Buddhism Quotes - Page 8

And the Buddha pointed out that his confusion was justified, for 'the dharma is profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond the sphere of logic, subtle, and to be understood by the wise'. The reason for this is that it is not readily comprehended by one who holds a different view and has different learnings and inclinations, different involvements and instruction. It is clear from this statement that the conception of nibbāna in beyond logical reasoning, not because it is an Ultimate Reality transcending logic, but because logic or reason, being the 'slave of passions', makes it difficult for one who has a passion for an alien tradition to understand the conception of nibbāna.

David J. Kalupahana

Clarity is like casting light. Clarity allows us to see better and eases the path of understanding. And just as one light source need not deny the illumination of another but can add to it, the understanding gained through one explanation can stand to gain from another, even if it is different in approach. The truth is more exclusive...

Cyrus Panjvani

We are all trying to find a path back to the present moment. And good enough reason to just be happy here... Mindfulness meditation is just a trick for doing that. It's a trick for setting aside your to-do list, if only for a few moments, and actually locate a feeling of fulfilment in the present

Sam Harris

Consciousness is naturally shamanic.

Joy Manne

To speak conventionally - and I think it is easier for the general reader to see Zen thus presented - there are unknown recesses in our minds which lie beyond the threshold of the relatively constructed consciousness. To designate them as “sub-conciousness” or “supra-consciousness” is not correct. The word “beyond” is used simply because it is a most convenient term to indicate their whereabouts. But as a matter of fact there is no “beyond”, no “underneath”, no “upon” in our consciousness. The mind is one indivisible whole and cannot be torn in pieces. The so-called terra incognita is the concession of Zen to our ordinary way of talking, because whatever field of consciousness that is known to us is generally filled with conceptual riffraff, and to get rid of them, which is absolutely necessary for maturing Zen experience, the Zen psychologist sometimes points to the presence of some inaccessible region in our minds. Though in actuality there is no such region apart from our everyday consciousness, we talk of it as generally more easily comprehensible by us.

D.T. Suzuki

We grow up to believe that we are supposed to somehow "become" who we are meant to be through the trial-by-fire that is life here on planet Earth.Reality is...there's no "becoming".It's actually all an "un-becoming", only to reunite with who you were born to be in the first place before society told you otherwise.

Jennifer Sodini

Meditation brings Nirvana, and Nirvana brings Buddhahood.

Abhijit Naskar

Consider this:1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding "entheogenic" drug LSD?And here's a bonus question:2. Why does an "expanded consciousness" include the inability to operate a motor vehicle?

Brad Warner

An outrageous instinct to love and be loved blinded your arms to lines of propriety––Women and Men, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, white, black, red, brown. An outrageous instinct to love and be loved executed your brain every hour on the hour.

Aberjhani

In fact, no form of death places a greater burden on society than suicide, for the act of suicide is the way a person seeks to resolve his alienation from a cooperative society.

Shinmon Aoki

Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about.

John Green

When things are good, it is because we remember a time when they were not. When there was pain. But now the pain is gone, so things are ‘good’. When we hurt, it is because we recall a time when we did not. When there was no pain. But now we suffer, so things are ‘bad’. The tiger sipped from the cup, peering at the boy over the rim. Stars swirled in its eyes. “Good. Bad. The cup holds both.

Brooke Burgess

Suffering has many faces. If we discover the roots of one suffering, we are at the same time discovering the roots of others.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Life is suffering--and yet.

Anonymous

The goal of becoming a better person is within the reach of us all, at every moment. ... We need only invoke the power of mindful awareness in any action of body, speech, or mind to elevate that action from the unconscious reflex of a trained creature to the awakened choice of a human being who is guided to a higher life by wisdom. ... We may not "complete" the work in this lifetime and root out the very mechanism by which our minds and bodies manifest their hereditary karmic toxins. Yet to whatever extent we can notice them as they arise, understand them for what they are, and gently abandon our grasp of them - if only for this moment - we are gaining ground in the grand scheme of things. And even a modest moment of emancipation from the unwholesome roots of greed, hatred, and delusion is a moment without suffering.

