Buddhist famous quotes

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
-- A. A. Milne

#Buddhist #Rivers

I'm a lapsed Buddhist like I'm a lapsed Catholic. I take it to a point.
-- Abel Ferrara

#Buddhist #Catholic

An outrageous instinct to love and be loved blinded your arms to lines of propriety––Women and Men, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, white, black, red, brown. An outrageous instinct to love and be loved executed your brain every hour on the hour.
-- Aberjhani

#Love #Christian #Buddhist

It is good to remember that the goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. In the same vein, my teachings are not meant to acquire followers or imitators, but to awaken beings to eternal truth and thus to awakened life and living.
-- Adyashanti

#Christian #Buddhist #Teaching

Right now, I'm following the Buddhist principle: Smile as abuse is hurled your way and this too shall pass.
-- Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

#Smile #Buddhist #Abuse

Our modern Western culture only recognises the first of these, freedom of desires. It then worships such a freedom by enshrining it at the forefront of national constituitions and bills of human rights. One can say that the underlying creed of most Western democracies is to protect their people's freedom to realise their desires, as far as this is possible. It is remarkable that in such countries people do not feel very free. The second kind of freedom, freedom from desires, is celebrated only in some religious communities. It celebrates contentment, peace that is free from desires.
-- Ajahn Brahm

#Country #Religious #Buddhist

If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.
-- Ajahn Chah

#Buddhist

Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.
-- Ajahn Chah

#Buddhist #Trying #Enlightened

Suttas are not meant to be 'sacred scriptures' that tell us what to believe. One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the truth beyond words.
-- Ajahn Sumedho

#Buddhist #Believe #Reality

There is pleasure when a sore is scratched, But to be without sores is more pleasurable still. Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires, But to be without desires is more pleasurable still.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna

#Buddhist #Desire #Pleasure

The Buddha taught some people the teachings of duality that help them avoid sin and acquire spiritual merit. To others he taught non-duality, that some find profoundly frightening.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna

#Spiritual #Buddhist #Teaching

Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna

#Spiritual #Buddhist #Offering

All philosophies are mental fabrications. There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna

#Buddhist #Philosophy #Essence

I'm a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, 'Everything changes, don't take it personally.'
-- Alan Ball

#Buddhist #Belief

I believe forgiveness is possible for everybody, for everything, but I'm a Buddhist.
-- Alan Ball

#Buddhist #Believe #I Believe

Imagine a multidimensiona l spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.
-- Alan Watts

#Buddhist #Morning #Reflection

A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
-- Alan Watts

#Christian #Buddhist #Laughter

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.
-- Alan Watts

#Inspirational #Life #Buddhist

If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then , my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.
-- Alan Watts

#Buddhist #Memories #Real

This, perhaps, goes to show that conditional self-esteem, as I have said for many years, is an insidious, real sickness, so much so that even Buddhists carelessly sneak it in and sometimes encourage their clients to achieve it.
-- Albert Ellis

#Buddhist #Real #Self Esteem

Not just Christians and Jews, but also Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and the followers of many other religions believe in values like peace, respect, tolerance and dignity. These are values that bring people together and enable us to build responsible and solid communities.
-- Alcee Hastings

#Forgiveness #Christian #Buddhist

I was always searching. I became a Buddhist in my twenties when I came to Los Angeles. I met a group of people who I really loved.
-- Alley Mills

#Buddhist #People #Twenties

NIRVANA- In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.
-- Ambrose Bierce

#Wise #Buddhist #Religion

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)
-- Anne Lamott

#Buddhist #Love You #Grieving

Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future.
-- Arthur C. Clarke

#Christian #Buddhist #Goal

We could become quite satisfied with ourselves because we are sitting in meditation and are endeavoring to practice the spiritual path. Such satisfaction with ourselves is not the same as contentment. Contentment is necessary, self-satisfaction is detrimental. To be content has to include knowing we are in the right place at the right time to facilitate our own growth. But to be self-satisfied means that we no longer realize the need for growth. All these aspects are important parts of our commitment and makes us into one whole being with a one-pointed direction.
-- Ayya Khema

