Quotes About Buddhism

What distinguishes Buddhism from any other faith I've studied—from most human beings, really—is that the people who face the wall and the people who face away from it have never fought a war over it. They're never going to agree…but they feel no need to. Buddha himself is supposed to have said, "People with opinions just go around bothering each other.

Satori is the Japanese word, used in Zen Buddhism, for the highest type of unification experience. It is known as Samadhi (union with God) in Hinduism. According to Dr. John Lilly's hypothesis, it is expansion of ego-awareness into those areas of the biocomputer that are usually unconscious or stored with rejected information. Christian theologicans call it union with the "totally other". ~•~

This book, then, is basically an informal history of how certain long-hidden practical secrets of Tantric Buddhism crept into the Western world in the middle ages, were crushed and/or driven underground by the Holy Inquisition, have gradually been rediscovered since around 1900, suddenly emerged as a major social-revolutionary force in the 1960s, and were once again crushed and driven underground.

This, of course, is the traditional Buddhist logic — It is X, it is not-X, it is both X and not-X, it is neither X nor not-X

In the very real sense we are, as the Buddhists say, a void. We are empty. We can become anything. Most people have very strong armors to prevent themselves from realizing the void. It's frightening. But once you've accepted the void, you realize you can become anything. You can fill the void with anything you want, if you have the psychological techniques to do it.

Chinese Buddhism was the natural study of reality, and led to feelings of devotion just from noting the daily leaves, the colors of the sky, the animals seen from the corner of the eye.

Buddhism begins in personal experience. Observation of one's surroundings and one's reactions, and one's thoughts.

Buddhism spreads by people converting out of their own wish for peace and right action. But power condenses around those willing to use force.

I sometimes think that Buddhism is the toughest religion in the world. It not only eschews all talk of god but does not allow any instant remedies. Responsibility for one's own acts is its only metaphysics. So

If you study carefully, you will see that Buddhism is based on reason. There is an element of flexibility inherent in it, which is not found in any other religion.

Buddhism has become a socially recognized religious philosophy for Americans, whereas it used to be considered an exotic religion.

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism.

That was my real education in the world - I learned politics, the social and cultural life of India, Hindu tradition and religion, and Buddhism.

Mountains and rivers at this very moment are the actualization of the world of the ancient Buddhas. Each, abiding in its phenomenal expression, realizes completeness.

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.

I don't know how many serious Christians exist here in America, but the Japanese, the younger generation is leaving the Buddhist religion mentality behind.

I do regard Islam to be a religion of peace in the same sense as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism are.

As far as ignorance is concerned, not just Buddhism, every religion recognizes it as the source of suffering.

Oysters are more beautiful than any religion . . . there's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.

We yield to none in our love, admiration and respect for the Buddha-the Dharma-the Sangha. They are all ours. Their glories are ours and ours their failures.

It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time.

Thousands of years before our liberal age, ancient Buddhism went further by denying not just all cosmic dramas, but even the inner drama of human creation. The universe has no meaning, and human feelings too are not part of a great cosmic tale. They are ephemeral vibrations, appearing and disappearing for no particular purpose. That's the truth. Get over it.

According to the Buddha, then, life has no meaning, and people don't need to create any meaning. They just need to realise that there is no meaning, and thus be liberated from the suffering caused by our attachments and our identification with empty phenomena.

The Buddha taught that the three basic realities of the universe are that everything is constantly changing, nothing has any enduring essence, and nothing is completely satisfying. You can explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy, of your body, or of your mind, but you will never encounter something that does not change, that has an eternal essence, and that completely satisfies you.