Buddhist Enlightenment Quotes & Sayings

Even though it's not perceivable to the mind or senses, it's there and enlightenment is absolute freedom. — Frederick Lenz

Neither my life of luxury in the palace -nor- my life as ascetic in the forest were ways to enlightenment. — Gautama Buddha

Well it's always been an interesting area for me. In referencing something I just reread from Dogen it says, "Enlightenment doesn't break the person anymore than the reflection breaks the water" and Suzuki in his commentary is saying you don't lose your personality once you acquire some sort of Buddhist understanding. — Brad Warner

I asked Mincha if he would like to be reincarnated as the beautiful scarlet minivet. Mincha paused for a moment and then pointed out how many insects a minivet consumes in its lifetime. "Killing other creatures causes pain in the world. So from a Buddhist perspective, we must say that the minivet is not to be envied." Besides, he related, there are 500 rebirths separating birds and humans, so a bird rebirth would be a big setback from enlightenment. Back — Eric Dinerstein

The purpose of enlightenment is certainly not the teacher, nor is it you. It doesn't have a purpose. Enlightenment simply exists. — Frederick Lenz

There's a Buddhist story about the guy who wants to be enlightened, and then he gets a cow and a wife and a child, and all these things get in the way of his enlightenment. So, yeah, I have no chance of being enlightened. — Larkin Grimm

In what is now known as Bodh Gaya ... a Buddhist temple stands beside an ancient pipal, descended from that bodhi tree, or "enlightenment tree," and I watched the rising of the morning star and came away no wiser than before. But later I wondered if the Tibetan monks were aware that the Bodhi tree was murmuring with gusts of birds, while another large pipal, so close by that it touched the holy tree with many branches, was without life. I make no claim for the event: I simply declare what I saw at Bodh Gaya. — Peter Matthiessen

To practice the Way single heartedly is, in itself, enlightenment. There is no gap between practice and enlightenment and daily life. This stripped-down Buddhist aesthetic pervades all aspects of St Zen. Most St Zen temples eschew the fantastic sculptures of bodhisattvas with their jewelry and fluttering robes. Instead, Zen emphasizes rock gardens, green-tea caffeine-infused meditation, and single-mindedness. — Marie Mutsuki Mockett

You have to come to the world of enlightenment with open hands, not clinched fists, without an agenda. — Frederick Lenz

Put the mind in alignment with the ten thousand radiances of enlightenment and experience them in various gradations forever. That's the total purpose of a monk. — Frederick Lenz

Buddhist philosophy is an interpretation of ordinary human experience, but an interpretation which is not revealed by God nor discovered in the access of inspiration nor seen in a mystical light. Basically, Buddhist metaphysics is a very simple and natural elaboration of the implications of Buddha's own experience of enlightenment. Buddhism does not seek primarily to understand or to "believe in" the enlightenment of Buddha as the solution to all human problems, but seeks an existential and empirical participation in that enlightenment experience. It is conceivable that one might have the "enlightenment" without being aware of any discursive philosophical implications at all. — Thomas Merton

We're connected to the Buddhist order, to the mind of enlightenment. All day long we draw the power and force from that world, from all the teachers and all the adherents of the practices and the principles. — Frederick Lenz

Do not feel that you are destined to enlightenment in this life. You have no idea. This is an illusion of selfhood. It's gross ignorance and egotism. — Frederick Lenz

If enlightenment comes first, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form or no color, which is ready to take form or color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this orginal truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based. — Shunryu Suzuki

Buddhists don't feel that enlightenment is particularly unusual. We feel that it's the natural state. Enlightenment simply means perceiving life directly as it is in all of its infinite, ever changing wonder, in all of its varied, myriad states of mind or as pari-nirvana, or whatever. — Frederick Lenz

The Buddha gave his first talks, and three or four ascetics became his first disciples. They recognized his enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

Don't judge others. Always be open to them. Avoid the cult mentality, you know, the super-slick, "I'm superior because I meditate, because I'm on the pathway to enlightenment," the subtle ego nonsense, terrible trap. — Frederick Lenz

Perhaps I had inadvertently brushed up against the Buddhist axiom, that enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment. — Maggie Nelson

True wisdom is being able to say 'it is what it is' with a smile of celebratory wonder on your face. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

By renouncing samsara, we renounce our habitual grasping, unhappy minds. And by renouncing samsara, we embrace our potential for enlightenment. — Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

