Buddhist Pilgrimage Quotes

As my Buddhist teachers have shown me, wisdom emerges in the space around words as much as from language itself. ~ Mark Epstein

The disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao-Tzu's dictum: "Those who know, do not say; Those who say, do not know." When the master entered, they asked him what the words meant. Said the master, "Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose?" All of them indicated that they knew. Then he said, "Put it into words." All of them were silent. ~ Anthony De Mello

Pilgrimage always involves both an exterior and interior journey. Any travel can be a pilgrimage, regardless of the destination or whether or not there even is a destination. The difference between a pilgrim and a tourist is the intention of attention and openness to God. This transforms a trip into a pilgrimage, and the result is that the self that sets out on pilgrimage will not be the same as the self that returns. ~ David G. Benner

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

In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past. ~ Dalai Lama

Life is a pilgrimage of learning, a voyage of discovery, in which our mistaken views are corrected, our distorted notions adjusted, our shallow opinions deepened and some of our vast ignorances diminished. ~ John R.W. Stott

I do not think about converting others to Buddhism or merely furthering the Buddhist cause. Instead, I try to think of how I as a Buddhist can contribute to the happiness of all living beings. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Hinduism threw away Buddhism after taking its sap. The attempt of all the Southern Acharyas was to effect a reconciliation between the two. Shankaracharya's teaching shows the influence of Buddhism. His disciples perverted his teaching and carried it to such an extreme point that some of the later reformers were right in calling the Acharya's followers "crypto-buddhists". ~ Swami Vivekananda

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds. ~ Gautama Buddha

A man is born to become God, and this is the principle. A rose flower is grown in a rose plant. In the same fashion whether a man knows or not, a perpetual action is running within him, how he will be transformed into God. This action is termed as perpetual change by the Buddhists. No! this is not the perpetual change, but should be termed as perpetual evolution. ~ Sri Jibankrishna Or Diamond

There is no satisfying the senses, not even with a shower of money. "The senses are of slight pleasure and really suffering." When a wise man has realised this, he takes no pleasure, as a disciple of the Buddhas, even in the pleasures of heaven. Instead he takes pleasure in the elimination of craving. ~ Gautama Buddha

Fools wait for a lucky day, but everyday is a lucky day for an industrious man. ~ Gautama Buddha

You may be Catholic or Protestant or Buddhist or Baptist or Muslim or Mormon or Jewish or Jain, or you have no religion at all. I'm not interested in your religious background. Because God did not create the universe for us to have religion. He came for us to have a relationship with him. ~ Rick Warren

I have two sons, one living. I would not now trade the road Lisa and I took for an easier one. Losing James was hard, but I'm thankful that I got to see him, and I am thankful that I got to grieve him as well. As most any pilgrim will tell you, the difficulty of the undertaking is what gives it meaning. All the petty competition for authenticity among the pilgrims on the Camino has its roots in something by no means trivial: pilgrimage is meant to be done the hard way. A real pilgrimage, a real life, contains, and is defined by, difficulty – hardship, and how we respond to it, makes us who we are, certainly more than anything that comes easy. ~ David Hlavsa

Buddhist say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a new stream into your consciousness, like water eroding the side of a mountain. Scientist confirm this bit of folk wisdom: our neurons break connections and form new pathways all the time. Even if you've been programmed to fear death, that particular pathway isn't set in stone. Each of us is responsible for seeking out new knowledge and creating mental circuits. ~ Caitlin Doughty

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

Are we no greater than the noise we make Along one blind atomic pilgrimage Whereon by crass chance billeted we go Because our brains and bones and cartilage Will have it so? ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson

It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares. ~ Joseph Conrad

No sane person fears nothingness. ~ Robert A.F. Thurman

On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be. ~ 14th Dalai Lama in his talk to the Society for Neuroscience in 2005 in Washington. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate. ~ Mark Epstein

