No Self Buddhism 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

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

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

In Buddhism we would say that you are lazy ... Despising yourself, thinking you are no good, saying 'I can't do this.' This is the mind of weakness. You must work to overcome it . — David Michie

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

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things are as they are,
of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider movement stationary
and the stationary in motion,
both movement and rest disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies. — Sengcan

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

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

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

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

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that's death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn't have any fresh air. There's no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. — Pema Chodron

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

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

When you begin to relinquish your ego, you will no longer feel compelled to prove to people how busy you are in an attempt to validate your sense of worth. — Miya Yamanouchi

The saying "no self, no problem" probably comes from Zen. In their cultures, where Buddhism is kind of taken for granted, as well as karma, causality, former and future life, and the possibility for becoming enlightened, then it's safe to skirt the danger of nihilism, which would be, I don't exist because Buddha said I have no self, and therefore I have no problem because I don't exist. That would be a bad misunderstanding. But in those cultures, it would not be as easy to have that understanding as it would be here in the west, where we really are nihilistic. — Robert Thurman

People want to will their self realization. They want to know what the right thing to do all the time is. There is no right thing. There's no code. There are certain basic recommendations. — Frederick Lenz

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

I'd rather have drugs and liquor and divine visions than this empty barren fatalism on a mountaintop," he wrote toward the end of his stint. These words are especially poignant when you consider that two years earlier he'd written to Allen Ginsberg: "I have crossed the ocean of suffering and found the path at last." For Kerouac, the path of Buddhism proved too difficult, too alien to his temperament, and he eventually retreated into the mystical French Catholicism he'd known as a boy. Its fascination with the martyrdom of the Crucifixion jibed with his sense of himself as a doomed prophet destined for self-annihilation. The essential Buddhist ethic - do no violence to any living being - was a principle that tragically eluded him in his treatment of himself. — Philip Connors

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

Self is the perception of perception. Beyond self there's no perception of perception. — Frederick Lenz

Mindfulness means being present to whatever is happening here and now - when mindfulness is strong, there is no room left in the mind for wanting something else. With less liking and disliking of what arises, there is less pushing and pulling on the world, less defining of the threshold between self and other, resulting in a reduced construction of self. As the influence of self diminishes, suffering diminishes in proportion. — Andrew Olendzki

In the dead world of the Western mind all that is seen are shades of gray. There's a cloud over every experience. There's no possibility of divine incarnation, divine intervention, let alone that one's self in every moment is divine. — Frederick Lenz

There is a lot of work ahead of us, as we endeavor to rescue the planet from ourselves, and we are likely to be at this work for a very long time. Perhaps we could come at it from the wisdom of the non-self perspective, rather than the passions of the "world is mine" point of view. — Andrew Olendzki

Indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness, as if they belonged to all of us, he casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains, the high sun and dancing sheep, and cries, 'Of course I am happy here! It's wonderful! Especially when I have no choice!' In its wholehearted acceptance of what is;I feel as if he had struck me in the chest. Butter tea and wind pictures, the Crystal Mountain, and blue sheep dancing on the snow-it's quite enough!
Have you seen the snow leopard?
No! Isn't that wonderful? — Peter Matthiessen

If you have the sense of participation in sports or athletics, of being a player, then you are not really into the Zen mind. In Zen mind there is no sense of self in the play. — Frederick Lenz

being attached to any one philosophy or religion
dwelling on moot differences and wanting to fit in
despite the path all are led Home in time
following an alternative pathway is certainly no crime
Krishna, Buddha, Allah or Zohar Kabbalah
devoted nonviolently, one is led to Nirvana
Hindu Sages, Zen Masters or Christian Mystics
many tongues, but identical truth spoken from their lips
mentioning Self or no-self or God is Father or Mother
according to their culture emphasizing one method or another
allness vs. nothingness, meditation vs. prayer
devotion in practice is all you should care
when Truth reveals itself you're beyond all conception
then not a single man-made word will hold any traction — Jarett Sabirsh

Buddhism suggests there are no elect. Everything rests upon your own self-effort, which is the good news because that means you don't have to wait around for some nebulous God to help you. — Frederick Lenz

No one should ever despair because the entrance to his or her chosen career path is clogged. There is an ancient saying: The persistent drip wears through stone. — Kentetsu Takamori

Om was there in the existence, when no religion was formed or founded. It will be there in the existence, if all the religions are demolished. — Banani Ray

He no longer grasped to a strong sense of self. To him life felt more like a dream, a cascade of cause and effect that was completely up for grabs-and he was no longer separate from any of it. Because of that, he could do amazing things — James Connor

The emptiness of play is when there is no self present. There is no one playing - there is only play itself taking place, perfect fluid motion. — Frederick Lenz

Peace can be found within, no matter the external circumstances. — Allan Lokos

Of all the nouns we use to disguise the hollowness of the human condition, none is more influential than "myself". It consists of a collage of still images - name, gender, nationality, profession, enthusiasms, relationships - which are renovated from time to time, but otherwise are each a relic from one particular experience or another. The defining teaching of the Buddhist tradition, that of non-self, is merely pointing out the limitations of this reflexive view we hold of ourselves. It's not that the self does not exist, but that it is as cobbled together and transient as everything else. [With] the practice of meditation, ... we can begin to see how each artifact of the mind is raised and lowered to view, like so many flashcards. But we can also glimpse, once in a while, the sleight-of-hand shuffling the card and pulling them off the deck. Behind the objects lies a process. Self is a process. Self is a verb. — Andrew Olendzki

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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