Quotes & Sayings About Buddhism

Diet is a matter of personal preference, but if you're interested in the advanced states of meditation, eating mammals should be avoided. They have a more evolved consciousness and can affect your attention field greatly. — Frederick Lenz

It just seemed like Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism - because that's mainly what I've been exposed to - was a real solid organization of teachings to point someone in the right direction. Some real well thought out stuff. But I don't know, like, every last detail about Buddhism. — Adam Yauch

Nirvana is the center of things; then there are the outer bandings of attention. The universe is a mind. At the center of its mind is nirvana. — Frederick Lenz

It is vital to understand that however positive this worldly life, or even a small part of it, may appear to be, ultimately it will fail because absolutely nothing genuinely works in samsara. — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

Seeking is endless. It never comes to a state of rest; it never ceases. — Sharon Salzberg

Achala, worrying and scheming about your next life, before you have even completed this one, is not a good practice. Rinpoche — Daniel Prokop

Don't run away from the world. The world is God. Don't run towards the world. God is the void. Don't be afraid of the complexities of this life, nor the stark simplicity of death. — Frederick Lenz

While a man desires a woman,
His mind is bound
As closely as a calf to its mother.

As you would pluck an autumn lily,
Pluck the arrow of desire. — Dhammapada

We are luminous beings. Beneath our transient physical bodies we are made of intelligent light. — Frederick Lenz

It took me forty years of dealing with buddhism to finally realize that actually Buddha's discovery was happiness and bliss. — Robert Thurman

The intuitive mind is nonphysical. It is not part of the brain or any other cellular structure in the physical body. It is part of the causal body. — Frederick Lenz

When you're around the aura of humanity in those cities, you can't feel anything. — Frederick Lenz

Meditation is existence. When we meditate, all we are simply doing is letting go and allowing ourselves to dissolve back into that which we really are. We are merging with life and light. — Frederick Lenz

The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. — Gautama Buddha

We are participatory beings who inhabit a participatory reality, seeking relationships that enhance our sense of what it means to be alive. In terms of dharma practice, a true friend is more than just someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of what it means to live, who can guide us when we're lost and help us find the way along a path, who can assuage our anguish through the reassurance of his or her presence. — Stephen Batchelor

I'd love to find some people to teach advanced meditation to. I've been looking for many years. There are a few around. Once in a while I run into another one. It's a very limited league at this time, in this world. — Frederick Lenz

Precepts in Buddhism and commandments in Judiasm and Christianity are important jewels that we need to study and practice. They provide guidelines that can help us transform our suffering. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The sacred books of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and the Veda are the best repositories of the ideas that mattered most to our ancestors, and to ignore them is an act of childish conceit. But it is equally naive to believe that whatever was written down in the past contains an absolute truth that lasts forever. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Try to read books about meditation, but not so many different viewpoints that they get confusing. There is no best way. It's just what works for you at the time. — Frederick Lenz

People can only live fully by helping others to live. When you give life to friends you truly live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist. — Daisaku Ikeda

This world only brings things apart that come together, and brings things together that weren't together. — Frederick Lenz

People on this planet are currently preparing to blow themselves up in ultimate thermonuclear wars. We are living among beings whose state of mind is destruction. — Frederick Lenz

Consider this:
1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding "entheogenic" drug LSD?
And here's a bonus question:
2. Why does an "expanded consciousness" include the inability to operate a motor vehicle? — Brad Warner

A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind. — Daisaku Ikeda

The deeper side of the study occurs on levels of attention your mind is not aware of, but that your superconscious mind is - what don Juan calls the nagual. — Frederick Lenz

It is your causal body that is the real you. At the end of each incarnation, it carries the knowledge and karmic patterns of that lifetime, in addition to all of your other previous lifetimes, into your next lifetime. — Frederick Lenz

We must accept the reality that the causes of impatience travel a two-way street. — Allan Lokos

Spiritual balance is tai chi. It is the center of things. It is the place where yin and yang meet. In the chakras, it is considered the heart chalkra, anahata. — Frederick Lenz

We die, he said.
We die, I said. And kn owing this how do we live?
Knowing this, we live.
We live. — Alan Spence

I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world. — Nhat Hanh

Some people meditate because they need more energy and when you meditate you get a tremendous amount of energy. — Frederick Lenz

It is quite possible to speed up the healing process to the part of the body that is injured. This all has to do with the release of chi. — Frederick Lenz

The principles of Buddhism have become more commonplace, which is a good thing. — Sakyong Mipham

Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention. — Sharon Salzberg

I feel that there's a certain danger in always being in a lovely rural setting. You can lose touch. — Frederick Lenz

