Best 1132 quotes in «buddhist quotes» category

It came to me that I should teach this truth for it is real happiness and joy. The cessation of suffering is possible.

It has been my experience as a teacher over the years and incarnations that what really counts are not techniques. What really counts is spirit, love. What really counts is a sense of propriety and dedication.

I think a lot of people trying to follow Buddhism these days are getting confused about sex and they don't understand what's going on. They've been exposed to a contemporary Christian idea that sex itself is evil and bad, which I'm not so sure was Jesus' idea. For me, the Buddhist approach isn't that sex itself is evil or bad but that sex is neutral. It's the way you do it that can problematic.

I think China's view of freedom has to do with material wealth and modernity, and the Dalai's Lama view of freedom is liberation in the Buddhist sense, which is freedom from ignorance and freedom from suffering.

I think East Asian countries, I think they're very fortunate to have Buddhism survive as a strong influence because right from the time when Buddha himself, 2,500 years ago, made the point about the importance of education, and the word "Buddha" also means enlighten[ed] or educated. So all the Buddhist countries, not only Japan and Korea and China and Hong Kong and Thailand but also even Burma and Sri Lanka, had a higher level of education.

I think Gore does have to worry. He is tied to Bill Clinton. We know that there were telephone calls that he made from his office. We know that there were visits to the Buddhist temple.

I think it's more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn't really work in a way where there's a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it's a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you're following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart.

I think that young people are going to continue on with the work on pluralism for two reasons, really. One is because it's the reality of the world that they live in, and I think young people from different backgrounds are asking themselves, what does it mean for me to be a Buddhist and friends with a Baptist?

I think it would help if, when people are first ordained, they underwent a period of strict training, maybe for several years. During this time they would learn basic Buddhist philosophy in a monastic community where all the teaching and training was directed toward living a perfect monastic life and wasn't channeled out to fit into the lay life - which is what usually happens in Dharma centers where the teachings are directed toward how to live the Dharma in your everyday life.

I think my Buddhist practice has a profound influence on my life and encompasses my creative projects

I think that whatever we encounter in life, we want to encourage a balance between the mind and the soul...and that is to consider about 50% data from the mind and 50% data from the soul. This is what Buddhists call, "the middle way.

I think the Buddhist ethic is clearer and more systematic in some ways. The Buddhist notion is that our chief problems are greed, hatred and delusion. Well, delusion is not much mentioned in the Christian tradition. In the West, we have underplayed the idea that our moral and spiritual troubles have to do with a lack of clarity or insight because original sin has dominated so much of our thinking. We tend to think that our troubles are caused by insufficient will power.

I think more like a quantum Buddhist, in that there is a universal proto-conscious mind which we access, and can influence us. But it actually exists at the funda-mental level of the universe, at the Planck scale.

I think there's a lot of great beliefs in the Buddhist religion, I think there's a lot of great beliefs in the Christian religion, I think there's a lot of great beliefs in no religion. It just depends on how you feel on the inside.

I think what happens in a religious life is that we have those experiences of affirmation and that one starts to live a Christian life or a Jewish life or a Muslim life or a Buddhist life, by affirming that affirmation each day. Each day you say 'Yes' to that Yes. So the life of being a Christian for example, is always a life of double affirmation, that you each day say 'Yes' to those counter-experiences of saying 'Yes', even when you're not experiencing them at that time, you're remaining loyal to that experience.

It is a feeble compassion that pulls up short where self-interest begins.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.

It is desirable for Buddhist affairs to help civilian rule.

It is great that even before we become enlightened or generate any lam-rim realizations we are able to offer incredible benefit to others. The person who does this is a very fortunate person and should rejoice very often.

It is good to remember that the goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. In the same vein, my teachings are not meant to acquire followers or imitators, but to awaken beings to eternal truth and thus to awakened life and living.

It is ironic that Samuel Berger learned of this espionage in exactly the same month that Al Gore was attending his now famous fund-raiser with Buddhist nuns in Southern California.

It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place, and the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize that is called "egolessness.

It is ignorance that smothers, and it is carelessness that makes it invisible. The hunger of craving pollutes the world, and the pain of suffering causes the greatest fear.

It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.

It is not a Buddhist approach to say that if everyone practiced Buddhism, the world would be a better place. Wars and oppression begin from this kind of thinking.

It is our minds that create this world.

It may seem unrealistic to think we can ever become free from hatred, but Buddhists have systematic methods for gradually developing a tolerance powerful enough to give such freedom.

It is the Buddhist belief that all things, experiences and people are inherently empty. That is a simple way of saying that all physical and nonphysical things have another side.

It is the Buddhist belief that at every moment the universe is not only dying but being reborn.

It is very important to always hold the thought of an enlightened teacher in your mind in a very positive way. When you direct negative energy towards someone who is powerful, it has a terrible bounce-back effect.

It takes tremendous self-restraint on the part of the student not to want to monopolize the teacher's attention, to live a very controlled life and a happy life, and of course, be dedicated to the cause.

It's considered very, very bad karma, if I can cut to the chase, to take power from a teacher and not use it for something very positive.

It's necessary to respect all other ways and other teachings on the subject because even though they may not make a lot of sense to us, they might to someone else. Who are we to say?

It's probably even the case that if you stoked up some Buddhist monks with tons of testosterone, they'd become wildly competitive as to who can do the most acts of random kindness.

It was entirely due to my mother [a devout Buddhist] and her kindness and perseverance that the family was saved from utter ruin. For a period of 17 years--from the age of 9 until I was 25 years old--my mother never spent a day free from domestic difficulties.

I've always been fond of the idea expressed in Buddhist art, that there are certain objects that, just by seeing them, can plant a seed for liberation in the individual. That class of objects is called "liberation through seeing." Certain Buddha images are like that, but if it were possible, I would like to find contemporary non-traditional sacred images. Maybe it sounds pretentious, but most spiritual paths point to the possibility that we all can access the deep, absolute dimensions of reality.

I used a lot of pancake makeup and a prayer, and a Buddhist chant.

I used to live in Buddhist monasteries and I finally had to leave them because they were just too cluttered for me. They were cluttered up with many thoughts about Buddhism.

Just as one can make a lot of garlands from a heap of flowers, so man, subject to birth and death as he is, should make himself a lot of good karma.

I've noticed that the more flooding there is, the more bullshit gets talked. I mean it was very noticeable in the Asian tsumai. It happened around Christmas-New Year. The Muslims of Sri Lanka said 'We knew this would happen because the Christians were using alcohol for their Christmas celebrations.' The Buddhists said 'We knew this would happen because of the horrible Muslim slaughter practices.' It's amazing to see how apocalypse or catastrophe makes people behave primitively.

I want to love all the children of God - Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist - everyone. I want to love gay Christians and straight Christians.

I was always searching. I became a Buddhist in my twenties when I came to Los Angeles. I met a group of people who I really loved.

I was exposed to a mix of cultures, lots of different religions and beliefs. I was a spiritual kid and went to Indian powwows and Buddhist temples. But over a period of time, with reading and thinking, I started to feel it was all so absurd: The whole idea of life after death is ridiculous.

I will not look at another's bowl intent on finding fault: a training to be observed.

Journey over, sorrowless, freed in every way, and with all bonds broken - for such a man there is no more distress.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Ju jitsu is very Buddhist. All that we fear we hold close to ourselves to survive. So if you're drowning and you see a corpse floating by, hang on to it because it will rescue you.

Just as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame.

Just as the highest and the lowest notes are equally inaudible, so perhaps, is the greatest sense and the greatest nonsense equally unintelligible.

Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching and discipline has one taste, the taste of liberation.