Believe Nothing Buddha Quotes & Sayings

Why are you so sure parallel lines exist? Believe nothing, merely because you have been told it, or because it is traditional, or because you have imagined it. — Gautama Buddha

The essence of all religions is love, compassion and tolerance. Kindness is my true religion. No matter whether you are learned or not, whether you believe in the next life or not, whether you believe in God or Buddha or some other religion or not, in day-to-day life you must be a kind person. — Dalai Lama

To force oneself to believe and to accept a thing without understanding is political, and not spiritual or intellectual. — Gautama Buddha

We need something to believe in. Doesn't matter what. God, Buddha, Elvis. We all need faith. That's what gives us hope, hope there's something better out there, something to strive for. Hope is what drives you. Hope gets you out of bed, hoping you're going to make that big sale at work, hoping you get to make love to your wife at night. - Paul Busch — Richard Doetsch

Do not blindly believe what others say. See for yourself what brings contentment, clarity and peace. That is the path for you to follow. — Gautama Buddha

I do believe that the original sources of all religions should be taught, because with that we will find our similarities, not just our differences. I believe that if Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, and Moses all got together they would be best of friends because the spiritual basis of all religions is something that builds unity. — Yehuda Berg

We wanted something in which to believe, as many people on Earth once believed in demons, or in sunken lost continents, in a face on Mars, crop circles, visitations from being on other planets, or God, Buddha, Christ, Allah, and so on. The fact that all of the above were total nonsense didn't change the desire to believe that there was Something Else out there, something that could make sense of chaotic lives and events. — Stephen Leigh

I don't believe in solipsism, but I also believe that if I am not existing - nothing exists for me. — Debasish Mridha

The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last - that they don't disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security. — Pema Chodron

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. — Ron Shelton

I reject karma and rebirth not only because I find them unintelligible, but because I believe they obscure and distort what the Buddha was trying to say. Rather than offering the balm of consolation, the Buddha encouraged us to peer deep and unflinchingly into the heart of the bewildering and painful experience that life can so often be. — Stephen Batchelor

In order to succeed, we must first dream. Then we must believe in that dream and take action. — Debasish Mridha

Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. — Gautama Buddha

He actually made damnation seem attractive. She had heard of men who rejected gods, who professed not to believe, but here was a believer who refused to grovel, a man who stood up to Shiva, to Buddha, to the gods of his own race, whoever they might be, who stood right up to them and demanded an accounting for a system in which pleasure must be paid for with pain, a system in which the only triumph over suffering was hard-won oblivion, a system that offered its captive audience little choice in matters concerning duration of performance. — Tom Robbins

What I believe is that we have this extraordinary spirit inside ourselves, which for me is our Buddha nature. I believe we are in the process of opening and getting closer and closer to our Buddha nature and stripping away all that is covering it. I don't think I'm going to end up meeting this one being up there or out there. — Eve Ensler

Zen replaces all objects of belief with one single thing: reality itself. We believe only in this universe. We don't believe in the afterlife. We don't believe in the sovereignty of nations. We don't believe in money or power or fame. We don't believe in our idols. We don't believe in our positions or our possessions. We don't believe we can be insulted, or that our honor or the honor of our family, our nation or our faith can be offended. We don't believe in Buddha. We just believe in reality. Just this. — Brad Warner

In the fall of 1988, I worshipped God in a Buddhist temple. As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground ... I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. I am content to learn from them and to walk with them side by side toward the God who lives, I believe, beyond the images that bind and blind us. — John Shelby Spong

The fool who recognizes his foolishness, is a wise man. But the fool who believes himself a wise man, he really is a fool. — Gautama Buddha

Believe nothing because it is written in books. Believe nothing because wise men say it is so. Believe nothing because it is religious doctrine. Believe it only because you yourself know it to be true. — Gautama Buddha

I think the Buddha presents an image of someone who believes in self-control. I think he's offering, perhaps, a critique of the romantic idea of the passions being this wonderful source of life or vitality that define you or your writing. — Pankaj Mishra

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide." - The Buddha The Occult (Hidden) Teachings The teachings and knowledge that appear hidden are — Michael Eggleston

Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto. — Gautama Buddha

Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism each have founder figures - Muhammad, Jesus, and the Buddha, respectively. And in thinking about these founder figures, I believe we must finally conclude that each brought a message of radical hope. To seventh-century Arabia, Muhammad brought the promise that anyone could find fulfillment and everlasting life through allegiance to the one true God. The Buddha held out hope that suffering could be transcended. Jesus brought the message that the last shall be first, that even the tax collectors and lepers - the outcasts - had cause for hope. And so that is the question I leave you — John Green

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true. — Gautama Buddha

Stories are masks of God.
That's a story, too, of course. I made it up, in collaborations with Joseph Campbell and Scheherazade, Jesus and the Buddha and the Brother's Grimm.
Stories show us how to bear the unbearable, approach the unapproachable, conceive the inconceiveable. Stories provide meaning, texture, layers and layers of truth.
Stories can also trivialize. Offered indelicately, taken too literally, stories become reductionist tools, rendering things neat and therefore false. Even as we must revere and cherish the masks we variously create, Campbell reminds us, we must not mistake the masks of God for God.
So it seemes to me that one of the most vital things we can teach our children is how to be storytellers. How to tell stories that are rigorously, insistently, beautifully true. And how to believe them. — Melanie Tem