If you're constantly ruminating about what you just did- or what you should have done- or what you would have done if you only had the chance, you will miss your life. Ok, you will fail to connect with it. You will fail to connect with other people. — Sam Harris

The causal body is like DNA or RNA in that it is the coding that determines your level of evolution. — Frederick Lenz

We see very few people who are satisfied. They say that the only ones who are really happy are the enlightened or the fools. — Frederick Lenz

Many of the people I work with I've worked with in other lifetimes. I moved to California because I knew that many of my students from past lives were in California. — Frederick Lenz

Can you allow yourself to be impaled on the present moment? — T. Scott McLeod

Consider the way you speak and your use of language; it's a reflection of your warrior spirit. — Frederick Lenz

Maybe Christ was promoting Buddhism, maybe Buddha wasn't a prophet, maybe the Quran is older than its Prophet, and maybe we shouldn't spend another two thousand years living a lie, just because we fear the truth and the darkness it reveals within us. — Daniel Marques

Learn that happiness comes through self-control and not being angry or jealous. The only one that you really torment is yourself. It is easier to let go and gain new ways of looking at life. — Frederick Lenz

It is the quick path. We turn everything inside out and upside down - which is when it gets straightened out very neatly and in an orderly fashion. — Frederick Lenz

[H]uman experience is determined as much by the nature of the mind and the structure of its senses as by the external objects whose presence the mind reveals. — Alan W. Watts

A person trying to meditate is doing something that's impossible since meditation is not an action. — Frederick Lenz

The buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment. You don't have to look "over there." You don't have to figure anything out. You don't have to acquire anything. And you don't have to run off to Tibet, or Japan, or anywhere else. You wake up right here. In fact, you can only wake up right here.
So you don't have to do the long search, the frantic chase, the painful quest. You're already right where you need to be. — Steve Hagen

The manifestation of the free mind is said to be lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. — Sharon Salzberg

Just as the DNA is a structure of double helical bonds, so your being is a structure of elements, not physical elements, but awarenesses that have come together in a ring of power. — Frederick Lenz

In advanced practice there is a sense of commitment to the study. It is happy; it's never forced. It is a natural evolutionary process of an evolved being. — Frederick Lenz

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. — Pema Chodron

I make a distinction between Buddhism with a Capital 'B' and buddhism with a small 'b'. Sri Lanka has the former, in which the state uses Buddhism as an instrument of power, so there are even Buddhists monks who say the Tamils should be eliminated. Thai Buddhists are not perfect either. Some Thai Buddhist monks have compromised with the kind and possess cars and other luxuries. In many Buddhist countries, the emphasis is on being goody-goody, which is not good enough. I am for buddhism with a small 'b' which is non-violent, practical and aims to eliminate the cause of suffering.. — Sulak Sivaraksa

That's why it's called a practice. We have to practice a practice if it is to be of value. — Allan Lokos

When you live in a psychic state of mind, you are happy. You don't have to do anything. Life is always beautiful, but we don't see it when we enter into lower states of mind that are, in effect, cloudy. — Frederick Lenz

Move beyond the limited parameters that most human beings have and realize that there are thousands and millions of worlds beyond this world. — Frederick Lenz

Don't just sit there. Go do something and don't expect that it's going to be fun unless you make it fun. You have got to work on things. That is when you are happy. — Frederick Lenz

If the kundalini is flowing through you at a very rapid rate, if you are not in harmony with the dharma, then you will have great problems with the study. — Frederick Lenz

Like a robe wears out over time and turns to rags, life wears out from day to day, from second to second. — Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The way you dress is extremely important. It demonstrates your spirit. It's the guise through which the world evaluates and views you. — Frederick Lenz

This concept that you refer to in Buddhism is something I've been nurtured with through the history of my country for 700, 800 years - Persian poets and philosophers haven't said anything different with regard to experiencing life in the moment, as opposed to the belief of permanence. — Abbas Kiarostami

Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary. — David Sylvian

There are many universes, many dimensions. They are endless. Most of them are not particularly relevant for us. They won't help us. They won't make us happier. — Frederick Lenz

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

Learn to meditate, practice and don't get frustrated. It will take you years to learn to meditate perfectly. Every time you try, you are growing. It's not as if you have to meditate perfectly to make progress. — Frederick Lenz

Power doesn't make you happy. Actually, power without knowledge and balance is problematic. Power is something that will automatically follow when you have knowledge. The two are really the same, in a certain sense. — Frederick Lenz

As a sensitive person around other people, you feel their desires, you feel their angers, and you feel their frustrations. You begin to believe that these desires, angers, and frustrations are yours. — Frederick Lenz

