Buddhists Quotes

For the Stoics, however, the near impossibility of becoming a sage is not a problem. They talk about sages primarily so they will have a model to guide them in their practice of Stoicism. The sage is a target for them to aim at, even though they will probably fail to hit it. The sage, in other words, is to Stoicism as Buddha is to Buddhism. Most Buddhists can never hope to become as enlightened as Buddha, but nevertheless, reflecting on Buddha's perfection can help them gain a degree of enlightenment. ~ William B. Irvine

The Hindus are busy letting themselves be seen riding in Cadillacs instead of smearing themselves with sandalwood paste and bowing in front of Ganpati. The Moslems would rather miss evening prayer than the new Disney movie. The Buddhists think it's more important to take over in the name of Stalin and Progress than to meditate on the four basic sorrows. And we don't even have to mention Christianity or Judaism. ~ Paul Bowles

Christians have oppressed Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Pagans, and each other throughout their centuries of power, preaching religious intolerance as the word of Jehovah whenever they had the military, political, or economic power to make it stick - and then piously preaching brotherhood, peace, and toleration when they didn't. ~ Isaac Bonewits

I spend a lot of time with Buddhists. I'm not a Buddhist, but their relationship with death interests me. ~ Joan Baez

May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians give strength to you to carry out your noble idea. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Almost no one tolerates the exclusivity and supremacy of Christ these days, even some who profess to be Christians. The message of the cross is not politically correct - it's the singularity of the gospel, on top of everything else, that bothers people. Can you imagine for a moment what might happen if a celebrity or political leader just said, "I'm a Christian and if you're not, you're going to hell"? Yikes! And then imagine if he said, "All the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the people who believe they can earn salvation, whether liberal Protestants or Roman Catholics, and all the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses - you're all going to eternal hell. But I care about you so much, I want to give you the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it is far more important than wars in the Middle East, terrorism, or any domestic policy." You can't be faithful and popular, so take your pick. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

Not just Christians and Jews, but also Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and the followers of many other religions believe in values like peace, respect, tolerance and dignity. These are values that bring people together and enable us to build responsible and solid communities. ~ Alcee Hastings

We'd rather have faithful Jews, Baptists or Buddhists than some of the Catholics who nearly run you over in the parking lot after Mass. ~ George Patterson

याता लोचन-गोचरं यदि विधेर् एणेक्षणा सुन्दरी

नेयं कुङ्कुम-पङ्क-पिञ्जर-मुखी तेनोज्झिता स्यात् क्षणम् ।

नाप्यामीलित-लोचनस्य रचनाद् रूपं भवेद् ईदृशं

तस्मात् सर्वम् अकर्तृकं जगद् इदं श्रेयो मतं सौगतम् ।। (Subhāṣita-Ratna-Koṣa 440)

If this gazelle-eyed beauty had crossed the creator's eyes,

he could never have let her go.

And surely,

he couldn't have produced these features with his eyes closed.

From this we see that the Buddhists have it right:

There is no creator. ~ Dharmakirti

The Buddhists are right. Guilty men are not sentenced to death, they are sentenced to life. ~ Steve Toltz

Buddhists make it very simple for you to reach your heavenly reward. To reach Nirvana, all you have to do is live right, think right, and deny yourself just about everything. ~ Catherine Coulter

Many Hindus are willing to consider Jesus as a legitimate manifestation of the divine ... many Buddhists see Jesus as one of humanity's most enlightened people ... A shared reappraisal of Jesus' message could provide a unique space or common ground for urgently needed religious dialogue - and it doesn't seem an exaggeration to say that the future of our planet may depend on such dialogue. This reappraisal of Jesus' message may be the only project capable of saving a number of religions. ~ Brian D. McLaren

What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, "respond" rather than simply "react." In ~ Dan Harris

Buddhism, he thought, is a clean religion. You never heard about how eight people - two of them children - just got blown the fuck up as part of the long-standing conflict between Buddhists and whoever. ~ Scott Hawkins

Old man," she said. "Don't you want to prepare or something?"
"Prepare what?"
"Yourself. For death."
Siri laughed.
"Well, Bpoo. Let's see. If the Buddhists are right, I'm just on my way to the next incarnation. Unless there's a manual for how to behave correctly as a gnat I'm not sure how I'd prepare for that. If the Catholics are right, nothing short of an asbestos suit and a glass of iced water will help where I'm going. And if the communists are right, you do your best and when you're gone they put up a statue in your honor and the locals dry their laundry on it. So, if I'm going, you're the heir to today's legacy. ~ Colin Cotterill

I'm thrilled by the fact that I made something out of nothing. There it is! It wasn't there before: there it is - I made it! That's pretty powerful, and that's the power that Buddhists give to every single person. ~ Laurie Anderson

In the Father's house we shall meet Buddhists and Jews, Muslims and Protestants ... ~ Helder Camara

