Buddha Quotes

The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.

The Buddha’s criteria for Wise Speech include—in addition to the obvious expectation that speech be truthful— that it be timely, gentle, motivated by kindness, and helpful.

Sylvia Boorstein

To each his own. A billion Buddhas. A billion streams of wisdom. All smiling in their anguish.

In Buddha’s opinion, to train in staying open and curious—to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs—is the best use of our human lives.

In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha.

The next-to-last sentence that the Buddha is reported to have spoken as he was dying, before his final sentence of encouragement to his community, was “Transient are all conditioned things.

Sylvia Boorstein

Built on the foundation of concentration is the third aspect of the Buddha’s path of awakening: clarity of vision and the development of wisdom.

The bad things, don't do them.The good things, try to do them.Try to purify, subdue your own mind.That is the teaching of all buddhas.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The Buddha referred to married people as “householders.” He even gave clear instructions as to how one should be a good householder: Be nice to your spouse, be honest, be faithful, give alms to the poor, buy some insurance against fire and flood . . . I’m dead serious: The Buddha literally advised married couples to buy property insurance.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Seeking nothing, emulating nothing, breathing gently, he moved in an atmosphere of imperishable calm, impresihable light, inviolable peace.

Dear friends, do you know that you are lucky people? You don't have any cows to lose.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Fat Charlie went back to his hotel room, the colour of underwater, where his lime sat, like a small green Buddha, on the countertop."You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.

Thoughts of some special people are like the stairs, they take you up to the upstairs floors; some are like the wings, they take you up to the skies and some are like the light itself, they take you right to the stars and the beyond! And such are the thoughts of Buddha!

Mehmet Murat ildan

One particular aspect of Siddhartha’s revelation of the outside world has always struck me. Quite possibly he lived his first thirty years without any knowledge of number. How must he have felt, then, to see crowds of people mingling in the streets? Before that day he would not have believed that so many people existed in all the world. And what wonder it must have been to discover flocks of birds, and piles of stones, leaves on trees and blades of grass! To suddenly realise that, his whole life long, he had been kept at arm’s length from multiplicity.

Hadn't another wise man, the Buddha himself, warned about the evils of attachment?

Remember my words: Be truthful, be kind to one another, and you will attain peace. We will meet again in another life.

No-one can own our Lord Buddha. That would be a foolish claim, but the roads that lead to him, the Way... That is a different matter. They are all filled with toll-gates, like the roads of Japan, and the monks collect the fees.

Erik Christian Haugaard

When you have had nothing most of your life, you learn to appreciate the small things in life. The real challenge is appreciating the small things in life as you start to acquire material things and amassing wealth.Jim Robinson

James Morris Robinson

I took note of the Buddha's teaching that in one sense a supposed enemy is more valuable than a friend, for an enemy teaches you things, such as forbearance, that a friend generally does not.

I would like Epicurus and Buddha to become one.

Osho

Blossoms shower, and then they go on showering—they never stop. The blossoms that showered for Buddha are still showering. The blossoms that showered for Subhuti are still showering.

Osho

Be your own lamp, seek no other refuge but yourself, Let truth be your light." ~Buddha

But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.

Buddhas also have to be swept away, because the door can become a hindrance if you cling to it.

Osho

The rain could turn to gold and still your thirst would not be slaked. Desire is unquenchable or it ends in tears, even in heaven.

Anonymous

Why say then Buddha never carried gun? he didn't play piano, we do not know of him making pictures either.

When the voice of truth rises from the minarets, the Buddha smiles, and the broken chain of history reconnects.

Ziauddin Yousafzai

Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.

To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment.

[Lena Lees describes from trance her experience of Kuan Yin]:“I see Kuan Yin. She is like Venus, statuesque and standing in front of a beautiful pink half-shell. Quickly, she walks in front of me, pointing the way. We are entering the mouth of a cave. It’s so interesting. I see stairs carved out of rock in the cave. We walk up the stairs to a door. I know somehow this is just another entrance, a doorway to another time, place. Perhaps at another historical time monks lived there. Now, I’m seeing a huge image, a beautiful statue of Kuan Yin right at the top of the mountain. There are stairs leading up to her and it is as if I’m right on location, standing alongside a group of worshipers. I feel the potency of her energy. In these places, perhaps China or Vietnam, there is a palpable sense of being immersed in and supported by her presence. There is a need by the people to know more, to pick up and accumulate wisdom. I’m suddenly feeling a need to be in that kind of energy. Suddenly it is Kuan Yin who is speaking: “Some believe I am in servitude to Buddha. However, Buddha doesn’t see it like that. We’re more like brother and sister. I’m showing, Lena, my abode, a place on earth where humans can visit me and be in my potency. Lena is looking at my statue and then at my form. There’s a difference. I come to people in many forms, forms constructed from people’s own perceptions of how I should come to them. And it is individual spiritual needs that create these unique perceptions. In the end, it does not matter what form I take.”“Kuan Yin wants me to know that I can have the most divine life imaginable,” whispers Lena, still very deep in trance. “She’ll be here until the last soul passes off the earth. She remains in deity form to assist people in transcending their materialistic nature, to help them attain their highest spiritual level.

