Buddha The Great Quotes & Sayings

People need to learn how to respond to each other's hatreds with love - which is what Jesus taught us, which is what Buddha came here to teach us, which is what Muhammad taught us, which is what all of the great spiritual masters who have ever walked among us who live at those highest energies taught us - responding to force with more force will just create more problems. — Wayne Dyer

If one sits on the head of the Great Buddha and looks across the green valley, framed by the arch of the grotto and dotted with fort-like manors that are almost tiny villages, he has a view and a sensation of rare beauty. — Maynard Owen Williams

We took a bus to the nearby monastery of one of the last great Tang dynasty Chan masters, Yun-men. Yun-men was known for his pithy "one word" Zen. When asked "What is the highest teaching of the Buddha?" he replied: "An appropriate statement." On another occasion, he answered: "Cake." I admired his directness. — Stephen Batchelor

You can focus on Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, Ramakrishna, Lao Tsu, Yukteswar, Yogananda, Vivekananda, any of the great spiritual teachers who have lived, or on a living teacher, and draw light from them. — Frederick Lenz

One may desire a spurious respect and precedence among one's fellow monks, and the veneration of outsiders. "Both monks and laity should think it was my doing. They should accept my authority in all matters great or small." This is a fool's way of thinking. His self-seeking and conceit just increase. — Gautama Buddha

Jehovah, Allah, the Trinity, Jesus, Buddha, are names for a great variety of human virtues, human mystical experiences human remorses, human compensatory fantasies, human terrors, human cruelties. If all men were alike, all the world would worship the same God. — Aldous Huxley

Nor does it matter from the standpoint of a comparative study of symbolic forms whether Christ or the Buddha ever actually lived and performed the miracles associated with their teachings. The religious literatures of the world abound in counterparts of those two great lives. And what one may learn from them all, finally, is that the savior, the hero, the redeemed one, is the one who has learned to penetrate the protective wall of those fears within, which exclude the rest of us, generally, in our daylight and even our dreamnight thoughts, from all experience of our own and the world's divine ground. The mythologized biographies of such saviors communicate the messages of their world-transcending wisdom in world-transcending symbols - which, ironically, are then generally translated back into such verbalized thoughts as built the interior walls in the first place. — Joseph Campbell

If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Samskrit language and literature and all that it contains. This is a magnificent inheritance and so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue. If our race forgot the Buddha, the Upanishads and the great epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata), India would cease to be India . — Jawaharlal Nehru

The return and reintegration with society, which is indispensable to the continuous circulation of spiritual energy into the world, and which, from the standpoint of the community, is the justification of the long retreat, the hero himself may find the most difficult requirement of all. For if he has won through, like the Buddha, to the profound repose of complete enlightenment, there is danger that the bliss of this experience may annihilate all recollection of, interest in, or hope for, the sorrows of the world; or else the problem of making known the way of illumination to people wrapped in economic problems may seem too great to solve. — Joseph Campbell

Let those who desire Buddhahood not train in many Dharmas but only one.
Which one? Great compassion.
Those with great compassion possess all the Buddha's teaching as if it were in the palm of their hand. — Gautama Buddha

If I had even a slight awareness, and practiced the Great Way, what I would fear would be deviating from it. — Gautama Buddha

Great spiritual teachers, like Buddha and Jesus, have touched their disciples' hearts by speaking in the language of emotion, teaching in parables, fables, and stories. Indeed, religious symbol and ritual makes little sense from the rational point of view; it is couched in the vernacular of the heart. — Daniel Goleman

I do not perceive even one other thing, O monks, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails such great suffering as the mind. The mind when undeveloped and uncultivated entails great suffering. — Gautama Buddha

The founders of the great world religions, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Mohammed, all seem to have striven for a worldwide brotherhood of man; but none of them could develop institutions which would include the enemy, the unbeliever. — Geoffrey Gorer

The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking; we stop emotional activity; we just sit. Whatever happens to us, we are not bothered. We just sit. It is like something happening in the great sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us. — Shunryu Suzuki

