“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

~ Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.E.

[Read more Buddha quotes...]

That's like being an atheist :)

Depends on what your own reason and your own common sense says, Raj.

True. Isn't that a bit too vague statement though?

No, I think it's encouraging people to have the courage to listen to themselves.

Many people do not have that courage and look to someone else to tell them what to believe.

Got it now. Awesome :)

The key to that principle starts with knowing what your own reason is. which isn't easy and isn't practiced by a lot of people -- mindfulness - of the key tenets of Buddhism,

Christine, are we talking about personal motivation?

Or knowing yourself?

Or both?

Adam - you can't be personally motivated in healthy ways if you don't know yourself. So, it's both. The challenge for a lot of us is which of those comes first in our life experience.

by the way... sometimes i wish there was an IM feature here in addition to the email... for those moments when i was feeling chatty...well, maybe it's better that there isn't an IM feature... ;o)

We can always chat on Twitter, Christine.

Knowing yourself takes a long time, whereas personal motivation is something we have to use every day.