It seems to begin before dawn with the Muslims, when a mosque at the edge of the mangrove forest softly announces, in a lullaby voice, the morning call to prayer. Not to be outdone, the local Christians soon crank up pop-sounding hymns that last anywhere from one to three hours. This is followed by cheerful, though overamplified, kazoo-like refrain from the Hindu temple that reminds Less of the ice cream truck from his childhood. Then comes a later call to prayer. Then the Christians decide to ring some bronze bells. And so on. There are sermons and live singers and thunderous drum performances. In this way, the faiths alternate throughout the day, as at a music festival, growing louder and louder until, during the outright cacophony of sunset, the Muslims, who began the whole thing, declare victory by projecting not only the evening call to prayer but the prayer itself in its entirety. After that, the jungle falls to silence. Perhaps this is the Buddhists' sole contribution. Every morning, it starts again. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

In Mahayana Buddhism the universe is therefore likened to a vast net of jewels, wherein the reflection from one jewel is contained in all jewels, and the reflections of all are contained in each. As the Buddhists put it, "All in one and one in all." This sounds very mystical and far-out, until you hear a modern physicist explain the present-day view of elementary particles: "This states, in ordinary language, that each particle consists of all the other particles, each of which is in the same way and at the same time all other particles together." Similarities ~ Ken Wilber

Their faith is not an Islamic one, but a satanic one. The threat of ISIS is a threat to the livelihood of every sensible person on the planet, and in its crosshairs is the faith of the world's two billion Christians and nearly all of its Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. If they have their way, you won't live another day. ~ Johnnie Moore

It may seem unrealistic to think we can ever become free from hatred, but Buddhists have systematic methods for gradually developing a tolerance powerful enough to give such freedom. ~ Dalai Lama

God can and does use anything God chooses to get our attention.
Who's to say the hawk wasn't sent as an agent of grace to catch my wandering attention and quiet what Buddhists might call my "monkey mind," which is more often than not swinging wildly from branch to branch on intellectual and emotional trees.
On the way back down the hiking trail after my encounter with the hawk in Big Sky, I stopped thinking and started looking and listening. That's when I realized winter was turning into spring before me.
Change was happening.
Creation, and perhaps the Creator, was speaking.
I just needed to be outside to hear the voice. ~ Cathleen Falsani

If ever you're getting a dog, Francis, make sure it's a Buddhist. Good-natured dogs, the Buddhists. Never, never get a Mahommedan. They'll eat you sleeping. Never a Catholic dog. They'll eat you every day including Fridays. ~ Frank McCourt

The Buddhists tell us that in order to find yourself, you first have to lose your mind. ~ Sally Brampton

This, perhaps, goes to show that conditional self-esteem, as I have said for many years, is an insidious, real sickness, so much so that even Buddhists carelessly sneak it in and sometimes encourage their clients to achieve it. ~ Albert Ellis

The Buddhists had it right all along. The world is an illusion. ~ Dr. Leon Patterson

Most humans subscribe to the policy of 'an eye for an eye, a life for a life'. Many of your religions are famous for this formula, which is well known throughout the UNIVERSE for its stupidity. Your christ and your buddah had a different vision, but nobody paid any attention to them, not even the christians and buddhists. ~ Gene Brewer

There is more ability to meditate in a rabbit than in one thousand Buddhists. ~ Daniel Marques

But love's not just the drug; it's also the dealer. Love wants love in return, am I right, Olly? Like drugs, the highs look divine, and I envy the users. But when the side effects kick in - jealousy, the rages, grief, I think, Count me out. Elizabethans equated romantic love with insanity. Buddhists view it as a brat throwing a tantrum at the picnic of the calm mind. ~ David Mitchell

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane, there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of 911. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremist have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. ~ Jon Krakauer

From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hinduism religion. ~ Swami Vivekananda

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

The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people. ~ Terry Pratchett

Caring too much leads to heartbreak. Wanting something too much leads to despair. The Buddhists probably have it right, that the root of all suffering is desire, but I don't know how to stop feeling these things. They are feelings. You have to feel them. ~ Andra Brynn

Soon after we first got to know each other, I asked him a typical traveler's question: How did he deal with jet lag? He looked at me, surprised. "For me a flight is just a brief retreat in the sky," Matthieu said, as if amazed that the idea didn't strike everyone. "There's nothing I can do, so it's really quite liberating. There's nowhere else I can be. So I just sit and watch the clouds and the blue sky. Everything is still and everything is moving. It's beautiful." Clouds and blue sky, of course, are how Buddhists explain the nature of our mind: there may be clouds passing across it, but that doesn't mean a blue sky isn't always there behind the obscurations. All you need is the patience to sit still until the blue shows up again. His ~ Pico Iyer

You know the Buddhists believe that sometimes when everything is in turmoil, it's because something wonderful is ready to be born and that thing is distracting you so it can have some privacy during the birthing process. ~ Pearl Cleage

Above all, I didn't want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion - an apt phrase, given John's worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people's feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed. ~ Lori Gottlieb

We knew what atheists and humanists and Buddhists believed before we actually met any atheists or humanists or Buddhists, and we knew how to effectively discredit their worldviews before ever encountering them on our own. ~ Rachel Held Evans

Tolerance is a form of generosity and it is a form of wisdom. There is nothing anywhere in the Dharma [Buddhist scriptures] that should ever lead anyone to become intolerant. Our goal as Buddhists is to learn to accept all kinds of people and to help all kinds of people discover the wisdom of the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha ~ Hsing Yun

An Indian lies in the eyes of the beholder…what you choose to see.

