Buddhist Quotes

I wouldn't consider myself a Buddhist or a card-carrying zealot at all. My first commitment is as a scientist to uncover the truth about all this.

It's been a tough year. . . Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together.

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not of the East, nor of the West.... My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.

You grow, learn, and the more I can sit in silence and be comfortable with myself, the more I can make noise, as ironic and Zen Buddhist and satanic as it sounds!

The experience taught me to be present in the real Buddhist sense of paying attention to the moment.

Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.

I didn't realize I was in a Buddhist temple.

I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that's my religion.

NIRVANA- In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

Meat eating and a compassionate religion do not go hand in hand.

Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.

First one must change. I first watch myself, check myself, then expect changes from others.

One has to try to develop one's inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one's mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don't have to pay income tax on!

Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister.

Every morning when I wake up, I dedicate myself to helping others to find peace of mind. Then, when I meet people, I think of them as long term friends; I don't regard others as strangers.

War is out of date, obsolete.

In order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge.

Because of my Buddhist practice, I'm never lacking for inspiration

I am a Buddhist, therefore I should not be collecting anything - however, I have a collection of Buddhas. I have a lot of them.

In Buddhism we have a great deal of etiquette. Etiquette is simply ways of living to conserve energy. Etiquette allows people to live in harmony with their environment.

In the esoteric teachings, a transference process takes place between teacher and student where knowledge is actually transmitted from one to the other. This requires that the student be receptive.

You need to search your awareness and consider the limitless possibilities of existence in all things and not be so narrow-minded in your self-discovery.

Our sense of being worthwhile, our sense of being good, our sense of being anything must go - Final clearance sale.

Zen and Buddhism have produced martial arts, because of the Buddhist injunction against weapons.

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

Happiness or sorrow- whatever befalls you, walk on untouched, unattached.

Through zeal, knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal, knowledge is lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow.

Being generous and kindly in speech, doing a good turn for others, and treating all alike. One like this will be praised.

Do not be thoughtless, always be mindful, watch your thoughts! Draw yourself out of the path of evil, like an elephant sunk in mud.

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.

The Ill-directed mind can do to you even worse

Full of love for all things in the world, practicing virtue, in order to benefit others, this man alone is happy.

Those who speak much are blamed, those who speak little are blamed. In this world there are none who are not blamed. Try not to blame.

Just as gold is burnt, cut and rubbed, Examine my words carefully and Do not accept them simply out of respect

When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself.

Fill your mind with compassion.

It is our minds that create this world.

Speak only endearing speech, speech that is welcomed. Speech, when it brings no evil to others, is pleasant.

Never in this world can hatred be stilled by hatred; it will be stifled by non-hatred - this is the law Eternal.

Though through all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he yet understands not the Dharma, as the spoon, the flavor of soup.

Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.

But when one masters this wretched desire, which is so hard to overcome, then one's sorrows just drop off, like a drop of water off a lotus.

If a man going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current - how can he help others across?

Cut down the forest, not just a tree. Out of the forest of desire springs danger. By cutting down both the forest of desire and the brushwood of longing, be rid of the forest, bhikkhus.

My whole life, I never spoke a single-word.

As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.

Science is reaching the conclusions that we had been taught through the Tibetan Buddhist experience.

One of the ideas that runs through this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] is this Buddhist notion that the mind is incredibly powerful; not the brain but the mind.

Whenever anyone, Buddhist or not, sees a Temple or an image of Buddha they receive blessings.