Quotes About Buddhism

When I adopted Buddhism, my master taught me not to be so rigid.

I am a Buddhist.

I'm a Buddhist.

Once you leave your ego behind and let the good light in, you shine good light back. That may be a bit Buddhist but so what.

A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.

To have a body is to suffer.

In the Buddhist scriptures, it said many births cause suffering, so Buddhism is not against family planning.

One can go down the line and see that every claim that Jesus made of Himself challenged my culture's most basic assumptions about life and meaning. (It is important to remember, of course, that these basic religions within the Indian framework are also not in concert with each other. Buddha was a Hindu before he rejected some of Hinduism's fundamental doctrines and conceived in their place the Buddhist way. Islam radically differs from Hinduism.) Ironically

Is enlightenment gradual or is it sudden? Whole schools of Buddhism have grown up around this issue. But it has always seemed to me that liberation is both sudden and gradual, that there is no polarity between the two.

Actions for the good accumulate what is called "merit"—one of the most commonly misunderstood concepts in Buddhism.

No one can practice for us. The Buddhas just point the way.

Do no harm, act for the good, purify the mind." The flowering of all the great traditions of Buddhism derives from the teachings in this one simple verse.

This one decision had striking implications. It has kept Buddhism relatively free of any centralized hierarchical structure and allowed a profusion of traditions to flourish under the umbrella of the great Bodhi Tree of awakening.

the five aggregates" (khandhas, in Pali) of experience: material elements, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

In short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha.

One of the oldest recitations of faith in Buddhism is taking refuge in what is called the Triple Gem: the Buddha himself, that person who awakened under the Bodhi Tree twenty-five hundred years ago; the Dharma, the truth, the law, and the body of teachings; and the Sangha, which means, in particular, the order of monks and nuns and, more generally, the community of wise beings. "I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.

Buddhism is a clever way to enjoy life. Happiness is available. Please help yourselves to it.

Milarepa was. "He's the Buddhist meditation master who lives in those mountains. He has tamed his mind, so he is always comfortable. He knows his own nature, so he doesn't need confirmation from others. He is completely content with whatever he has, so he never needs anything. That makes him the richest man in the world.

Whatever is impermanent is dukkha' (Yad anicca? ta? dukkha?).

According to the Buddha's teaching the beginning of the life-stream of living beings is unthinkable. THe believer in the creation of life by God may be astonished at this reply. But if you were to ask him 'What is the beginning of God?' he would answer without hesitation 'God has no beginning', and he is not astonished at his own reply.

Almost all religions are built on faith—rather 'blind' faith it would seem. But in Buddhism emphasis is laid on 'seeing', knowing, understanding, and not on faith, or belief.

The common belief that to follow the Buddha's teaching one has to retire from life is a misconception. It is really an unconscious defence against practising it.

Now , what is Absolute Truth? According to Buddhism, the Absolute Truth is that there is nothing absolute in the world, that everything is relative, conditioned and impermanent, and that there is no unchanging, everlasting, absolute substance like Self, Soul or Atman within or without.

One can clearly see here that Buddhism is strongly opposed to any kind of war, when it lays down that trade in arms and lethal weapons is an evil and unjust means of livelihood.