The spirit of defeating a man is the same for ten million men. The strategist makes small things into big things, like building a great Buddha from a one foot model. — Miyamoto Musashi

Sometimes people claim they don't need a crutch like Jesus, but he's not a crutch, he's a teacher. If you want to be a writer, you read the classics. If you want to make great music you listen to music that's been made by great musicians who have gone before. If you're studying to be a painter, it's a good idea to study the great masters. If Picasso came into your room while you were learning to draw and said 'Hi, I have a couple of hours would you like some hints?' would you say no? So it is with spiritual masters: Jesus, Buddha or any other enlightened being. They're geniuses in the way they used their minds and hearts just as Beethoven was a genius with music, or Shakespeare a genius with words. Why not learn from them, follow their lead, study what they were doing right. — Marianne Williamson

Who have our fighters been?" Calvin asked. "Oh, you must know them, dear," Mrs Whatsit said. Mrs Who's spectacles shone out at them triumphantly, "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." "Jesus!" Charles Wallace said. "Why, of course, Jesus!" "Of course!" Mrs Whatsit said. "Go on, Charles, love. There were others. All your great artists. They've been lights for us to see by." "Leonardo da Vinci?" Calvin suggested tentatively. "And Michelangelo?" "And Shakespeare," Charles Wallace called out, "and Bach! And Pasteur and Madame Curie and Einstein!" Now Calvin's voice rang with confidence. "And Schweitzer and Gandhi and Buddha and Beethoven and Rembrandt and St. Francis! — Madeleine L'Engle

If by leaving a small pleasure one sees a great pleasure, let a wise man leave the small pleasure, and look to the great. — Gautama Buddha

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and deal with our own unique adversity. What I am saying is that in all the chaos, remember to breathe, remember to smile, and remember that the only time to panic is when there is truly no tomorrow. Fortunately for the majority of us, tomorrow will always meet us in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh deck of cigarettes, ready to crack it's cocoon and mature into today. So ease the grip on your moralities and be yourself. Fantastic is really just the flaws. Nobody is perfect - not you, not me, not Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, not God. But the great thing is that you do not have to be perfect to be alive, and that is what makes life absolutely perfect. — Corey Taylor

All of you knowing now, Tthat the Buddhas, the Teachers of the Ages, In accord with what is peculiarly appropriate, have recourse to expedient devices, Need have no more doubts or uncertainties. Your hearts shall give rise to great joy, Since you know that you yourselves Shall become Buddhas. — Gautama Buddha

The great spiritual geniuses, whether it was Moses, Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Jesus, or Emerson ... have taught man to look within himself to find God. — Ernest Holmes

The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech. — Dogen

Rid of craving and without clinging, an expert in the study of texts, and understanding the right sequence of the words, he may indeed be called "In his last body", "Great in wisdom" and a "Great man." — Gautama Buddha

After his great awakening, the Buddha continued to meditate and to devote himself to others; otherwise his vision would have receded into a pleasant memory. — Huston Smith

When I return to that house it will be with my son in my arms. I shall have a red coat on him and red-flowered trousers and on his head a hat with a small gilded Buddha sewn on the front and on his feet tiger-faced shoes. And I will wear new shoes and a new coat of black sateen and I will go into the kitchen where I spent my days and I will go into the great hall where the Old One sits with her opium, and I will show myself and my son to all of them. — Pearl S. Buck

Watchfulness is the path of immortality:
Unwatchfulness is the path of death.
Those who are watchful never die:
Those who do not watch are already as dead.

Those who with a clear mind have seen this truth,
Those who are wise and ever watchful,
They feel the joy of watchfulness,
The joy of the path of the great.

And those who in high thought and in deep contemplation
With ever living power advance on the path,
They in the end reach NIRVANA,
The peace supreme and infinite joy.

