Buddhism Is Not What You Think Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

What makes human life
which is inseparable from this moment
so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again. — Steve Hagen

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

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

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

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

Your choices are really very limited. They are limited by your level of awareness. If you can change your level of awareness radically, then you can change your destiny. — Frederick Lenz

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

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I'm not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out. — Paul Newman

This will never come again — Steve Hagen

It is such a mistake to assume that practicing dharma will help us calm down and lead an untroubled life; nothing could be further from the truth. Dharma is not a therapy. Quite the opposite, in fact; dharma is tailored specifically to turn your life upside down - it's what you sign up for. So when your life goes pear-shaped, why do you complain? If you practice and your life fails to capsize, it is a sign that what you are doing is not working. This is what distinguishes the dharma from New Age methods involving auras, relationships, communication, well-being, the Inner Child, being one with the universe, and tree hugging. From the point of view of dharma, such interests are the toys of samsaric beings - toys that quickly bore us senseless. — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

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

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

In the process of burning out these confusions, we discover enlightenment. If the process were otherwise, the awakened state of mind would be a product dependent upon cause and effect and therefore liable to dissolution. Anything which is created must, sooner or later, die. If enlightenment were created in such a way, there would always be a possibility of ego reasserting itself, causing a return to the confused state. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it. — Chogyam Trungpa

As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation. And we become wise, with no sense of having to straighten anyone out. — Steve Hagen

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

The essence of Buddhist practice is not so much an effort at changing your thoughts or your behavior so that you can become a better person, but in realizing that no matter what you might think about the circumstances that define your life, you're already good, whole, and complete. It's about recognizing the inherent potential of your mind. In other words, Buddhism is not so much concerned with getting well as with recognizing that you are, right here, right now, as whole, as good, as essentially well as you could ever hope to be. — Yongey Mingyur

I asked the Dalai Lama what it was like to wake up with joy, and he shared his experience each morning. 'I think if you are an intensely religious believer, as soon as you wake up, you thank God for another day. And you try to do God's will. For a nontheist like myself, but who is a Buddhist, as soon as I wake up, I remember Buddha's teaching: the importance of kindness and compassion, wishing something good for others, or at least to reduce their suffering. Then I remember that everything is interrelated, the teaching of interdependence. So then I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That's a meaningful day. — Dalai Lama XIV

Whatever the world dishes up, we take it on
not on our own terms, but on the world's. — Steve Hagen

Many people entertain the idea that Christianity,like almost any other religion,is basically a system of beliefs-you know, a set of doctrines or a code of behavior, a philosophy, an ideology.
But that's a myth.
Christianity is not at all like Buddhism or Islam or Confucianism. The founders of those religions said (in effect), 'Here is what I teach. Believe my teachings. Follow my philosophy.' Jesus said, 'Follow me'(Matthew 9:9).
Leaders of the world's religions said, 'What do you think about what I teach?' Jesus said, 'Who do you say I am?'(Luke 9:20) — Josh McDowell

To believe that life's problems will somehow work themselves out, everything bad is fixable and something about samsara has to be worth fighting for makes it virtually impossible to nurture a genuine, all-consuming desire to practise the dharma. The only view that truly works for a dharma practitioner is that there are no solutions to the sufferings of samsara and it cannot be fixed. — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

When people ask the Dalai Lama, "Is Buddhism a religion?" he answers, "Yes, it is." Then they ask, "What kind of religion is it?" He responds, "My religion is kindness." You might think, "Everyone's is." Everyone's is. That's true. It's not complicated to describe the goal of a spiritual life. It's easier than you think to explain it. It's more difficult than you can imagine to do it. — Sylvia Boorstein

I think a lot of people trying to follow Buddhism these days are getting confused about sex and they don't understand what's going on. They've been exposed to a contemporary Christian idea that sex itself is evil and bad, which I'm not so sure was Jesus' idea. For me, the Buddhist approach isn't that sex itself is evil or bad but that sex is neutral. It's the way you do it that can problematic. — Brad Warner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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