Andrew Olendzki

The mess we are making of our planet is caused by our own greed, hatred, and delusion. Aside from the existential afflictions of aging, death, and at least some of the illnesses, every instance we see of human misery, injustice, affliction. or sufficient and pain will, upon sufficient and sometimes even cursory investigation, be shown to be rooted in the attachment, aversion, or ignorance of some person or some group of people together.

Andrew Olendzki

Mindfulness means being present to whatever is happening here and now - when mindfulness is strong, there is no room left in the mind for wanting something else. With less liking and disliking of what arises, there is less pushing and pulling on the world, less defining of the threshold between self and other, resulting in a reduced construction of self. As the influence of self diminishes, suffering diminishes in proportion.

Andrew Olendzki

We who are like senseless children shrink from suffering, but love its causes. We hurt ourselves; our pain is self-inflicted! Why should others be the object of our anger?

Śāntideva

How long the path may be depends for any man on where he stands today and his speed of travel. These are his past and present choosing, but the beginning of the way is here and now, and karma and rebirth are the means of treading it.

Christmas Humphreys

If you're stressing over happiness, you're doing it wrong!

Shannon L. Alder

A life out of balance is a person that doesn’t believe happiness can be achieved now, or in the future. It is as fleeting as the wind.

Shannon L. Alder

Perfection itself is not the ultimate goalbut the ultimate condition of life.

Eric Micha'el Leventhal

[T]here is nothing to say about life. It has no meaning. You make meaning. If you want a meaning in your life, find a meaning and bring it into your life, but life won't give you a meaning. Meaning is a concept. It is a notion of an end toward which you are going. The point of Buddhism is This Is It.

Joseph Campbell

We look to the accumulation of sensory pleasures to give our lives meaning. We have the ability now to consume anything we want and this capacity far exceeds our actual needs. With so much at our fingertips, a kind of gluttony pervades our mind-sets.

Mark Epstein

To know yourself you must know the transience of your self.

Ilyas Kassam

Following feeling, relying on liking or wanting, we are not free. The freedom to "do as we like" is not freedom of choice because we are ruled by the powerful property of feeling; we cannot choose apart from liking and disliking. Likes and dislikes may be articulated in the form of sophisticated-sounding opinions, but the decision is made for us by feeling. The Western world places a high value on personal feelings and opinions: Each individual "has a right" to an opinion. But rarely do we question how we have arrived at our opinion. Upon examination, we may discover that opinions tend to stem from convenience, familiarity, and selfishness–what feels good or what is pleasing or comfortable to us. Upon this basis, we act, and receive the consequences of our action. Even if we compile a large number of such opinions, there is no guarantee that we will develop a wise perspective as a ground for action. Often this process only creates a mass of confusion, for opinions of one individual tend to conflict with the opinions of another. If there appears to be agreement, we tend to assume this agreement will remain stable. But agreement only means that the needs of the individuals involved are temporarily similar, and when those needs shift, agreement will evaporate. To make certain decisions, we rely on logic or scientific findings, which are supposedly free from personal opinion but are still weighted with the opinions of a particular culture. This style of knowing is founded on particular distinctions and ignores other possibilities. The evidence is clear that the scope of modern scientific knowledge is limited, for this knowledge is not yet able to predict and control the side-effects resulting from its own use. Its solutions in turn create more problems, reinforcing the circular patterns of samsara. Only understanding that penetrates to the root causes of problems can break this circularity. Until we explore the depths of consciousness, we cannot resolve the fundamental questions that face human beings.

Dharma Publishing

Buddha is someone with a very advanced self-concept. His self-esteem is perfect; he has gone beyond doubt; he knows, and he is confident of his knowledge; he expresses himself with conviction. When the Buddha talks of himself in the first person he does so with clarity. He has a strong sense of identity and knows very well who he is. He gives accounts of his life experiences in the first person.

Joy Manne

It follows that I must accept myself for what I am before I can deliberately change it.

Christmas Humphreys

Compassion grows in us when we know how the energy of love is available all around us.

Sharon Salzberg

We can discover the capacity of the mind to be aware, to love, to begin again

Sharon Salzberg

Sometimes kindness is stepping aside, letting go of our need to be right & just being happy for someone.

Sharon Salzberg

The key to cultivating confidence in ourselves is understanding our right to make the truth our own.