#Spiritual #Buddhist #Mean

Half the spiritual life consists of remembering what we are up against and where we are going.
-- Ayya Khema

#Spiritual #Buddhist #Half

In criticizing, the teacher is hoping to teach. That's all.
-- Bankei Yotaku

#Teacher #Buddhist #Teach

We have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own
-- Barack Obama

#Buddhist #Atheist #Grace

I think Gore does have to worry. He is tied to Bill Clinton. We know that there were telephone calls that he made from his office. We know that there were visits to the Buddhist temple.
-- Barbara Olson

#Buddhist #Thinking #Worry

The true meaning of the precepts is not just that one should refrain from drinking alcohol, but also from getting drunk on nirvana.
-- Bassui Tokusho

#Buddhist #Drinking #Drunk

What God is doing today is calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven.
-- Billy Graham

#Christian #Buddhist #Jesus

I'm no buddhist, but this is fu**ing enlightmentment
-- Bjork

#Buddhist

Rather than encouraging apathy through submissive responses, let us deliver the message loudly and clearly, that needles killing and suffering is wrong.
-- Bodo Balsys

#Buddhist #Suffering #Apathy

Meat eating and a compassionate religion do not go hand in hand.
-- Bodo Balsys

#Buddhist #Hands #Meat

The perpetuators of the Buddha dharma have a moral responsibility to the rest of humanity to be at the forefront of the change away from blood-letting and killing, and not surreptitiously fostering it because of their lack of will to change their habits or mode of thinking concerning the animal kingdom.
-- Bodo Balsys

#Buddhist #Responsibility #Animal

Buddhists have a long-standing tradition of believing that at some level we always know what the best course of action is in any given situation. We just have to be quiet enough to let that course of action present itself to us. And we need the confidence to act when life shows us what we need to do.
-- Brad Warner

#Confidence #Buddhist #Believe

Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.
-- Brad Warner

#Buddhist #Morality #Wells

To believe straight away is foolishness, to believe after having seen clearly is good sense. That is the Buddhist policy in belief; not to believe stupidly, or to rely only on people, textbooks, conjecture, reasoning, or whatever the majority believes, but rather to believe what we see clearly for ourselves to be the case. This is how it is in Buddhism.
-- Buddhadasa

#Buddhist #Believe #Buddhism

He's a Catholic, a Hindy, an atheist, a Chein, a Buddhist, a Baptist and a Jew, and he knows, he shouldn't kill.
-- Buffy Sainte-Marie

#Religious #Buddhist #Atheist

I certainly haven't lived the life of a Buddhist monk.
-- Burton Cummings

#Buddhist #Monk #Buddhist Monk

You haven't partied until you've partied at dawn in complete silence with Buddhist monks.
-- Cameron Diaz

#Buddhist #Silence #Dawn

I'm just the worst little Buddhist in town.
-- Cher

#Buddhist #Littles #Towns

It was entirely due to my mother [a devout Buddhist] and her kindness and perseverance that the family was saved from utter ruin. For a period of 17 years--from the age of 9 until I was 25 years old--my mother never spent a day free from domestic difficulties.
-- Chiang Kai-shek

#Mother #Perseverance #Buddhist

We say that the sun is behind the clouds, but actually it is not the sun but the city from which we view it that is behind the clouds. If we realized that the sun is never behind the clouds we might have a different attitude toward the whole thing.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Attitude #Clouds

Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is enviromental generosity, without direction, without " for me" and without " for them". It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Real #Compassion

Anything that is created must sooner or later die. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Enlightenment #Sooner Or Later

What the warrior renounces is anything in his experience that is a barrier between himself and others. In other words, renunciation is making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

#Buddhist #Warrior #Renounce

By god the Buddhist means that from which the universe was born, the unborn of the Buddhist scriptures, and by soul that factor in the thing called man which moves towards enlightenment. Why need more be said of it, at any rate those who are not content with scholarship, but strive to attain that same enlightenment?
-- Christmas Humphreys

