Great Buddhist Quotes & Sayings

Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village. — Gautama Buddha

Religion in Chinatown, as in most places, is based less on a cogent theology and more on a collection of random fears, superstitions, prejudices, forgotten customs, vestigial animism, and social control. Mrs. Ling, while a professed Buddhist of the Pure Land tradition, also kept waving cat charms, lucky coins, and put great faith in the good fortune of the color red ... and was very much in favor of any tradition, superstition, or ritual that involved fireworks ... — Christopher Moore

It is great that even before we become enlightened or generate any lam-rim realizations we are able to offer incredible benefit to others. The person who does this is a very fortunate person and should rejoice very often. — Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

Our kids are not Jewish, and they're not Catholic. They're not Episcopalian. They're not Buddhist. They're not anything. We do all the holidays to keep the traditions and the culture going, but I truly don't have a great feeling about any particular organized religion, and I don't think it's right to impose one on my kids. — Rhea Perlman

From a Buddhist point of view, the actual experience of death is very important. Although how or where we will be reborn is generally dependent on karmic forces, our state of mind at the time of death can influence the quality of our next rebirth. So at the moment of death, in spite of the great variety of karmas we have accumulated, if we make a special effort to generate a virtuous state of mind, we may strengthen and activate a virtuous karma, and so bring about a happy rebirth. — Dalai Lama

All rising to great places is by a winding stair. — Gautama Buddha

Buddhist scriptures recommend that you hide your good qualities and achievements like a lamp inside a vessel. You should not advertise them unless there is great purpose in doing so. — Dalai Lama XIV

If you read the literature of the great religions, time and time again you come across descriptions of what is usually referred to as "spiritual experience." You will find that in all the various traditions this modality of spiritual experience seems to be the same, whether it occurs in the Christian West, the Islamic Middle East, the Hindu world of Asia, or the Buddhist world. In each culture, it is quite definitely the same experience, and it is characterized by the transcendence of individuality and by a sensation of being one with the total energy of the universe. — Alan W. Watts

In Buddhist practice a great deal of time is spent practicing mandala meditation. You learn to visualize and hold simultaneous concepts in the mind during meditation. — Frederick Lenz

Work sustains us as bodies and it consumes a great deal of energy. The conservation of energy is the component theme of Buddhist practice and yoga. That is why people live in monasteries. — Frederick Lenz

However, it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles either. — Robert M. Pirsig

First, contrary to popular belief, Buddhists can actually be very anxious people. That's often why they become Buddhists in the first place. Buddhism was made for the anxious like Christianity was made for the downtrodden or AA for the addicted. Its entire purpose is to foster equanimity, to tame excesses of thought and emotion. The Buddhists have a great term for these excesses. They refer to them as the condition of "monkey mind." A person in the throes of monkey mind suffers from a consciousness whose constituent parts will not stop bouncing from skull-side to skull-side, which keep flipping and jumping and flinging feces at the walls and swinging from loose neurons like howlers from vines. Buddhist practices are designed explicitly to collar these monkeys of the mind and bring them down to earth - to pacify them. Is it any wonder that Buddhism has had such tremendous success in the bastions of American nervousness, on the West Coast and in the New York metro area? — Daniel Smith

You see, Buddhists are optimists. We never saw sunsets in Atlantis like we do now. We didn't have those great chemicals in the air. — Frederick Lenz

The great gift of a spiritual path is coming to trust that you can find a way to true refuge. You realize that you can start right where you are, in the midst of your life, and find peace in any circumstance. Even at those moments when the ground shakes terribly beneath you - when there's a loss that will alter your life forever - you can still trust that you will find your way home. This is possible because you've touched the timeless love and awareness that are intrinsic to who you are. — Tara Brach

One is not a great one because one defeats or harms other living beings. One is so called because one refrains from defeating or harming other living beings. — Gautama Buddha

It is neither just the religious, the spiritual, the power-hungry, the evil, the ignorant, the corrupt, the Christian, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Jew, nor the atheist that makes a hypocrite, but being a human being. Any man who thinks himself to be free of hypocrisy while committed to cherry-picking others for such, I am confident, the Almighty can prove to him a great deal of his own hypocrisy even beyond his earthly comprehension. — Criss Jami

There's a conspiracy / to protect the young, so they'll be fearless, / it's why you travel - it's a way of trying / to let go, of lying. You don't sit / in a stiff chair and worry, you keep moving. / Postcards from the Alamo, the Alhambra. / ... / You, fainting at the Buddhist caves. / Climbing with thousands on the Great Wall, / ... / Having the time of your life, blistered and smiling. / The acid of your fear could eat the world. — Gail Mazur

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

I am a reformed Taoist, part-time Buddhist, Hindu, animist, pagan, Jewish mystic, and Christian. I always got along great with priests and rabbis and mullahs and gurus, even though I spend most of my life constructively criticizing them. — Steven Van Zandt

