’s many volcanoes.

The iconic building looks like it belongs in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Indeed, many aspects of Tolkien’s work was inspired by Norse mythologies and many of the fictional names in the book are Norse in origin, although there is no reference that Hallgrímskirkja served as a model any of the towers in the book.

Jubilee ChurchYou can’t miss the distinctive curved walls of The Jubilee Church in Tor Tre Teste, Rome. It was designed in 1996 by architect Richard Meier, who said that the modern-styled church is the “the crown jewel of the Vicariato di Roma’s (Archdiocese of Rome) Millennium project.” And right he was!
The curved walls not only serve the engineering purpose of minimizing thermal peak loads in the interior space, they are also a religious methapor:

Three circles of equal radius generate the profiles of the three shells that, together with the spine-wall, make up the body of the nave. While the three shells discretely imply the Holy Trinity, the reflecting pool symbolizes water in the ritual of Baptism.

Notre Dame du Haut

If there was a church modeled after Elvis’ hair, Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut is it. The pilgrimate chapel is located in Ronchamp, France. Indeed, it is more famous than the little town that most people simply call the structure itself Ronchamp.

The cleverness of unusual design of the billowing concrete roo
f is apparent when it rains: water pours off the slanted roof onto a fountain, creating a dramatic waterfall.

Although quite different from his usual design, Notre Dame du Haut is considered one of Le Corbusier’s finest work.

The Crystal CathedralThe Crystal Cathedral is neither made of crystal nor is it a cathedral. Nevertheless, the Christian megachurch in the city of Garden Grove, California, is one amazing church.

Built by “The Hour of Power” televangelist Rev. Dr. Robert H. Schuller (who started out with a “drive-in” church located in an actual, old drive-in movie theater!) and his wife Arvella, and designed by architect Philip Johnson, the church is made almost entirely out glass with a web-like framework of steel.

From the outside, the Crystal Cathedral is shaped like a giant four-pointed crystal star, with the main “cathedral” rising 12 stories above the ground, featuring a mirror-like exterior composed of some 12,000 panes of glass. The view is even more amazing from the interior, where the transparent glass lets in the surrounding view, sunlight and the sky.

The Crystal Cathedral also has one of the largest pipe organs in the world, called the Hazel Wright Pipe Organ, with 5 consoles controlling 270 ranks, 31 digital ranks, and more than 16,000 pipes!

Darth Vader GrotesqueWaaaay up near the top of the tower of the Washington National Cathedral, there is a carved grotesque (a structural element to deflect rainwater from the building, similar to a gargoyle) shaped like … Darth Vader!

How did the Star Wars villain get there? Turns out in the 1980s, the Cathedral sponsored a sculpture design competition for children. Four winning designs were chosen: a raccoon, a girl with pigtails and braces, a man with large teeth and an umbrella, and lastly, Darth Vader.

If you must know, the Darth sculpture was proposed by Christopher Rader of Kearney, Nebraska.

The Abston Church of Christ

Computer programmer Amy Hughes built a fantastically detailed 7 feet by 5 1/2 feet by 30 inches miniature church out of LEGO, called the Abston Church of Christ.

Why Abston? That’s because LEGO is made out of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). It took her over a year to build the church.

The Dog Chapel

After his dogs (and loving wife!) helped him recover from a serious illness that doctors thought would kill him, artist Stephen Huneck decided to build a chapel in honor man’s best friend.

Huneck built the dog chapel on his mountain-top farm in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Inside, there are four pews with dog sculptures, a fantastic dog stained-glass window and other interesting dog-themed arts.

Let me be the first to acknowledge that this list is far from complete. There are hundreds more of magnificent churches around the world. If your favorite church is not included, it is not a slight .

Death as a sentient entity is a concept that has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In Western cultures, death is often given the name the “Grim Reaper”, and shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe, and wearing a midnight black gown, robe or cloak with a hood, or sometimes, a white burial shroud. Usually when portrayed in the black-hooded gown, only his eyes can be seen.