Quotes About Buddhism

Maybe it shouldn't surprise us that Buddhism, with all its early austerity, was founded by a man who, as a member of the ruling class, could presumably indulge his appetites fully.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a meditation teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, has said, "Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them." What he meant is that if you want to liberate yourself from the parts of the mind that keep you from realizing true happiness, you have to first become aware of them, which can be unpleasant.

The Buddha said that responding to email and Twitter is like sweeping the sands from the banks of the Ganges River." "The Buddha said that?" "Well, maybe not. But the point remains the same. Some tasks are impossible, even if you are a Buddha. Even if you have eleven heads and a thousand arms.

Kannon, with her thousand arms and eleven heads, who could hear the voices of things crying out. I said I could totally relate to that, and when she told us that Kannon was the Buddhist saint of compassion

Firstly, as a Buddhist monk, I hold that violence is not good. Secondly, I am a firm believer in the Gandian ethic of passive resistance. And thirdly, in reality, violence is not our strength.

The thing about Buddhism is that it stresses attainment of something ineffable, that is where it differs from other religions in that it's more correct. We live in a world with promises of paradise.

The male effort to separate Wisdom from the realm of the Feminine is not only brutal and unattractive but it will always fail, though this may take, as with Buddhism, thousands of years. This is simply because the Feminine is Wisdom; it is also the Soul.

Reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.

There's a Buddhist saying—be grateful for your suffering, because it allows you to empathize with the suffering of others.

Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open... Suppose I shave off my hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, and go forth from the home life into homelessness.

The essence of Buddhism is simply that the mind is forever. We are always experiencing different states of mind in one form or another, in one body or another, in one life or another, forever.

From a Buddhist point of view, emotions are not real. As an actor, I manufacture emotions. They're a sense of play. But real life is the same. We're just not aware of it.

To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering.

Maybe you think you can wake up 50 percent, just enough to get beyond the "crazy" stage but not all the way to "wisdom." However, it's not the message of the Buddha or the intention of Buddhism to provide a partial recovery from confusion. The message of the Buddha is that you're awake now and that you can, if you apply yourself, realize it.

However, the path itself must eventually be abandoned, just as you abandon a boat when you reach the other shore. You must disembark once you have arrived. At the point of total realization, you must abandon Buddhism. The spiritual path is a temporary solution, a placebo to be used until emptiness is understood.

One is a Buddhist if he or she accepts the following four truths: All compounded things are impermanent. All emotions are pain. All things have no inherent existence. Nirvana is beyond concepts.

A more appropriate question to ask a Buddhist is simply, "What is life?" From our understanding of impermanence, the answer should be obvious: "Life is a big array of assembled phenomena, and thus life is impermanent." It is a constant shifting, a collection of transitory experiences. And although myriad life-forms exist, one thing we all have in common is that no living being wishes to suffer. We

All methods of Buddhism can be explained with the four seals—all compounded phenomena are impermanent, all emotions are pain, all things have no inherent existence, and enlightenment is beyond concepts. Every act and deed encouraged by Buddhist scriptures is based on these four truths, or seals.

It is not appropriate to ask a Buddhist, "What is the purpose of life?" because the question suggests that somewhere out there, perhaps in a cave or on a mountaintop, an ultimate purpose exists. The

Although it is nonreligious and nontheistic, it's difficult to present Buddhism without sounding theoretical and religious. As

Siddhartha's priority was to get down to the root of the problem. Buddhism is not culturally bound. Its benefits are not limited to any particular society and have no place in government and politics. Siddhartha

Outwardly we should practise the shravakayana, inwardly the bodhisattvayana and secretly the vajrayana.

Buddhism is best understood as a philosophy rather than a religion due to the fact that the Buddhist does not necessarily embrace a God.

The core teachings of Buddhism stand in distinct contradiction to Hinduism. Whereas Hinduism believes that evil does not exist and is an illusion, Buddhism embraces evil, and the solution for evil is summarized in the Four Noble Truths.