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

When the old Bogdo had died from old age and numerous ailments in 1924, the Red Mongols and their Moscow patrons immediately sensed that this was a perfect occasion to end the Buddhist theocracy in Mongolia and replace it with a normal Red dictatorship. They forbade the search for a new reincarnation: lamas and the nomadic populace were surprised to find out that the deceased reincarnation was to be the last. The Red Mongols explained that Bogdo was now reborn as a great general in Shambhala, and there was no point in searching for a new reincarnation since henceforth Bogdo's permanent abode would be this magic kingdom, not the earthly realm. — Andrei Znamenski

Wouldn't it be great if health-care plans included a list of Buddhist monks among the network providers? — Regina Brett

On the philosophic side the disciples of the Great Master dashed themselves against the eternal rocks of the Vedas and could not crush them, and on the other side they took away from the nation that eternal God to which every one, man or woman, clings so fondly. And the result was that Buddhism had to die a natural death in India. At the present day there is not one who calls oneself a Buddhist in India, the land of its birth. But — Swami Vivekananda

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

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

View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate. — Henepola Gunaratana

Religion is one of the most important forces in the world. Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, or a Hindu, religion is a great force, and it can help one have command of one's own morality, one's own behavior, and one's own attitude. — Nelson Mandela

Simplicity and non-violence are obviously closely related. The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunction of Buddhist teaching: "Cease to do evil; try to do good." As physical resources are everywhere limited, people satisfying their needs by means of a modest use of resources are obviously less likely to be at each other's throats than people depending upon a high rate of use. Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade. — E.F. Schumacher

The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage. — Eric Maisel

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

When you have great joy, you will become Buddhas! — Gautama Buddha

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

I have a great deal of spiritual dignity. It's on loan from eternity, and you do too, and we have to use it in our relationship with each other. — Frederick Lenz

One may be an excellent pianist, mathematician, gardener, or scientist and still be cranky and jealous, but in the West one can be considered a great moralist and yet not live by one's moral principles. We must simply recall here the Buddhist requirement that a person and his or her teachings be compatible. Ethics is not like any ordinary science. It must arise from the deepest understanding of human qualities, and such understanding comes only when one undertakes the journey of discovery personally. An ethic that is built exclusively on intellectual ideas and that is not buttressed at every point by virtue, genuine wisdom, and compassion has no solid foundation. — Matthieu Ricard

Death and dying provide a meeting-point between the Tibetan Buddhist and modern scientific traditions. I believe both have a great deal to contribute to each other on the level of understanding and of practical benefit. — Dalai Lama

What yoga philosophy and all the great Buddhist teachings tells us is that solidity is a creation of the ordinary mind and that there never was anything permanent to begin with that we could hold on to. Life would be much easier and substantially less painful if we lived with the knowledge of impermanence as the only constant. — Donna Farhi

At least half of your mind is always thinking, I'll be leaving; this won't last. It's a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I'm just sad. — Anne Carson

I'm helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are "near enemies" to every great virtue - reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can't possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a "pathological empathy" of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can't help but stay present — Krista Tippett

I went on a Buddha jag. I read 'Confession of a Buddhist Atheist' by Stephen Batchelor and Karen Armstrong's biography of Buddha, which is a great book. — Denis O'Hare

When a man venerates those worthy of veneration, be they Buddhas or their disciples, who have transcended all obstacles and passed beyond sorrow and tears - venerating such as these, whose passions are extinguished and for whom there is no further source for fear, no one can calculate how great his merit is. — Gautama Buddha

He led quite a great life, ... He was an Old Testament figure railing against the establishment - a Jewish guy from New York who became a Buddhist, a poet, a musician. — Tom Hayden

Jesus represents a point of common ground an esteemed rabbi to the Jew, a god to the Hindu, an enlightened one to the Buddhist, a great prophet to the Muslim. Even to the New Age guru, Jesus is the pinnacle of God-consciousness. At the same time, Jesus is the divider. None but Christians see Him as a member of the Godhead on an exclusive mission to repair the broken world. — Philip Yancey

We have made a great effort to maintain all levels of Buddhist education; it has helped us have a kind of renaissance, really. — Dalai Lama

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

I think there's a lot of great beliefs in the Buddhist religion, I think there's a lot of great beliefs in the Christian religion, I think there's a lot of great beliefs in no religion. It just depends on how you feel on the inside. — Cristian Machado

The Great Way has no gate, there are thousands of paths to it. If you pass through the barrier, you walk the universe alone. Wu-men - Chan Buddhist — Richard Hooper

In Buddhism we have a great deal of etiquette. Etiquette is simply ways of living to conserve energy. Etiquette allows people to live in harmony with their environment. — Frederick Lenz

I often think of the words of the great Buddhist master Padmasambhava: "Those who believe they have plenty of time get ready only at the time of death. Then they are ravaged by regret. But isn't it far too late?" What more chilling commentary on the modern world could there be than most people die unprepared for death, as they have lived, unprepared for life? — Sogyal Rinpoche

Humility simply means that you do a great job at everything and it isn't really a big deal. — Frederick Lenz