All things are transient. Buddha says it is so, and Hock Seng, who didn't believe in or care about karma or the truths of the dharma when he was young, has come in his old age to understand his grandmother's religion and its painful truths. Suffering is his lot. Attachment is the source of his suffering. And yet he cannot stop himself from saving and preparing and striving to preserve himself in this life which has turned out so poorly.
How is it that I sinned to earn this bitter fate? Saw my clan whittled by red machetes? Saw my businesses burned and my clipper ships sunk? He closes his eyes, forcing memories away. Regret is suffering. — Paolo Bacigalupi

THE WAY OF THE Buddha is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the term, because it has no belief system, no dogma, no scripture. It does not believe in God, it does not believe in the soul, it does not believe in any paradise. It is a tremendous unbelief - and yet it is a religion. It is unique. Nothing has ever happened like it before in the history of human consciousness, and nothing afterward. — Osho

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. — Gautama Buddha

If you start thinking about who's going to read it [you're writing], or what grade will you get, or is it going to win that award, or are you going to get into this graduate program, you're blocking the light, and the light is that guidance and love we get when we open up our hearts and are guided by our higher selves, or God, or the Buddha Lupe [Buddha and the Virgin of Guadalupe fused together, as they are in the tattoo on Sandra's right arm], or whatever you believe in, or love. — Sandra Cisneros

The fools of this world prefer to look for sages far away. They don't believe that the wisdom of their own mind is the sage ... the sutras say, "Mind is the teaching." But people of no understanding don't believe in their own mind or that by understanding this teaching they can become a sage. They prefer to look for distant knowledge and long for things in space, buddha-images, light, incense, and colors. They fall prey to falsehood and lose their minds to insanity. — Bodhidharma

The Buddha said: Believe nothing because a wise person said it, Believe nothing because it is generally held. Believe nothing because it is written. Believe nothing because it is said to be Divine. Believe nothing because someone else believes it. But believe only what you yourself judge to be true. — Russill Paul

At times like this, I am grateful I somehow learned to value self-discovery over blind obedience to authority. The Buddha himself said we shouldn't believe his words without question - we must discover the truth for ourselves. "Be a lamp unto yourself," he counseled his disciples. "Find your own way to liberation. — Gay Hendricks

Hindus believe Buddha to be an Avatara. — Swami Vivekananda

Believe, meditate, see. Be harmless, be blameless. Awake to the law. And from all sorrows free yourself. — Gautama Buddha

I don't believe in magic ... I don't believe in Jesus ... I don't believe in Buddha ... I don't believe in Elvis ... I don't believe in Beatles. — John Lennon

He is able who think he is able. — Gautama Buddha

Anyone familiar with the numerous accounts of the Buddha's extraordinary compassion and reverence for living beings - for example his insistence that his monks strain the water they drink lest they inadvertently cause the death of any micro-organisms - could never believe that he would be indifferent to the sufferings of domestic animals caused by their slaughter of food — Philip Kapleau

The Amida Buddha delivers those who recognize their own weakness and cowardice ... Those who admit their own faults and above all, those who believe ... A wholehearted trust in Amida Buddha gives peace of mind to those who've known despair. Even the most vicious and evil of sinners will attain salvation and be reborn in paradise ... Even a piece of shit like me! — Naoyuki Ochiai

It is always a question of knowing and seeing, and not that of believing. The teaching of the Buddha is qualified as ehi-passika, inviting you to 'come and see', but not to come and believe. — Walpola Rahula

Believe nothing, O monks, just because you have been told it, or it is commonly believed, or because it is traditional or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to and take as your guide. — Gautama Buddha

It doesn't matter whether you believe in Christ, Moses, Allah, Brahma, Buddha, or any other being or master. Each one of us has our own beliefs, our own point of view. There are billions of different points of view, but it's the same force of life behind each one of us. — Miguel Angel Ruiz

Some people believe I am the third Buddha, but this is people's choice. From me, never. I have never pretended I am special. — Kelsang Gyatso

If some people want to believe in Jesus, or Mohammed, or Buddha, or their ancestors, who is to say which is right and which wrong? It seems to me that most of the religions in the world are too dogmatic. They preach the 'live and let live' philosophy, but rarely do they practise it. — Gerald Durrell

Don't believe a teaching just because you've heard it from a man who's supposed to be holy, or because it's contained in a book supposed to be holy, or because all your friends and neighbors believe it. But whatever you've observed and analyzed for yourself and found to be reasonable and good, then accept that and put it into practice. — Gautama Buddha

As long as we observe love for others and respect for their rights and dignity in our daily lives, then whether we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in the Buddha or God, follow some religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy. — Dalai Lama

Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your national belief, believe not because you have been made to believe from you childhood, but reason truth out, and after you have analyzed it, then if you find it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it and help others live up to it. — Gautama Buddha

But there was another option. He could choose to live in the world and guide other souls to enlightenment. Staying would mean never stepping through the door to Nirvana until every other living being was enlightened. It could take all eternity. No one knows how long it took him to make his decision. But Tibetans believe that he stayed. His realization made him a buddha - an enlightened being - but his choice also made him the first Bodhisattva: — Scott Carney

Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe. — Dalai Lama