Quotes About Buddhism

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

I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.

I am a practicing Buddhist. I have been for 25 years.

The thing the Buddhists and the Sufis have in common is a belief that religious certainties are destructive.

The Buddha taught that we're not actually in control, which is a pretty scary idea. But when you let things be as they are, you will be a much happier, more balanced, compassionate person.

All of the religions - with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven - teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.

I think Buddhism is a wonderful philosophy. I've had the good fortune to meet many wonderful teachers from that society.

Buddhism teaches you to embrace change.

I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice.

I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion.

The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion.

I have always worked with energy. Everything is energy. Buddhism. Christ teachings. These are foundation stones for a spiritual life.

It just seemed like Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism - because that's mainly what I've been exposed to - was a real solid organization of teachings to point someone in the right direction. Some real well thought out stuff. But I don't know, like, every last detail about Buddhism.

The teachings of Tibetan Buddhism have been passed down for a long time now. They have that system pretty well figured out.

So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.

For me, in Buddhism there is a plethora of specific teachings that one can seek out and find for the individual dilemmas you may have.

All traditions of Buddhism stress the importance of first practicing calm abiding meditation (shamatha) and then insight meditation (vipassana).

Buddhism is all about science. If science is the systematic pursuit of the accurate knowledge of reality, then science is Buddhism, Buddhism is science.

The power of the enlightened being to affect his or her environment is immense. The enlightened mind can landscape worlds, preserve planets, save whole environments, create buddhaverses. The enlightened being is almost like a god. (p. 150)

It comes down to practice, and practice, after all, is conduct in keeping with Right Views. Of course, Right Views are not merely opinions, not even Sk?kyamuni's opinions, but are views that accord with this realization: we are all in this together and we aren't here very long. Let's take care of one another while we can.

The Buddha challenged the idea of an immutable soul. He said nothing about the mutable soul, and its survival, though his successors in most streams of Buddhism have had a lot to say on this subject. For all their words, the question of what happens when one dies remains a mystery.

Life drifting, in its continuous, unpredictable flow. Life inimitable. Japanese Buddhism teaches us that art (or bliss) is surprise, it cannot be calculated. It is a prey, a catch: "Be as ignorant of what you are going to catch as a fisherman of what is at the end of his fishing rod" (the fish that arises from nowhere).

He became aware that the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.

I was once at a conference of neuroscientists and all-star Buddhist monk meditators, the former studying what the brains of the latter did during meditation. One scientist asked one of the monks whether he ever stops meditating because his knees hurt from all that cross-leggedness. He answered, "Sometimes I'll stop sooner than I planned, but not because it hurts; it's not something I notice. It's as an act of kindness to my knees.