Quotes & Sayings About Death And Life Buddha

So those are the direct answers human wisdom gives when it answers the question of life. "The life of the body is evil and a lie. And therefore the destruction of this life of the body is something good, and we must desire it," says Socrates. "Life is that which ought not be - an evil - and the going into nothingness is the sole good of life," says Schopenhauer. "Everything in the world - folly and wisdom and riches and poverty and happiness and grief - all is vanity and nonsense. Man will die and nothing will remain. And that is foolish," says Solomon. "One must not live with awareness of the inevitability of suffering, weakness, old age, and death - one must free oneself from life, from all possibility of life," says Buddha. And what these powerful intellects said was said and thought and felt by millions and millions of people like them. And I too thought and felt that. — Leo Tolstoy

That is why he appears to us who are deeply life-hypnotized, obsessed about being alive in any way, as life-negating. To us, just to be alive seems to be the end. We are so much afraid of death that Buddha appears in love with death, and that looks abnormal. He seems to be suicidal. This is what many have criticized Buddha for. — Rajneesh

[Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha. — G.K. Chesterton

We begin to die from the moment we are born, for birth is the cause of death. The nature of decay is inherent in youth, the nature of sickness is inherent in health, in the midst of life we are verily in death. — Gautama Buddha

There is a story about the life of Buddha in which a mother carries her dead son to him draped in her arms. The woman has heard that he is a holy man who can restore life. Weeping, she appeals for mercy. Gently, Buddha tells her that he can help save her son's life, but that first she has to bring him a mustard seed secured from a family that has never experienced death. Desperately she searches home after home. Many want to help, but everyone has already experienced a loss--a sister, a husband, a child. Finally the woman returns to Buddha. "What have you found?" he asks. "Where is your mustard seed and where is your son? You are not carrying him."
"I buried him," she replies — Chanrithy Him

You are as the yellow leaf.
The messengers of death are at hand.
You are to travel far away.
What will you take with you?
You are the lamp
To lighten the way.
Then hurry, hurry.
When your light shines
Without impurity or desire
You will come into the boundless country.
Your life is falling away.
Death is at hand.
Where will you rest on the way?
What have you taken with you?
You are the lamp
To lighten the way.
Then hurry, hurry.
When your light shines purely
You will not be born
And you will not die. — Gautama Buddha

To life in the consciousness of the inevitability of suffering, of becoming enfeebled, of old age and of death, is impossible
we must free ourselves from life, from all possible life. — Gautama Buddha

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. — Buddha

Life is uncertain; death is certain. — Gautama Buddha

Without health life is not life; it is only a state of langour and suffering - an image of death. — Buddha

...playing possum was a skill he'd learned in China once upon a time, and it had come in handy more than once. When, oh, Chinese gangsters, for example, thought you were down for the count, they were less prepared when you suddenly resurrected yourself and beat them to death with a goofy jade Buddha you didn't know why you had. Life was weird that way, and it always helped to have an edge. — Taylor Anderson

Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is. In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it? The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day, 'one who knows the better way to live alone.' — Gautama Buddha

Birth leads to death, death precedes birth. So if you want to see life as it really is, it is rounded on both the sides by death. Death is the beginning and death is again the end, and life is just the illusion in between. You feel alive between two deaths; the passage joining one death to another you call life. Buddha says this is not life. This life is dukkha - misery. This life is death. — Rajneesh

The world is full of suffering. Birth is suffering, decre- pitude is suffering, sickness and death are sufferings. To face a man of hatred is suffering, to be separated from a beloved one is suffering, to be vainly struggling to satisfy one's needs is suffering. In fact, life that is not free from desire and passion is always involved with suffering. — Gautama Buddha

Death should teach you that what is real is life. And life teaches you that what is unavoidable is not death, but impermanence. Impermanence is the only truth. Nothing is permanent. All is changing. In every instant. In every moment. Were anything permanent, it could not be. For even the very concept of permanence depends upon impermanence to have any meaning. Therefore, even permanence is impermanent. Look at this deeply. Contemplate this truth. Comprehend it, and you comprehend God. This is the Dharma, and this is the Buddha. This is the Buddha Dharma. This is the teaching and the teacher. This is the lesson and the master. This is the object and the observer, rolled into one. They never have been other than One. It is you who have unrolled them, so that your life may unroll before you. — Neale Donald Walsch

It is told that Buddha, going out to look on life, was greatly daunted by death. "They all eat one another!" he cried, and called it evil. This process I examined, changed the verb and said, "They all feed one another," and called it good. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Four Noble Truths are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. They suggest a course of action to be followed rather than a set of dogmas to be believed. The four truths are prescriptions for behavior rather than descriptions of reality. The Buddha compares himself to a doctor who offers a course of therapeutic treatment to heal one's ills. To embark on such a therapy is not designed to bring one any closer to 'the Truth' but to enable one's life to flourish here and now, hopefully leaving a legacy that will continue to have beneficial repercussions after one's death. (154) — Stephen Batchelor

No one can escape death and unhappiness. If people expect only happiness in life, they will be disappointed. — Gautama Buddha

Whatever exists is inevitably flawed. Buddha, in his detachment from the world, finds all its hustle and bustle ridiculous because he has nothing to do with it. A cynic finds the feelings of his fellow human beings ridiculous because he has no feelings himself. Someone who does not play soccer thinks it ridiculous to chase around after a little leather ball for hours at a time. He doesn't bother to ask whether this game might be a lot of fun. All he sees is the ridiculousness of grown men playing like little boys. People who do anything will no doubt appear ridiculous to people who do nothing. A person who acts can always make a fool of himself. A person who doesn't never runs that risk. We might even say that life is always ridiculous but death is never ridiculous. — Fritz Zorn

Through the round of many births I roamed without reward, without rest, seeking the house-builder.
Painful is birth again & again.
House-builder, you're seen!
You will not build a house again.
All your rafters broken,
the ridge pole destroyed,
gone to the Unformed,
the mind has come to the end of craving. — Gautama Buddha

All beings tremble before violence. All love life. All fear death. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? — Gautama Buddha

When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die. — Gautama Buddha

Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death. — Gautama Buddha

What we call life ... is the combination of the Five Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies. These are constantly changing; they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Every moment they are born and they die. 'When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die.' This, even dow during this life time, every moment we are born and die, but we continue. If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can't we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or a Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body? — Walpola Rahula

The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people
eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. — Hermann Hesse

If life is a prison, then death is the ultimate freedom. — Debasish Mridha

I know I shouldn't be writing haiku now, so close to my death. But poetry is all I've thought of for over fifty years. When I sleep, I dream about hurrying down a road under morning clouds or evening mist. When I awaken I'm captivated by the mountain stream's interesting sounds or the calls of wild birds. Buddha called such attachment wrong, and of this I am guilty. But I cannot forget the haiku that have filled my life. — Jane Hirshfield

Just as a line drawn on water with a stick will quickly vanish and will not last long; even so is human life like a line drawn on water. It is short, limited, and brief; it is full of suffering, full of tribulation. This one should wisely understand, one should do good and live a pure life; for none who is born can escape death. — Gautama Buddha