Faust has spent his youth and manhood,
not as others do, in the sunny crowded paths of profit,
or among the rosy bowers of pleasure, but darkly and alone in the search of Truth; is it fit that Truth
should now hide herself, and his sleepless pilgrimage
towards Knowledge and Vision end in the pale
shadow of Doubt? To his dream of a glorious higher
happiness, all earthly happiness has been sacrificed;
friendship, love, the social rewards of ambition were
cheerfully cast aside, for his eye and his heart were
bent on a region of clear and supreme good ; and now,
in its stead, he finds isolation, silence, and despair.
What solace remains ? Virtue once promised to be
her own reward ; but because she does not pay him in
the current coin of worldly enjoyment, he reckons her
too a delusion; and, like Brutus, reproaches as a
shadow what he once worshipped as a substance.
Whither shall he now tend 1 For his loadstars have
gone out one by one ; and as the darkness fell, the
strong steady wind has changed into a fierce and
aimless tornado. Faust calls himself a monster,
" without object, yet without rest. ~ Thomas Carlyle

You can do it at any time. You can do it when you are sitting in a bus – that is, watch, observe. Be attentive to what is happening around you and what is happening in yourself – aware of the whole movement. You see, meditation is really a form of emptying the mind of everything known. Without this, you cannot know the unknown. To see anything new, totally new, the mind must be empty of all the past.

Truth, or God, or whatever name you like to give to it must be new, not something which is the result of propaganda, the result of conditioning. The Christian is conditioned by 2,000 years of propaganda, the Hindu, the Buddhist likewise conditioned. So for them God or Truth is the result of propaganda. But that is not Truth. Truth is something living every day. Therefore the mind must be emptied to look at Truth. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

In Buddhist culture, offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality, then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness. ~ Nhat Hanh

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it. ~ Dogen

Love is a fleeting emotion, to reach true nirvana one must know themselves and forsake love, for it breeds contempt. ~ Gautama Buddha

Much of my writing has taken the form of a pilgrimage: to sacred places that represent the best of America, to musicians and other artists who represent the best of their art. ~ William Zinsser

Nothing is wrong with me? I thought. Not unclean? It's just . . . a new part of me I need to learn to control? I'd come all this way to go on my pilgrimage because I'd thought my body was trying to tell me something was wrong with it. I hadn't wanted to admit it to myself, but I'd thought I'd broken myself because of the choices I'd made, because of my actions, because I'd left my home to go to Oomza Uni. Because of guilt. The relief I felt was so all encompassing that I wanted to lie down on the rug and just sleep. Ariya ~ Nnedi Okorafor

A fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny," said the monk. What had prompted the Buddhist monk to say that? I don't know. John and he had been chatting for a while before I joined their conversation. Afterwards, John and I talked about karma, and John said, "The reason why a fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny, is because, as sad as the outcome of love can be when it comes to an end or if not reciprocated, the tragedy of life is not a love without destiny, it is to live as if dead, and to let the life within you wither. ~ Jeanette Ringel

After a week in front of the screen, the opportunity to work with my hands - with all my senses, in fact - is always a welcome change of pace, whether in the kitchen or in the garden. There's something about such work that seems to alter the experience of time, helps me to reoccupy the present tense. I don't want you to get the idea it's made a Buddhist of me, but in the kitchen, maybe a little bit. When stirring the pot, just stir the pot. ~ Michael Pollan

Through vigilance, restraint and control the wise will construct and island that no flood will overcome. ~ Gautama Buddha

From the dear comes grief;
From the dear comes fear.
If you're freed from the dear
You'll have no grief, let alone fear. ~ Anonymous

I am grateful for the unending hunger to rest in the mind of Buddha, the heart of Krishna, a domain where all yogis, sages, and saints abide, waiting for those whose real self has emerged from the searing pilgrimage of Spirit's flames. ~ Rod Stryker

To say one is revolutionary is a little like saying one is a Zen Buddhist - if you say you are, you probably aren't. ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. ~ Dogen

Buddhism is in your heart. Even if you don't have any temple or any monks, you can still be a Buddhist in your heart and life. ~ Nhat Hanh

Does Christ commend the famous 'apathy' of the Stoic or the Buddhist elimination of desire? Far from it. The issue is not just feeling or desire, but right feeling or desire, or being controlled by feeling or desire. ~ Dallas Willard

His beard was thick and red - and annoyed his mother, who said only Hajis, men who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, should grow red beards. His hair, however, was rather darker. His sky-eyes you know about. Ingrid had said, "They went mad with the colors when they made your face. ~ Salman Rushdie

A Stoic is a Buddhist with attitude, one who says "f*** you" to fate. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb