Best 1132 quotes in «buddhist quotes» category

To know what is right and wrong in god-centered religions, all that is needed is to do as you are told. In a human-centered religion like Buddhism, to know what is right and wrong, you have to develop a deep self-awareness and self-understanding.

Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days' worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

War can condition a person to be resilient, tolerant, dependable, strong, and capable of so much more than one who had experienced nothing of it; it can bring out the very best in us, but also the very worst. Where is it, I ask, the proper conduit through which a soldier should be raised from whence they would become an upstanding citizen of the world, instead of a single country?

According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the "quivering of the pure heart" when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life.

Where now and here meet, I is nowhere.

A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that's to find the truth each day in every part of their life.

We walk on frosted ground praising chrysanthemums bordering fields; sit on the edge of the woods waiting for the moon to rise. Not having to be alone is happiness; we do not talk of failure or success.

When you begin to relinquish your ego, you will no longer feel compelled to prove to people how busy you are in an attempt to validate your sense of worth.

A Buddhist is working not just to get paid, but working to advance spiritually. You shouldn't create a syntactical break in your mind between your career and your religious practice.

According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.

According to Zen Buddhist cosmology there are ten thousand different states of mind to view and understand life through.

Accustomed long to contemplating love and compassion I have forgotten all difference between myself and others

All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’—they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.

A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied immediately another comes. In the interval which separates two desires a perfect calm reigns in the mind. It is at this moment freed from all thought, love or hate. Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves.

Advanced Buddhist Yoga is the art of altering your karmic patterns.

Aesthetics is not an end in itself. But in our culture, which is becoming more multi-sensory and less respectful of God, we have a responsibility to pay attention to the design of the space where we assemble regularly. In the emerging culture, darkness represents spirituality. We see this in Buddhist temples, as well as Catholic and Orthodox churches. Darkness communicates that something serious is happening.

A fool thinks it like honey so long as the bad deed does not bear fruit, but when it does bear fruit he experiences suffering.

A fool who recognises his own ignorance is thereby in fact a wise man, but a fool who considers himself wise - that is what one really calls a fool.

After a few years of meditation practice we can even learn how to occasionally ignore ourselves. And what relief that can be!

After much seeking for truth and knowledge the profoundness of reality came to me with a clarity never before known.

Alan Watts, the Buddhist scholar, proposed the existence of a mental faculty he called forgettory, which is the flip side of memory. There are times, Watts maintained, when we need to forget things, to let them slip away into the unremembered past.

All of you knowing now, Tthat the Buddhas, the Teachers of the Ages, In accord with what is peculiarly appropriate, have recourse to expedient devices, Need have no more doubts or uncertainties. Your hearts shall give rise to great joy, Since you know that you yourselves Shall become Buddhas.

All philosophies are mental fabrications. There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things.

All things are spiritual. It doesn't matter what you do or who you are or what kind of blue jeans you wear, or whether you wear an ochre robe or whether you're sober or asleep or dreaming. It's all the same.

All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.

All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow; acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births in death. Knowing this, one should, from the very first, renounce acquisitions and storing-up, and building, and meeting; and, faithful to the commands of an eminent Guru, set about realizing the Truth. That alone is the best of religious observances.

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.

After 48 years, I have said nothing.

A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit.

All beings tremble before violence. All love life. All fear death. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?

All rising to great places is by a winding stair.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought; what we think we become.

A lot of the powerful religious leaders, from Jesus to Buddha to Tibetan monks, they're really talking about the same things: love and acceptable, and the value of friendship, and respecting yourself so you can respect others.

Although I'm not Christian, I was raised Christian. I'm an atheist, with a slight Buddhist leaning. I've got a very strong sense of morality - it's just a different morality than the loud voices of the Christian morality.... I can't tell you how many films I've turned down because there was an absence of morality. And I don't mean that from any sort of Judeo-Christian-Muslim point of view. I'm not saying they're wrong and can't be made. But, fundamentally, I'm such a humanist that I can't bear to make films that make us feel humanity is more dark than it is light.

Although you can find certain differences among the Buddhist philosophical schools about how the universe came into being, the basic common question addressed is how the two fundamental principles-external matter and internal mind or consciousness-although distinct, affect one another. External causes and conditions are responsible for certain of our experiences of happiness and suffering. Yet we find that it is principally our own feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, that really determine whether we are going to suffer or be happy.

Always be mindful of the kindness and not the faults of others

A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

Although I'm not Christian, I was raised Christian. I'm an atheist, with a slight Buddhist leaning. I've got a very strong sense of morality.

Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system administration.

A man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Only then should he instruct others.

And he who has considered all the contrasts on this earth, and is no more disturbed by anything whatever in the world, the Peaceful One, freed from rage, from sorrow, and from longing, he has passed beyond birth and decay.

An affectionate disposition not only makes the mind more peaceful and calm, but it affects our body in a positive way too. On the other hand, hatred, jealousy and fear upset our peace of mind, make us agitated and affect our body adversely. Even our body needs peace of mind and is not suited to agitation. This shows that an appreciation for peace of mind is in our blood.

And finally, be assured that Zen asks nothing even as it promises nothing. One can be a Protestant Zen Buddhist, a Catholic Zen Buddhist or a Jewish Zen Buddhist. Zen is a quiet thing. It listens.

And for a disciple thus freed, in whose heart dwells peace, there is nothing to be added to what has been done, and naught more remains for him to do. Just as a rock of one solid mass remains unshaken by the wind, even so, neither forms, nor sounds, nor odors, nor tastes, nor contacts of any kind, neither the desired, nor the undesired, can cause such an one to waver. Steadfast is his mind, gained is deliverance.

An evil deed, like fresh milk, does not go bad suddenly. Smouldering, like fire covered by ashes, the evil deed follows the fool.

An enlightened teacher simply expresses enlightenment in their life by living. It is the student's job to gain the teachings. The teacher's job is just to be perfectly enlightened.

Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.

Another of the things I started to do during this time was what Buddhists normally call "meditation" or, in Christian terms, "contemplative prayer". It began to supersede deipnosophy as my favorite hobby.