Buddha Solitude Quotes & Sayings

Solitude is happiness for one who is content, who has heard the Dhamma and clearly sees. Non-affliction is happiness in the world - harmlessness towards all living beings. — Gautama Buddha

With all respect to the Buddha and to the early Christian celibates, I sometimes wonder if all this teaching about nonattachment and the spiritual importance of monastic solitude might be denying us something quite vital. Maybe all that renunciation of intimacy denies us the opportunity to ever experience that very earthbound, domesticated, dirt-under-the-fingernails gift of the difficult, long-term, daily forgiveness {...} Maybe creating a big enough space within your consciousness to hold and accept someone's contradictions - someone's idiocies, even - is a kind of divine act. Perhaps transcendence can be found not only on solitary mountaintops or in monastic settings, but also at your own kitchen table, in the daily acceptance of your partner's most tiresome, irritating faults. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Delight in meditation and solitude. Compose yourself, be happy. You are a seeker. — Gautama Buddha

One way leads to acquisition, the other leads to nirvana. Realizing this a mon should take no pleasure in the respect of others, but should devote himself to solitude. — Gautama Buddha

Apply yourself to solitude. One who is given to solitude knows things as they really are. — Gautama Buddha

That solitude promotes insight as well as change," Storr continues, "has been recognized by the great religious leaders" - including the Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed - "who have usually retreated from the world before returning to it to share what has been revealed to them. — Joshua Wolf Shenk