Sharon Salzberg

While happiness is an end in itself, it is also the state of mind we can have right now.

Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness is the agent of our freedom. Through mindfulness we arrive at faith we grow in wisdom & we attain equanimity.

Sharon Salzberg

Thinking we are only supposed to have loving & compassionate feelings can be a terrible obstacle to spiritual practice.

Sharon Salzberg

He who fights is powerless, but he who loves is power itself.

Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Forgiveness that is insincere, forced or premature can be more psychologically damaging than authentic bitterness & rage.

Sharon Salzberg

To sense which gifts to accept & which to leave behind is our path to discovering freedom.

Sharon Salzberg

For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannon build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy.When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, "Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather it assists the production of the effect.

Śāntideva

If a person shows anger to you, and you show anger in return, the result is disaster. If you nurse hatred, you will never be happy, even in the lap of luxury. By contrast, if you control your anger and show its opposite - love, compassion, tolerance, and patience - then not only do you remain in peace, but gradually the anger of others also will diminish.

Dalai Lama XIV

It seems that, without clarity and honesty, we don't progress. We just stay stuck in the same vicious cycle. But honesty without kindness makes us feel grim and mean, and pretty soon we start looking like we've been sucking on lemons. We become so caught up in introspection that we lose any contentment or gratitude we might have had. The sense of being irritated by ourselves and our lives and other people's idiosyncrasies becomes overwhelming. That's why there's so much emphasis on kindness.

Pema Chodran

I asked the Dalai Lama what it was like to wake up with joy, and he shared his experience each morning. 'I think if you are an intensely religious believer, as soon as you wake up, you thank God for another day. And you try to do God’s will. For a nontheist like myself, but who is a Buddhist, as soon as I wake up, I remember Buddha’s teaching: the importance of kindness and compassion, wishing something good for others, or at least to reduce their suffering. Then I remember that everything is interrelated, the teaching of interdependence. So then I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day.

Dalai Lama XIV

With mindfulness, loving kindness, and self-compassion, we can begin to let go of our expectations about how life and those we love should be.

Sharon Salzberg

One who is patient glows with an inner radiance.

Allan Lokos

Technology offers us a unique opportunity, though rarely welcome, to practice patience.

Allan Lokos

Patience requires a slowing down, a spaciousness, a sense of ease.

Allan Lokos

The embodiment of kindness is often made difficult by our long ingrained patternsof fear & jealousy.

Sharon Salzberg

The essence of the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) is about identifying the cause of our suffering & alleviating it.

Allan Lokos

Ultimately humanity is one, and this small planet is our only home. If we're to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to experience a vivid sense of universal altruism and compassion.

Dalai Lama XIV

Compassion is not complete if it does not include oneself.

Allan Lokos

We find greater lightness & ease in our lives as we increasingly care for ourselves & other beings.

Sharon Salzberg

Once someone appears to us primarily as an object, kindness has no place to root.

Sharon Salzberg

Patience has all the time it needs.

Allan Lokos

We don’t need any sort of religious orientation to lead a life that is ethical, compassionate & kind.

Sharon Salzberg

Bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya:For the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.

Gautama Buddha

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.

Dalai Lama XIV

God stipulates in the Bible that Jesus Followers are to love and serve everyone regardless of their faith or lack of it. But, this does not require us to honour and respect their Biblically-heinous cultural practises like multiculturalism does!

Gary Patton

A certain amount of native skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through sorcery.(...) These outer changes, no matter how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully manifests.'--Zeena Schreck for “Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its backgroundand role within new Western religiosity,” University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004

Zeena Schreck

Kundalini means, according to Zeena ‘She Who is Hidden,’ and points to the dormant goddess in every human being’s body. While the kundalini force is found in muladharachakra, she hypnotizes humans, like maya herself, and renders them slaves to the illusory. Kundalini can only awaken people if she travels up along the spine.'--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

Zeena Schreck

Nothing could be easier than disturbing a status quo instituted by others; the real work of the sinistercurrent is to break the rules we rigidly establish for ourselves.”-Zeena Schreck for "Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity," University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004

Zeena Schreck

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Buddhism Quotes - Page 8

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