Great Throughts Treasury
This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Franz Metcalf
American Buddhist Scholar, Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, Author of "What Would Buddha Do?" and "Buddha in Your Backpack"
"As Siddhartha Gautama might tell you, we've got to keep changing. Even the deepest pool stagnates without action."
"Love confronts hate in the one way hate cannot comprehend, with something beyond itself - with compassion. Hate cannot go beyond itself. It draws its strength from the self's defense of self. Love lives to go beyond itself, drawing strength from that very act. Love can thus comprehend hate, integrating it into something larger. Slowly, hate is defeated as a grain of salt dissolves into the sweetness of a pond."
"What we gain without effort does not satisfy like what comes through the sweat of our brow or the work of self-transformation. No berries taste as sweet as those we pick. No insight changes us as deeply as what we discover ourselves. Prayer might help, but walking the endless path of practice is the only way to a deep reward. Sometimes just the path is reward enough."
"Learn from your critics. Sometimes they are your best spiritual teachers."
"Look upon one who tells you your faults as giving you a hidden treasure, as a wise person who shows you the dangers of life. Follow that person: if you do, you will see good and not evil."