~ Buddha — Juan Mascaro

Buddha is the crown jewel of the Indian nation which accepts all ways of worship of all religions. This quality of Hinduism in India was a product of many great spiritual masters chief among them was Buddha. And this is what sustains the secular character of India. — Narendra Modi

Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, great as each may be, their highest comfort given to the sorrowful is a cordial introduction into another's woe. Sorrow's the great community in which all men born of woman are members at one time or another. — Sean O'Casey

But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest. — Gautama Buddha

The most revealing books are the Holy Koran and the Holy Bible. The Bhagavad Gita is a great book as well, and the works of Buddha. These are the major influences on the world. — RZA

Man represses the irrational passions of destructiveness, hate, envy, revenge; he worships power, money, the sovereign state, the nation; while he pays lip service to the teachings of the great spiritual leaders of the human race, those of Buddha, the prophets, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed-he has transformed these teachings into a jungle of superstition and idol-worship. How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical overmaturity and emotional backwardness? — Erich Fromm

Wakefulness is the way to life.
The fool sleeps
As if he were already dead,
But the Master is awake
And he lives forever.
He watches.
He is clear.
How happy he is!
For he sees that wakefulness is life.
How happy he is,
Following the path of the awakened.
With Great perseverance
He meditates, seeking
Freedom and happiness. — 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

It's said that the Buddha's enlightenment is great than that of a traveler setting out, in the same proportion as the heavens are bigger than what can be seen of them through the eye of a needle. But in both cases, what you see is the sky. — Matthieu Ricard

People like Jesus Christ, the Buddha, and other walking masters who have moved through the earth have demonstrated that understanding that they have no needs, far from prohibiting them from experiencing the needs of others, allowed them to experience that others lived inside of the illusion of need and to have great compassion for them. — Neale Donald Walsch

The self of which you speak, whether it is the great self or the small self, is only a concept that does not correspond to any reality. — Gautama Buddha

Gradually the idea for a book began to take shape. It was to be a wildly ambitious and intolerant work, a kind of 'Anatomy of Restlessness' that would enlarge on Pascal's dictum about the man sitting quietly in a room. The argument, roughly, was as follows: that in becoming human, man had acquired, together with his straight legs and striding walk, a migratory 'drive' or instinct to walk long distances through the seasons; that this 'drive' was inseparable from his central nervous system; and, that, when warped in conditions of settlement, it found outlets in violence, greed, status-seeking or a mania for the new. This would explain why mobile societies such as the gypsies were egalitarian, thing-free and resistant to change; also why, to re-establish the harmony of the First State, all the great teachers - Buddha, Lao-tse, St Francis - had set the perpetual pilgrimage at the heart of their message and told their disciples, literally, to follow The Way. — Bruce Chatwin

Americans' deepest religion is often equality. The notion that Christ alone is God-superior, authoritative, supernatural-and that Christ's teaching and person is far greater than Buddha's, or Muhammad's, or Moses's, no matter how much great and good wisdom may be contained in those others, is scandalous. — Peter Kreeft

Like Gandhi, like the Buddha, like all great spiritual teachers, Easwaran had no use for beliefs unless they generated actions. Doing, not saying, is what counts. — Eknath Easwaran

Why is it that sometimes our prayers seem not to be answered? This is a manifestation of the Buddha's wisdom, so that we can deepen our prayers, become stronger people, live more profound lives and secure deeper, more lasting good fortune. If our slightest prayer was answered immediately, we would become lazy and degenerate. And we could not hope to build a life of great dignity and substance. — Daisaku Ikeda

Every successful man must have behind him somewhere tremendous integrity, tremendous sincerity, and that is the cause of his signal success in life. He may not have been perfectly unselfish; yet he was tending towards it. If he had been perfectly unselfish, his would have been as great a success as that of the Buddha or of the Christ. The degree of unselfishness marks the degree of success everywhere. — Swami Vivekananda

Just as the great oceans have but one taste, the taste of salt, so too there is but one taste fundamental to all true teachings of the way, and this is the taste of freedom. — Gautama Buddha

If you endeavor to embrace the Way through much learning, the Way will not be understood. If you observe the Way with simplicity of heart, great indeed is this Way. — Gautama Buddha

His success may be great, but be it ever so great the wheel of fortune may turn again and bring him down into the dust. — Gautama Buddha

