Best 1132 quotes in «buddhist quotes» category

Emotional states are fairly quick bursts of neuronal gossip. Traits, on the other hand, are more like the neuronal equivalent of committed relationships.

Emotional control is essential for attaining higher levels of mind. The thing that the teacher looks for in a student is the degree of self-control, not coldness that someone has.

Encountering sufferings will definitely contribute to the elevation of your spiritual practice, provided you are able to transform calamity and misfortune into the path.

Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair.

Envy and jealousy are very harmful because you are never ever satisfied with what you have and you never reflect on what you have. You constantly live your life on what you do not have.

Establish your mind as necessary for knowledge and remembrance. Establish a mind free of grasping to anything.

Etiquette is an intelligent way to live. There are certain ways of living you will learn being around advanced students and mostly your teacher. These are methods that have been handed down for thousands of years.

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

Even if a fool lived with a wise man all his life, he would still not recognise the truth, like a wooden spoon cannot recognise the flavour of the soup.

Even if only a few individuals try to create mental peace and happiness within themselves, and act responsibly and kind-heartedly towards others, they will have a positive influence in their community.

Even if one isn't a committed Buddhist, it just helps us become better human beings.

Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.

Even though it's not perceivable to the mind or senses, it's there and enlightenment is absolute freedom.

Every civilization: Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, all of them understood that LEARNING was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING, LEARNING was NOT to MAKE MORE MONEY; It was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING.

Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.

Every morning when I wake up, I dedicate myself to helping others to find peace of mind. Then, when I meet people, I think of them as long term friends; I don't regard others as strangers.

Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did we would do things differently. Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, "Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?

Everything changes, nothing remains without change.

Feeling sorry for yourself for one single minute is okay, but spend all your remaining time on solutions.

Everything that I teach as an enlightened Buddhist teacher is towards directing an individual to happiness, a balanced wisdom and knowledge that is sometimes just bubbly and euphoric or just very still and profound.

Faithfulness, faith, all of the words that so few people live, you must live. Only then are you worthy of immortality.

Farmed animals are not future Buddhas donating their flesh out of compassion for those of us who have developed a craving for it. They are victims of our greed from whom we steal the most precious gift any of us has: life.

Fans of different races, castes, ethnicities and religions who together celebrate their diversity by uniting for a common national cause. They are my foundation, they are my family. I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan

Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

Few are those among men who have crossed over to the other shore, while the rest of mankind runs along the bank. However those who follow the principles of the well-taught Truth will cross over to the other shore, out of the dominion of Death, hard though it is to escape.

Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good.

Find yourself. Be with yourself. Fail and then achieve.

For those who are ready the door to the deathless state is open. If you have ears give up the conditions that bind you and enter in.

First one must change. I first watch myself, check myself, then expect changes from others.

Flaky devotionalism, bowing and scraping and sucking up to the teacher is very phony. It is counterproductive to enlightenment and spiritual development. What is necessary is mutual respect.

Foolish, ignorant people indulge in careless lives, whereas a clever man guards his attention as his most precious possession.

Fools wait for a lucky day, but everyday is a lucky day for an industrious man.

For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.

For innumerable reasons, Mahamati, the Bodhisattva, whose nature is compassion, is not to eat any meat.

For me, a male image that I'm really moved by is somewhere between of Oscar Wilde type of a male: the fop, the long hair, the suits, too witty for his own good, incredibly smart, scathingly funny - all that. But then my other ideal is more like the Buddhist monk - the shaved head, actually someone who sublimates their sexuality.

Franz Kafka once said that happiness consists in having an ideal and not progressing towards it. If you did progress towards it, you'd be unhappy because you'd never be able to reach it. You can incrementally improve your life, but you never quite experience the glamour. You never quite get to your utopia, or whatever it is. And once you realize that you can be quite Buddhist about it, and say, "Well, okay, I'm just going to keep detached from it all.

Freedom is the real source of human happiness and creativity. Irrespective of whether you are a believer or nonbeliever, whether Buddhist, Christian, or Jew, the important thing is to be a good human being.

Firstly, as a Buddhist monk, I hold that violence is not good. Secondly, I am a firm believer in the Gandian ethic of passive resistance. And thirdly, in reality, violence is not our strength.

Follow not after the vain, understand the ills of sense pleasures. One who is vigilant and meditative, obtains deep joy.

Follow the three R's: - Respect for self. - Respect for others. - Responsibility for all your actions.

For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahamati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh.

For one who is a learner and who has not yet come to master their mind, but who dwells aspiring for peace from that which binds, making it a matter concerning himself, I know of no other thing as helpful as giving close attention to the mind.

Freed by full realization and at peace, the mind of such a man is at peace, and his speech and action peaceful. He has no need for faith who knows the uncreated, who has cut off rebirth, who has destroyed any opportunity for good or evil, and cast away all desire. He is indeed the ultimate man.

Friendship is the only cure for hatred, the only guarantee of peace.

From a Buddhist point of view, emotions are not real. As an actor, I manufacture emotions. They're a sense of play. But real life is the same. We're just not aware of it.

From my own personal encounters and studies with both Tantric and Zen Buddhist monks, I have found them to be humorous, warm, charming, and compassionate.

From craving is born grief, from craving is born fear. For one freed from craving there's no grief- so how fear?

From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life - if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters.

From a Buddhist perspective, it is incorrect to always assume that we know what is best.

From a Buddhist point of view, the actual experience of death is very important. Although how or where we will be reborn is generally dependent on karmic forces, our state of mind at the time of death can influence the quality of our next rebirth. So at the moment of death, in spite of the great variety of karmas we have accumulated, if we make a special effort to generate a virtuous state of mind, we may strengthen and activate a virtuous karma, and so bring about a happy rebirth.