Best 3315 quotes in «buddhism quotes» category

We break off obsession by laughing at ourselves, by learning to be funny, by just seeing the joy in life and by having a terrific love for this world.

We can bring our spiritual practice into the streets, into our communities, when we see each realm as a temple, as a place to discover that which is sacred.

We can always begin again.

We connect the dots in the drawing with our mind. We give them a meaning, a figurative sense, which is self-reflexive in that it creates us, because we are the experiencer of the moment.

We cut up time and space and mind and place and being and non-being. We create a world of ideas. This is duality, pairs of apparent opposites.

We don't always walk from one state of mind into another. We might just oscillate back and forth for a whole lifetime within the polarities of a certain state of mind.

We don't live forever. We have a limited energy. You have to determine those things that you direct your energy towards, otherwise you get yourself in too many places and nothing succeeds.

We each need to make our lion's roar - to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears - to declare our right to awaken.

We feel crowded by other people; we feel crowded by social rules; we feel crowded by ourselves, mainly.

We go outside, on a clear, cold night. We see millions of stars all over the place, bright and beautiful, each one shining forever. Each moment is forever, it's shining in each moment forever.

We get so involved with the latest craze or having the latest car or the most high-powered house that we lose touch with that which makes us happy - what makes us happy are quiet states of mind.

We have a body, but we also have a subtle body, a body of energy that looks like our physical body. The subtle physical body is made up of energy, of light that vibrates at a very high rate so the human physical eyes can't see it.

We have a spiritual community but everyone lives where they want to. I recommend certain areas to live because of their power.

We have been teaching together [with Kaz] now for more than twenty years in sesshins, in international travel programs in Japan and China, as well as intensives on Buddhism that focus on the work of Zen Master Dogen and Ryokan, as well as on many of the Mahayana sutras.

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.

We have this recurring dream that we're human beings, that we have bodies, that we're in time and space, that there is birth and death. To awaken from the dream of life is to be conscious of eternity.

We have the possibility of being far removed from what we are, of beginning to taste it and feel it. That is direct knowledge. That is truth. Anything else is mere words.

We interact with others and we decide who we are. Are we reclusive? Are we outgoing? Are we successful? Are we going to be a failure? We cast a role for ourselves and we step into it.

We learn to avoid blocking others, interfering with others, because that will decrease our happiness, slow our vibratory rate and generally bring us down and make us miserable.

We learn by doing, not just by thinking. So I feel like beyond Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Judaism, or Christianity we need today to think about a global spirituality. We need to make it very personal and transformative for one self, and each other, together for those who are interested.

We live in a sensual world, and at the same time we live beyond it - billions of dimensions that are nonphysical, we experience them when we stop thought.

We live in a competitive society. To pretend that it is not there is ridiculous. That is how the whole planet is set up. If you are not competitive, you do not succeed, you do not survive.

We live in a world filled with automobiles, highways of the mind, urban disasters, billions of people living on a tiny planet, sharing the diminishing natural resources of the earth.

We live inside our mind. That's all there is. Everything that you experience is not external, it's internal. All your experiences are predicated upon your awareness field.

We live in a world where no one believes. Enlightenment and knowledge are laughed at. Those who seek and teach the mysteries are scorned and often persecuted. Welcome to the planet earth: environment hostile.

We live in a world where money is necessary. You can't just go out and roam the forest and the cities, at least in America.

We live inside too much. We live inside and we have square thoughts and square ideas because we live in square houses. Our lives are colored by our environments. Our attention fields are colored by it.

We live in the dark ages. If an intelligent society can destroy itself in large numbers and places the largest amount of revenues in instruments of destruction, it is certainly not an evolved society or an intelligent society.

Well Buddhism, 'shmoodism', I didn't go to India looking for Buddhism. I was looking for truth, or God, or a better way of life or happiness, fulfillment, meaning, purpose. And a way to become peace in the world and not just fight for peace, as we had in the 60's.

We live in a world of wars and wars alarms, of famines, of oppression. While there are many wonderful people in this world, you'll notice one curious fact about them, they all suffer, they all die, and sometimes those who are the nicest seem to suffer the most.

Well, what is God, then? God is that which watches. God is neither masculine nor feminine, although God can assume any form. God is that eternal reality that is in everything.

We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it?

We must be able to deal with ridicule and scorn, which it always seems that Buddhists receive. But we feel that it doesn't matter. God's laughing at us; God's laughing at God. We can take a joke too. We're pretty funny.

We may have created this projection of what God should be, as this judge or test, but the fact is, the only way we know about God is by knowing ourselves in some way. So God must be in ourselves-you can't deny that. If you say that God is somewhere else, which is what a lot of religions say, I just can't deal with it. I guess it's the difference between Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism, or something.

We must control the tendencies within our being that are destructive, when we want to slam somebody else, hurt them, injure them, or push them out of the way. A reverence for life needs to be developed, in which all things are sacred.

We must especially learn the art of directing mindfulness into the closed areas of our life.

We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?

We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training, in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing.

We need a new imprinting. We need the imprinting of enlightenment, of freedom. That comes through our association with a higher being. So classically what occurs is that one meets a teacher.

We play in the jungle gym of sexuality until our spirit takes us out into a clear field where we can see the stars, the ten thousand radiances of enlightenment. One of those radiances is the dance of sexuality.

We perceive the solidification as the world around us, which appears to be relatively solid. But that solidification is just really a reflection of the solidification of one's sense of self.

We're at the end of the cycle. You've all known it since childhood. In the Hindu division of the ages, this is the Kali Yuga, the dark age. At the end of a cycle, Vishnu takes incarnation as a person. Vishnu is that aspect of God that preserves and protects life. When Vishnu leaves, Shiva comes.

We prefer humility in others - and if we prefer it in others - we can soon prefer it in ourselves.

We're blind, deaf and dumb. It is only that Self, which is our life force that makes who and what we are. The realization of that is self-realization.

We see in meditation that our experiences are endless, that we are endless, eternal spirit, not as a thought or an idea you read in a book. You have the experience yourself, every day.

We seek to unify ourselves with the endless light of truth, of God, of nirvana. We recognize the infinite playing through all beings and all forms, but we only have to concern ourselves with ourselves.

We see very few people who are satisfied. They say that the only ones who are really happy are the enlightened or the fools.

We remember a few people who've been enlightened. We build churches and edifices in their name. But few people, if any, feel that they could ever be like that; and if that's how they feel - that's how it will be.

We see an enlightened teacher to gain a sense of humor, to learn balance and proportion and of course to learn wisdom.

We seek absolute neutrality in Buddhism. We don't want to be drawn into anything in particular. We don't want to be pushed away from anything in particular.