Boston is a great center of learning. That surgeon was a tantric Buddha," said Ram in admiration, "The smell of cautery is the finest incense. It sharpens the mind. — Joe Niemczura

Learn this from the waters: in mountain clefts and chasms, loud gush the streamlets, but great rivers flow silently. — Gautama Buddha

Understand the suffering of worldly existence.
Abandon its causes of ignorance and selfishness.
Practice the path of meditation and compassion.
Awaken from suffering within Great Peace. — Gautama Buddha

The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, for one great cause alone appear in the world. The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world because they wish to cause the beings to hear of the Buddha's knowledge and insight and thus enable them to gain purity. They appear in the world because they wish to demonstrate the Buddha's knowledge and insight to the beings. They appear in the world because they wish to cause the beings to understand. They appear in the world because they wish to cause the beings to enter into the path of the Buddha's knowledge and insight. — Gautama Buddha

One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head - just a jog, barely perceptible really - it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. — Christopher Moore

It is a fact, indeed, that most of
the great teachers of mankind have been not writers
but speakers. Think of Pythagoras, Christ, Socrates,
the Buddha, and so on. And since I have spoken of
Socrates, I would like to say something about Plato. I
remember Bernard Shaw said that Plato was the dramatist
who invented Socrates — Jorge Luis Borges

Are you feeling helpless when you think about the dark roads of the future? Then read the biographies of the great men! Learn their life stories; they will lead you to the light! Buddha will lead you to the light; Gandhi will lead you to the light! Men of wider horizons will broaden our own horizons! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha. — Shunryu Suzuki

He wished he understood where they come from: all the terrorists, religious revolutionists
and hate-criminals. Did terrorizing entire communities of people help them sleep sound at
night? Did it make them happy? Or are they just in for the attention? Have they nothing to
lose? Or are they simply bored and spit balling issues that have always been there? Can all
global acts of violence and terror be summed up, as just a whole other level of a mixture of
bad parenting, psychological disorders and unattended anger management issues? Can they
be treated, medically or spiritually? Are we waiting for the birth of another great visionary
like Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ or Prophet Muhammad, who will 'make the world a better
place'? Or are we just too soaked in the idea that religion is a dying concept and spirituality
is overrated? Is it too late? Are we too far behind? He wanted to know. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit. — Gautama Buddha

The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion. — Gautama Buddha

Monks, one thing, if practiced and made much of, conduces to great thrill, great profit, great security after the toil, to mindfulness and self-possession, to the winning of knowledge and insight, to pleasant living in this very life, to the realization of the fruit of release by knowledge. What is that one thing: It is mindfulness centered on the body. — Gautama Buddha

The perfect teaching of Buddha Is not accomplished through mere study. Dharma without meditation Is like people who die of thirst While being helplessly carried away By a great river. Dharma without meditation Is like a person who, having supplied Many beings with food and drink, Starves to death himself. — Khamtrul Rinpoche III

I heard a story once in the Orient about two architects who went to see the Buddha. They had run out of money on their projects and hoped the Buddha could do something about it. 'Well, I'll do what I can,' said the Buddha, and he went off to see their work. The first architect was building a bridge, and the Buddha was very impressed. 'That's a very good bridge,' he said, and he began to pray. Suddenly a great white bull appeared, carrying on its back enough gold to finish construction. 'Take it,' said the Buddha, 'and build even more bridges.' And so the first architect went away very happy. The second architect was building a wall, and when the Buddha saw it he was equally impressed. 'That's a very good wall,' he said solemnly, and began to pray. Suddenly the sacred bull appeared, walked over to the second architect, and sat on him. — Colin Higgins

Know from the rivers in clefts and in crevices: those in small channels flow noisily, the great flow silent. Whatever's not full makes noise. Whatever is full is quiet. — Gautama Buddha

The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Christ, some of the other great Jewish teachers, Buddha, all preached it. Their followers forgot it. What is the trouble between capital and labor, what is the trouble in many of our communities, but rather a universal forgetting that this teaching is one of our first obligations. — Eleanor Roosevelt