What took you so long? Waiting for Buddha?

Victor Robert Lee

Buddha also said that the Dharma, like a bird, needs two wings to fly, and that the wing that balances Wisdom is compassion.

Sylvia Boorstein

In the beauty of countless danseuse in my palace, I saw an endless suffering in the form of distorted and diseased figures as the absolute certainty towards which they were heading even as insects unwittingly consign themselves to the blazing flame.

Mindfulness, the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience, is at the heart of what the Buddha taught.

Sylvia Boorstein

The Buddha said that there are three times that a person should consider the consequences of any action: before, during, and after. “One should reflect thus,” he said. “‘Is what I am about to do . . .’ or ‘Is what I am currently doing . . .’ or ‘Is what I just did . . . for my own well-being and for the benefit of all others?

Sylvia Boorstein

There is a simple way to become buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.

Dōgen

You see pictures of Buddha and he’s sitting, reclining, at peace. The Hindus have their twelve-armed elephant god, who also seems so content but not powerless. But leave it to Christians to have a dead and bloody man nailed to a cross.

The words of the Buddha offer this truth: ∼ Hatred never ceases by hatred but by love alone is healed.

Said Buddha to the hot dog vendor, "make me one with everything.

New York Magazine

In the nembutsu we see and feel the Buddha everywhere and in everything. Life itself becomes the unfolding of Buddha

Gyomay M Kubose

It doesn't matter what Christ or Buddha said, it matters how they lived.

while people go on chatting about a million and one thingsI mostly sit and observe with ascended understandingsas they bring up the topic of death and of a person dyingI listen quietly while often accidentally smilingat the absurdity of anybody ever believing in deathI don't mean to be insensitive towards a body's last breatha higher Reality laid bare, bodily expiration is of no accountwith this revelation incalculable life fears we surmountthe Sage is notorious for finding strange things funnygiggling at horrors and ridiculous events not so sunnysometimes a straight face is merely for showbut spy the glint in his eye about a truth you don’t knowan unfounded assumption is that we only live oncenot a Mystic throughout history has avowed this occurrenceChristian ones may not have mentioned being reborn againthey also didn't deny it—their teaching was kept plainjust as the Buddha intentionally avoided the God conceptultimately not essential, under the rug reincarnation is swept

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.

Two thousand and five hundred years ago Lord Buddha announced, ‘By self- exertion we will achieve ‘Nirvana’, and then Hinduism announced, ‘By self-mortification and self-exertion we shall achieve the supreme knowledge. But this supreme knowledge means knowledge of oneness. No, not the knowledge of oneness, it is rather oneness only and that is achieved spontaneously.

Sri Jibankrishna or Diamond

The perfume of incense reminds us of the pervading influence of virtue, the lamp reminds us of light of knowledge and the flowers which soon fade and die, reminds us of impermanence. When we bow, we express our gratitude to the Buddha for what his teachings have given us. This is the nature of Buddhist worship.

Anonymous

This is the answer: live moment to moment and you become a buddha.

Osho

If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.

The foundational Vajrakilaya is the sun shining in the sky behind the clouds. The path Vajrakilaya is the removal of the clouds from the sky through the force of wind and rain, or whatever; it is the path of method and wisdom, combined. And the resultant Vajrakilaya is the nature of your mind, the nature of your rigpa, which is the same mind as the mind of the primordial buddha, Kuntuzangpo. The path Vajrakilaya is the removal of the adventitious veil of obscuration that covers rigpa. Applying the method by practicing generation stage (kyerim) and completion stage (dzogrim), accumulating merit and purifying negative karma, removing that veil, is the path. The result is realizing that ones own self nature is buddha. So the result is the same as the foundation. In the beginning you are buddha, and in the end you are buddha.