If the tonal collapses completely, then you're crazy functionally, you're psychotic. — Frederick Lenz

The primary energy that is active in all things is kundalini. Kundalini energy is the energy of awareness. It can be used to modify awareness. — Frederick Lenz

The self is a
self-made
Procrustean bed
of little comfort — Ulf Wolf

Close your eyes, Matt, and focus on third eye, the second chakra of your being. Open third eye and you will feel energy of other river as it flows. And energy of Goddess.
He closed his eyes. He could sense the energy of the woman next to him and the power of desire. He felt warmth and a sense of belonging here. But that was all. — Joe Niemczura

It is necessary to go through all the daily tasks and bring perfection to them, to learn to be perfect in your meditation, and to win in all your endeavors so that one day you will complete again. — Frederick Lenz

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself. — Alan W. Watts

We can understand the inherent radiance & purity of our minds by understanding metta. Like the mind, metta is not distorted by what it encounters. — Sharon Salzberg

There is no best teacher. Life itself is the teacher. There is no best method. All that matters is that it works. — Frederick Lenz

The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion. — Julian Baggini

Even when dreaming, if the sentient beings who dwell in the three lower realms are witnessed, then at that moment one should pray to sever the continuity of their negativity.
- Gathering of Precious Qualities — Pema Lungtok Gyatso

How strange it is to be human. For a short moment we are conscious of the glories of life then we become silent again. Perhaps there is more. Look more deeply into the matter. — Frederick Lenz

Students of popular science ... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently - thinking incessantly - is considered perfectly normal. — Sam Harris

When your consciousness expands you are in a world, literally, of light. You live in a world of light where nothing is solid. You don't have to be enlightened to have this experience. You just have to start the inner journey. — Frederick Lenz

True wisdom is to see and understand your relationship with the universe. When you gain that relational knowledge, then you are wise. — Frederick Lenz

There are many paths that lead to enlightenment. There are lesser enlightenments along the way to a larger enlightenment, referred to sometimes as liberation. — Frederick Lenz

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

What I teach you to do is how to bring the light of the supraconscious throughout your being, because once you have done that, the chakras will open up by themselves. — Frederick Lenz

If you want to take care of tomorrow, take better care of today. We always live now. All we have to do is entrust ourselves to the life we now live. — Dainin Katagiri

There is wisdom to loving. — Frederick Lenz

There are really only three important things to remember in life: To care, to share, and to be fair. This is not a new idea at all, and yet, observing how most people live their lives, you might think it was. — Frederick Lenz

If you have humility, you are willing to undertake anything to spread the dharma. — Frederick Lenz

The mystical kundalini is something that I normally use when we're on field trips, when we go to a place of power. — Frederick Lenz

For the person who wants to get to the mystical experience directly, Tantric Buddhism is the path. — Frederick Lenz

I don't know where I'm going on this path. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. You had to be lost, before you could be found. These are the truths. You had to be confused, before you could find clarity; you had to suffer, before you could find peace. These were the only ways, life could happen. Of course you were confused before you found clarity. If you weren't confused, then you would already be clear. Of course you were lost before you were found. If you were already found, then you wouldn't be lost. Of course there would be suffering before peace. If there was already peace, then there wouldn't be suffering. One necessarily came before the other. — T. Scott McLeod

Being a senior doesn't automatically make one wise but the wise & foolish alike have things to teach us. — Allan Lokos

Meditation is the study of making the mind still. As your mind becomes still, a power enters you. This power transmogrifies your mind, it escalates your evolution and you begin to cycle through many incarnations in one lifetime. — Frederick Lenz

The Buddha is like space, with no inherent nature; appearing in the world to benefit the living, his features and refinements are like reflections. — Thomas Cleary

The more perfectly you can refine the process of Frisbee, the tighter your energy is and the more you become one with the nothingness of the Frisbee, the nothingness of the play. — Frederick Lenz

For as long as space remains,
For as long as sentient beings remain,
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the miseries of the world. — Acharya Shantideva

You don't have to do anything to be happy, nor do you have to avoid anything. Happiness comes from within your mind. Happiness already exists. — Frederick Lenz

Life is movement. The more life there is, the more flexibility there is. The more fluid you are, the more you are alive. — Arnaud Desjardins

I've always liked Southeast Asia a lot. It's a wonderful place, an easy place. People are great, there's a lot of history and culture, and I like the serenity of Buddhism there. It's very beautiful. I find that to be a very nice place to visit. — Matt Dillon

Buddhism is the study of the way the mind works. One has to be able to hold a large number of relational concepts simultaneously in the mind. It is necessary to grid, to literally unlock realities and dimensions with the power of your mind. — Frederick Lenz