When you find yourself in one of those mystical/devotional frames of mind or in am emergency and you feel you want to pray, then pray. Don't ever be ashamed to pray or feel prevented by thinking yourself unworthy in any way. Fact is whatever terrible thing you may have done, praying will always turn your energy around for the better.
Pray to whomever, whatever, and whenever you choose. Pray to the mountain, pray to the ancestors, pray to the Earth, pray to the Tao (but it won't listen!), pray to the Great Mother, pray to Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Lakshmi, Siva, pray to the Great Spirit, it makes no difference. Praying is merely a device for realigning the mind, energy, and passion of your local self with the mind, energy and passion of your universal self. When you pray, you are praying to the god or goddess within you. This has an effect on your energy field, which in turn translates into a positive charge that makes something good happen. — Stephen Russell

A great poet can give wings to abstract thoughts that touch a reader's mind with the ecstasy of joy. — Debasish Mridha

Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching. Monks, even in such a situation you should train yourselves thus: 'Neither shall our minds be affected by this, nor for this matter shall we give vent to evil words, but we shall remain full of concern and pity, with a mind of love, and we shall not give in to hatred. On the contrary, we shall live projecting thoughts of universal love to those very persons, making them as well as the whole world the object of our thoughts of universal love - thoughts that have grown great, exalted and measureless. We shall dwell radiating these thoughts which are void of hostility and ill will.' It is in this way, monks, that you should train yourselves. — Gautama Buddha

Some of the first human beings in whom the new consciousness emerged fully became the great teachers of humanity, such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Jesus, although their teachings were greatly misunderstood, especially when they turned into organized religion. They were the first manifestations of the flowering of human consciousness. — Eckhart Tolle

Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching and discipline has one taste, the taste of liberation. — Gautama Buddha

The Great Ones, the sages of every age, tell me what to look for. They say that the answer lies not elsewhere but right where I am, here where I am both the center and the source of the universe. They say that, contrary to what I may think I am, what I really am is formless, boundless, timeless, and deathless; that I am utterly transparent, empty, not an object. They say that this clarity that lies at the very heart of my humanity is none other than the Self, God, Buddha, Tao, and the Beloved, and that to see and be this requires no change, no achievement, no struggle, for it is already what I am; in fact, I cannot not be it. They say that no one else can tell me what I am, that I must see for myself, and should I discover this and live consciously from this, all will be right, all will be true. — J. C. Amberchele

On the 15th of the second month, as the Buddha was about to enter Nirvana, he, with his divine power, spoke in a great voice, which filled the whole world and reached the highest of the heavens. — Tony Page

It's happened many times before. Usually it results in an exceptional and gifted human. Some of the greatest figures in Earth's history were actually the product of humans and the Loric, including Buddha, Aristotle, Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein ... Aprodite, Apollo, Hermes, and Zeus were all real, and had one Loric parent — Pittacus Lore

There is a story concerning the Buddha, who is in the company of a fellow traveler who tests this great teacher with derogatory, insulting, disparaging, and bitter responses to anything the Buddha says. Every day, for three days when the Buddha spoke, the traveler responded by calling him a fool, and ridiculing the Buddha in some arrogant fashion. Finally, at the end of the third day, the traveler could stand it no more. He asked, "How is it that you are able to be so loving and kind when all I've done for the past three days is dishonor and offend you? Each time I am disobliging to you, you respond in a loving manner. How is this possible?" The Buddha responded with a question of his own for the traveler. "If someone offers you a gift, and you do not accept that gift, to whom does the gift belong? — Wayne W. Dyer

Therefore, what you do as a spiritual practitioner in this life shapes that. To seek and find this beautiful, continuing existence, where there can be more progress towards Buddha-hood, toward love, and wisdom, and helping all being etc. So that's the great value of it. — Robert Thurman

There was great political uncertainty in South Asia at the time of the Buddha. The older small tribal societies were cracking up and gave way to bigger states. There was much more trade and travel going on than before. To people in the cities the experience of living in a small place where you knew everyone and governed your affairs by consensual democracy had been lost. — Pankaj Mishra

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion's roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance. — Nhat Hanh