Gyatrul Rinpoche

13. A Buddha In Tokyo in th Meiji era there lived two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha's precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat after eleven o'clock in the morning. The other teacher, Tanzan, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, never observed the precepts. When he felt like eating he ate, and when he felt like sleeping in the daytime he slept. One da Unsho visited Tanzan, who was drinking wine at the time, not even a drop of which is supposed to touch the tongue of a Buddhist. "Hello, brother," Tanzan greeted him. "Won't you have a drink?" "I never drink!" exclaimed Unsho solemnly. "One who never drinks is not even human," said Tanzan. "Do you mean to call me inhuman just because I do not indulge in intoxicating liquids!" exclaimed Unsho in anger. "Then if I am not human, wht am I?" "A Buddha," answered Tanzan.

Consider the sunlight. You may see it is near, yet if you follow it from world to world you will never catch it in your hands. Then you may describe it as far away and, lo, you will see it just before your eyes. Follow it and, behold, it escapes you; run from it and it follows you close. You can neither possess it nor have done with it. From this example you can understand how it is with the true Nature of all things and, henceforth, there will be no need to grieve or to worry about such things.

Huang Po

Instead of falling to the ground like a heavy doll, as Kermin had seen the prisoners do at the Chetnik executions, his mother shrank into herself, a reverse blossoming, coming to rest in a sitting position, like a ruminative Buddha

The language of poetry is a language of deep intimacy that is meant to touch the human spirit and awaken it to the mystery of life, all life.

When we talk about the theology of 'God is Dead,' this means that the notion of God must be dead in order for God to reveal himself as a reality. The theologians, if they only use concepts, and not direct experience, are not very helpful. The same goes for nirvana, which is something to be touched and lived and not discussed and described. We have notions that distort truth, reality. A Zen master said the following to a large assembly: 'My friends, every time I use the word Buddha, I suffer. I am allergic to it. Every time I do it, I have to go to the bathroom and rinse my mouth three times in succession.' He said this in order to help his disciples not to get caught up in the notion of Buddha. The Buddha is one thing, but the notion of Buddha is another.

Thich Nhat Hanh

While the founder [of any religious or spiritual system] was still walking among his followers and disciples, the latter did not distinguish between the person of their leader and his teaching; for the teaching was realized in the person and the person was livingly explained in the teaching. To embrace the teaching was to follow his steps - that is, to believe in him. His presence among them was enough to inspire them and convince them of the truth of his teaching... So long as he lived among them and spoke to them his teaching and his person appealed to them as an individual unity.But things went differently when his stately and inspiring personality was no more seen in the flesh... The similarities that were, either consciously or unconsciously, recognized as existing in various forms between leader and disciple gradually vanished, and as they vanished, the other side - that is, that which made him so distinctly different from his followers - came to assert itself all the more emphatically and irresistibly. The result was the conviction that he must have come from quite a unique spiritual source.The process of deification thus constantly went on until, some centuries after the death of the Master, he became a direct manifestation of the Supreme Being himself - in fact, he was the Highest One in the flesh, in him there was a divine humanity in perfect realization... Indeed, the teaching is to be interpreted in the light of the teacher's divine personality. The latter now predominates over the whole system; he is the centre whence radiate the rays of Enlightenment, salvation is only possible in believing in him as saviour.

Love everybody and tell the truth.

Maharajji

A buddha lives in the orgasmic state for twenty-four hours, day in and day out. Between the day Gautama Buddha became enlightened and the day he died there is a distance of forty-two years. For these forty-two years he was utterly in an orgasmic state. Just think! Those few moments you have are nothing compared to a Buddha’s.

Osho

If the conscious falls into the unconscious you fall into a coma, and if the unconscious falls into the conscious and becomes conscious itself, you become enlightened, you become a Buddha, a Sosan.

Osho

How deaf and stupid I have been, he thought, walking on quickly. When anyone reads anything which he wishes to study, he does not despise the letters and punctuation marks, and call them illusion, chance and worthless shells, but he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, who wished to read the book of the world and of my own nature, did presume to despise the letters and signs. I called the world of appearances, illusion. I called my eyes and tongue, chance. Now it is over; I have awakened.

Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. For self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on its parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul or Atman, which will live eternally. In his ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire, man needs these two things to console himself. Hence he clings to them deeply and fanatically.

When all that’s left of us is the pure untainted consciousness without form, we’ll know what it means when the last human breath expires.

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