#Buddhist #Moving #Mean

Yoga has brought me closer to myself. It's helped me realize the interconnectedness of the mind, body and spirit, in the Buddhist sense of the word.
-- Christy Turlington

#Buddhist #Yoga #Mind

There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
-- Chuck Close

#Photography #Buddhist #Garden

In New York we have streets exploding and innocent Buddhist girls being stabbed in the neck and cabdrivers refusing to help her. If we happen into a nightclub by mistake, when we leave the doorman will be lying in the street surrounded by police.
-- Cynthia Heimel

#Girl #Buddhist #New York

Forget what you might have heard. There are no separate corps of angels for agnostics, atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Unitarians, Hindus, Druids, Shintoists, Wiccans, and so on. To put a spin on the old saying, it's okay if you don't believe in angels. We believe in you.
-- Cynthia Leitich Smith

#Buddhist #Atheist #Believe

By changing our inner state of mind, we can change any suffering or hardship into a source of joy, regarding it as a means for forging and developing our lives. To turn even sorrow into a source of creativity - this is the way of life of a Buddhist
-- Daisaku Ikeda

#Buddhist #Mean #Creativity

it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.
-- Daisaku Ikeda

#Karma #Peace #Buddhist

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.
-- Dalai Lama

#Inspirational #Buddhist #Sometimes

Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #May #Violence

As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens.
-- Dalai Lama

#Death #Buddhist #Reality

Human beings by nature want happiness and do not want suffering. With that feeling everyone tries to achieve happiness and tries to get rid of suffering, and everyone has the basic right to do this. In this way, all here are the same, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, Easterner or Westerner, believer or non-believer, and within believers whether Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and so on. Basically, from the viewpoint of real human value we are all the same.
-- Dalai Lama

#Christian #Buddhist #Real

Don't use Buddhism to become a Buddhist. Use Buddhism to become better at whatever else in your life you are doing already.
-- Dalai Lama

#Life #Buddhist #Buddhism

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.
-- Dalai Lama

#Inspirational #Buddhist #Kindness

The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
-- Dalai Lama

#Positive #Buddhist #Compassion

We all have to live together, so we might as well live together happily.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Together #Might

I describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. No more, no less.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Simple #Monk

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
-- Dalai Lama

#Success #Spiritual #Buddhist

The creatures that inhabit this earth--be they human beings or animals--are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.
-- Dalai Lama

#Spiritual #Buddhist #Animal

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
-- Dalai Lama

#Love #Karma #Buddhist

Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister.
-- Dalai Lama

#Inspirational #Buddhist #Brother

Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
-- Dalai Lama

#Karma #Wisdom #Buddhist

Spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each day remembering we all want the same things (to be happy and be loved) and we are all connected to one another.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Each Day #Want

One has to try to develop one's inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one's mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don't have to pay income tax on!
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Feelings #Training

First one must change. I first watch myself, check myself, then expect changes from others.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Watches #Firsts

I myself feel, and also tell other Buddhists that the question of Nirvana will come later. There is not much hurry. If in day to day life you lead a good life, honesty, with love, with compassion, with less selfishness, then automatically it will lead to Nirvana.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Honesty #Good Life

According to Buddhist practice, there are three stages or steps. The initial stage is to reduce attachment towards life. The second stage is the elimination of desire and attachment to this samsara. Then in the third stage, self-cherishing is eliminated
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Attachment #Self

In Buddhism, both learning and practice are extremely important, and they must go hand in hand. Without knowledge, just to rely on faith, faith, and more faith is good but not sufficient. So the intellectual part must definitely be present. At the same time, strictly intellectual development without faith and practice, is also of no use. It is necessary to combine knowledge born from study with sincere practice in our daily lives. These two must go together.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Buddhism #Hands

Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Logic #Abandoned

From one point of view we can say that we have human bodies and are practicing the Buddha's teachings and are thus much better than insects. But we can also say that insects are innocent and free from guile, where as we often lie and misrepresent ourselves in devious ways in order to achieve our ends or better ourselves. From this perspective, we are much worse than insects.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Lying #Teaching

When the days become longer and there is more sunshine, the grass becomes fresh and, consequently, we feel very happy. On the other hand, in autumn, one leaf falls down and another leaf falls down. The beautiful plants become as if dead and we do not feel very happy. Why? I think it is because deep down our human nature likes construction, and does not like destruction. Naturally, every action which is destructive is against human nature. Constructiveness is the human way. Therefore, I think that in terms of basic human feeling, violence is not good. Non-violence is the only way.
-- Dalai Lama

#Beautiful #Buddhist #Fall

We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are "news"; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and , therefore, largely ignored.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #War #Taken

When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Lessons

Follow the three R's: - Respect for self. - Respect for others. - Responsibility for all your actions.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Responsibility #Self

A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Home #Atmosphere

In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
-- Dalai Lama

#Buddhist #Past #Loved Ones

Our enemies provide us with a precious opportunity to practice patience and love. We should have gratitude toward them.
-- Dalai Lama

#Gratitude #Buddhist #Opportunity

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
-- Dalai Lama

#Love #Religious #Buddhist

Whether you believe in God or not does not matter much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life.
-- Dalai Lama

#Inspirational #Buddhist #Good Life

Be gentle with the earth.
-- Dalai Lama

#Karma #Buddhist #Environmental

Encountering sufferings will definitely contribute to the elevation of your spiritual practice, provided you are able to transform calamity and misfortune into the path.
-- Dalai Lama

#Spiritual #Buddhist #Practice

I've had loss in my life, and I like to think my mother's energy lives on in some faintly Buddhist way. I do find some comfort there.
-- Damian Lewis

#Mother #Buddhist #Loss

My idea for a Buddhist video game: No guns. Self-immolate instead. Get reincarnated. Repeat until you find Nirvana. Takes forever to play.
-- Dan Spencer

#Buddhist #Gun #Self

If only I could throw away the urge to trace my patterns in your heart, I could really see you.
-- Dave Brandon

#Buddhist #Heart #Patterns

I like change. There's something Buddhist about it - continuous change is wonderful.
-- David Bailey

#Buddhist #Wonderful

I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.
-- David Bowie

#Religious #Buddhist #Powerful

I remember a Buddhist teachers reflections on the Holocaust...What terrible karma those Jews mustve had... This kind of fundamentalism, which blames the victims and rationalizes their horrific fate, is something no longer to be tolerated quietly. It is time for... modern Buddhism to outgrow it by accepting social responsibility and finding ways to address such injustices.
-- David Loy

#Karma #Teacher #Buddhist

I don't really go down one path. I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, or a Catholic or a Christian or a Muslim, or Jewish. I couldn't put myself into any organized faith.
-- Dean Cain

#Christian #Buddhist #Catholic

Religion has failed us. Christ was not a Christian. Buddha was not a Buddhist. Mohammed was not a Mohammedan. And yet ever since the dawn of history, we have engaged in conflict and war and terrorism and murder and racism and ethnocentrism and bigotry and prejudice in the name of God.
-- Deepak Chopra

#Christian #Buddhist #War

The Mind cannot be confused, but it is confusion.
-- Dennis Merzel

#Buddhist #Confused #Confusion

What I find is that we're all human beings and that it's all very similar, what we believe. At the bottom, there's really not that much difference between Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. We all worship God.
-- Dennis Quaid

#Christian #Buddhist #Believe

The first precept in Buddhism is "Do not kill." This precept is not merely a legalistic prohibition, but a realization of our affinity with all who share the gift of life. A compassionate heart provides a firm ground for this precept.
-- Dhammananda Bhikkhuni

#Buddhist #Heart #Buddhism

All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’—they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.
-- Diana Vreeland

#Buddhist #Children #Talking