Quotes About Buddhism

I am infinitely saddened to find myself suddenly surrounded in the west by a sense of terrible loss of nerve, a retreat from knowledge into–into what? Into Zen Buddhism; into falsely profound questions … into extrasensory perception and mystery. They do not lie along the line of what we are now able to know if we devote ourselves to it: an understanding of man himself.

In some cultures, like Buddhism, you want things in your life to disappear, to reduce your needs and desires. To achieve some form of enlightenment. I believe in this brand of spirituality as well. I don't think it and abundance are mutually exclusive at all. If you lower your expectations, for instance, your expectations are easy to exceed.

In some cultures, like Buddhism, you want things in your life to disappear, to reduce your needs and desires

From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life - if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters.

As my Buddhist teachers have shown me, wisdom emerges in the space around words as much as from language itself.

My first encounter with Buddhist dharma would be in my early 20s. Like most young men, I was not particularly happy.

Wonder of wonders! Intrinsically all living beings are Buddhas, endowed with wisdom and virtue, but because men's minds have become inverted through delusive thinking they fail to perceive this.

Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering.

The non-doing of any evil, the performance of what's skillful, the cleansing of one's own mind: This is the Buddhas' teaching. Not disparaging, not injuring, restraint in line with the Patimokkha, moderation in food, dwelling in seclusion, commitment to the heightened mind: This is the Buddhas' teaching. Dhp 183, 185

A brahmin once asked the Blessed One: Are you a God? No, brahmin, said the Blessed One. Are you a saint? No, brahmin, said the Blessed One. Are you a magician? No, brahmin, said the Blessed One. What are you then? ''I am awake.

Right speech requires clarity of mind and freedom from confusion about the meaning of non-duality, that super-ordinary reality embracing self and other. Buddhists often feel that to criticise firmly and harshly means being dualist. An increasing number of Western Buddhists have adopted the same polite, diplomatic tone. But dualism refers to greed, anger and delusion, not to critical analysis to end greed, anger and delusion. We

The Buddha stated that "happiness is the greatest wealth.

the Buddhist scripture expresses it: Those who refuse to discriminate might as well be dead

Nietzsche was not an atheist, any more than the Buddha was.* Anyone who reads the Night Song and the Dance Song in Zarathustra will recognize that they spring out the same emotion as the Vedic or Gathic hymns or the Psalms of David. The idea of the Superman is a response to the need for salvation in precisely the same way that Buddhism was a response to the 'three signs'.

According to the Buddhist tradition, the spiritual path is the process of cutting through our confusion, of uncovering the awakened state of mind. When the awakened state of mind is crowded in by ego and its attendant paranoia, it takes on the character of an underlying instinct. So it is not a matter of building up the awakened state of mind, but rather of burning out the confusions which obstruct it. In the process of burning out these confusions, we discover enlightenment.

Jamgön Kongtrül of Sechen and Khenpo Kangshar—leading teachers in the Nyingma and Kagyü lineages.

However, the most striking evidence of Brahmanical hostility towards Buddhism comes in the form of silence: the way in which India's Buddhist history, extending over large parts of the country and lasting for many centuries, was excised from the historical record.

Preservation of orthodoxy seems to emerge as a supreme and contentious problem for all three monotheistic faiths, far more so than for other major world religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, or Confucianism. This may be partly due to the fact that the monotheistic religions are "revealed," that is, they are believed to have existed eternally and preexist the exact moment of revelation to their prophets. There is less room for flexibility on doctrine.

In the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, it's believed that reality can exist only where our mind creates a focus.

There's something uniquely interesting about Buddhism and mathematics, particularly about quantum physics, and where they meet. That has fascinated us for a long time.

The basic Buddhist stand on the question of equality between the genders is age-old. At the highest tantric levels, at the highest esoteric level, you must respect women: every woman.

As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn't exist in the countries of origin. It's just a sign of our culture.

Whereas Buddhism believes it would be best if we could simply ignore the world, the source of our psychic pain, the Taoists wanted nothing so much as to have complete union with this same world.

The original teachings of the Buddha are more a philosophy than a religion, for they admit no supreme god, nor do they propose any salvation other than that attainable through human diligence. The aim is temporal happiness, to be realized through asceticism—which was taught as a practical means of turning one's back on the world and its incumbent pain.