Select companions who are striving for enlightenment. They all have their imperfections, certainly, but at least their attention is moving in the right direction. — Frederick Lenz

What matters is that you meditate, you're seeking enlightenment, you're on the pathway to enlightenment, and you're having fun. Don't look for reassurance in the eyes of others. Look for reassurance in your own eyes. Only you know if Buddhist practice is improving the quality of your life. — Frederick Lenz

There is a common misunderstanding that if you are going to be a "good" Buddhist, you will have to leave your career and run off to the woods to meditate 24/7 until you reach enlightenment. I don't think you have to do that in order to follow a spiritual path. I have seen my — Lodro Rinzler

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. — Gautama Buddha

When? At this time, while you have all the opportunities, if you do not do your best to achieve the pure, stainless path to enlightenment when will you do it? If you don't meditate, don't practise the graduated path to enlightenment, especially bodhicitta, in this life, then when? When will you practise? When will you have this realization? If, in this life, you don't achieve renunciation, bodhicitta and sunyata, as well as the two stages of tantra, when will you? When will you have these attainments? When will you become enlightened? When will you perform perfect work for sentient beings? — Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma. Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination. — Gautama Buddha

An enlightened teacher simply expresses enlightenment in their life by living. It is the student's job to gain the teachings. The teacher's job is just to be perfectly enlightened. — Frederick Lenz

As a student of enlightenment your attitude should not be to become enlightened. It should be to learn. — Frederick Lenz

The essential premise of Buddhism is that there is enlightenment, there is nirvana. Beyond this world, beyond all worlds, there's something radiant, perfect and eternal. — Frederick Lenz

If you are going to set out to develop mystical powers to impress your friends and do other things to your enemies, the difficulty with it is that you will not be moving towards enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

The hallmark of a person who is following the pathway to enlightenment is that they bring excellence into everything, no matter how crappy they feel. — Frederick Lenz

Don't care what anybody says about enlightenment, except the enlightened and those who seek it. — Frederick Lenz

The pathway to enlightenment is beautiful. There are a lot of wonderful things that happen along the way. Win or lose, you just keep going, and it happens eventually. — Frederick Lenz

What makes a difference is when we take our mind and put it into the scriptures, when we read the Buddhist Canon, the Pali Canon, when we read the Tibetan books, when we read anything inspiring - somebody else's journey into the world of enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

My mother's a Buddhist. In Buddhism, if you want to achieve enlightenment, you have to do it through meditation and self-improvement through the mind. That's something she's passed on to me: to be able to calm myself down and use my mind as my main asset. — Tiger Woods

Flaky devotionalism, bowing and scraping and sucking up to the teacher is very phony. It is counterproductive to enlightenment and spiritual development. What is necessary is mutual respect. — Frederick Lenz

I'd like to say is that we shouldn't have an idea that the goal of spiritual practice is to annihilate ones ego, that would be a mistake. In the early years of enlightenment, psychologists were afraid of Hindus and Buddhists meditating because they thought they were going to shatter their egos and then they'd have to wear diapers or something, like they'd lose their toilet training or what have you. They were really afraid of it. — Robert Thurman

The teacher has nothing to do with people who use their mental powers to block the enlightenment of others. These people lack control. What can you teach someone who lacks control? — Frederick Lenz

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out. — Ryokan

When we recognize that the seemingly object nature of reality is nothing different than the subject nature of mind, which is rigpa, it is called enlightenment. — Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Ultimately one must abandon the path to enlightenment. If you still define yourself as a Buddhist, you are not a buddha yet. — Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

There's many lanes on the highway of enlightenment, they don't have to be on the razor's edge like the yellow line dotted in the middle. Balance is appropriate, not too tight, not too loose, the Middle Way as we call it in Buddhist dharma teachings. — Surya Das

Knowledge of the Enlightenment Cycle, of the ways that inner dimensions and nirvana work, lifts you far above the transient sorrows, pains, pleasures and joys that the unenlightened masses experience. — Frederick Lenz

By god the Buddhist means that from which the universe was born, the unborn of the Buddhist scriptures, and by soul that factor in the thing called man which moves towards enlightenment. Why need more be said of it, at any rate those who are not content with scholarship, but strive to attain that same enlightenment? — Christmas Humphreys

Self-hate doesn't create enlightenment. It just causes you to not enjoy the current moment. — Frederick Lenz

In America people have this funny idea about enlightenment and money. Money expresses a level of commitment. Studying enlightenment is like going to a university. — Frederick Lenz