“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”

This is one I came across on Google+ last night, and it immediately struck me as suspect:

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”

You’ll find this on ThinkExist and a whole bunch of other quotes sites.

It’s another quote that’s been taken from a translation of a Japanese book called “The Teaching of Buddha,” by the Bukkyõ Dendõ Kyõkai organization. It’s a Buddhist version of the Gideon Bible, and is put in hotel rooms in order to spread the word. The quote is from a passage interpreting the Buddha’s teaching and not quoting him. What I’d imagine happens is that the quote gets posted with the attribution “The Teaching of Buddha” and then someone thinks the quote is, verbatim, the teaching of the Buddha. And then it’s attributed as being the word of the Buddha.

There are things that the Buddha said that are along these lines, about not clinging to the past, future, or present. And he did sometimes talk about health. But I’m pretty sure he never bundled all these elements together into one neat quote. The phrasing is just not right for this to be something from the Pali canon…

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