You can travel the length and breadth of India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Mumbai to Kolkota, and not see a single Indian. You will see Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, etc. You will see Maharashtrians, Gujaratis, UPites, Biharis, Bengalis, Tamils, Telugus, Malayalis, etc.

Or you will see Indians. ~ An Indian

Here are pictures of the sources for Daoist mijue "master to disciple" oral teachings, as shown in the manuals used by Daoist masters themselves. The manuals are insufficient for the casual reader to use, the oral koujue explanations given on a personal one-to-one basis are essential. After seeing how Daoists from Longhu Shan,as well as foreign ("american") Dao for $$$ have falsified their use, I am reluctant to share them in full, until a true Qingwei or Zhengyi Grade five and above master ask to see them. The Qingwei (5 thunder-vajra") Daoist seen performing the purification mudra in image #5 below (a mudra shared by Daoists, Tendai Tantric Buddhists in Japan, and Tibetan masters) said when he had seen the manuals shown in pictures 1-4. "Where is the other half of the Thunder-Vajra manual?" Then I knew that it was OK to give it to him! He gave me his address in Jiangxi province; I intend to bring the mijue manual to him on my next trip to China, as Master Zhuang asked me to do, (before his death in 1976, an order given to his maternal great grandfather by the 61st Longhu Shan master, in 1868)!
[Saso facebook post, May 7 2015] ~ Michael Saso

That's nice."

"It is. And so I did not tell her that I'd written most of it while taking a shit. My point is neither you nor I know what will matter to the audience in the long run. The truth? Who gives a fuck? The Bible's full of utter cock and there are ten thousand wankers out there using it as an excuse to behave like total fucking arseholes. Same as the Koran and the Talmud and probably whatever the fuck it is that Buddhists get their spells out of. But on the other hand there's been millions of people, over thousand of years, who've got through the day because of that bullshit, or had their heart lifted, or looked at the world differently for ten minutes. ~ Michael Rutger

The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is 'Invest!' The supreme commandment of the rest of us is 'Buy!' The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it on television. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Tibetan Buddhists say that a person should never get rid of their negative energy, that negative energy transformed is the energy of enlightenment, and that the only difference between neurosis and wisdom is struggle. If we stop struggling and open up and accept what is, that neurotic energy naturally arises as wisdom, naturally informs us and becomes our teacher. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Buddhists and Christians contrive to agree about death Making death their ideal basis for different ideals. The Communists however disapprove of death Except when practical. ~ William Empson

Every time I saw Muslim masses bowed in prayer or the Catholic faithful gathered all I saw was fear. Moronically nodding Hasidim, paint-throwing Hindus, shimmying and jabbering Evangelicals, they were all scared shitless this was all there was. Even the Buddhists (whose crinkled tee-heeing lamas always made me want to slap them) were terrified of their own flesh and blood, needed some disembodied desire-free fairyland to shoot for. ~ Glen Duncan

Muslims are just as peace-loving as the Christians, Hindus, Jews or Buddhists. It's the fundamentalists from whom people should keep distance, not the muslims. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Buddhism is not concerned just with private destiny, but with the lives and consciousness of all beingsAny attempt to understand Buddhism apart from its social dimension is fundamentally a mistake. Until Western Buddhists understand this, their embrace of Buddhism will not help very much in the efforts to bring about meaningful and positive social change, or even in their struggle to transform their ego. ~ Sulak Sivaraksa

The reason why Broken Men only became Untouchables was because in addition to being Buddhists, they retained their habit of beef-eating, which gave additional ground for offence to the Brahmins to carry their new-found love and reverence to the cow to its logical conclusion. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I read? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person i want to be?'" He turned his head to his shoulder as if the bird were there now. "Is today the day I die?" he said. ~ Mitch Albom

Buddhism cannot be true to itself until Buddhists resolve their ambivalence toward nonhuman animals and extend the full protection of their compassion to the most harmless and helpless of those who live at our mercy in the visible realms. ~ Norm Phelps

If Palestine had been invaded by Buddhists, or post-Ottoman Turkey, resistance would have been just as strong. ~ Anonymous

And this is a Buddhist country?" said Matt, "This is a country of lovingkindness and compassion? Hah. I think the Americans would call this 'tough love.' "
"That is the paradox of Buddhism," said Ranjit, "As a young doctor I would see these violent things and wonder why they happened, knowing that it was not something that Buddhists should do. Then I realized we are not born Buddhist. All the focus on channeling anger and dealing with hardship did not emanate from these people…. It was a lesson to these people. We are a land of Buddhists because we need to hear the lessons of Buddha, not because we follow Buddha."

-spoken by Ranjit, the surgeon, after an episode of violence.... ~ Joe Niemczura

Buddhists understand that today and all other days have turned out the way they have because of karma. The interconnection of one moment with another moment, of one action with another action, is karma. ~ Frederick Lenz

How could I protect myself? I had the Viking's scabbard, but not the sword; I had the Buddhist's robe, but not the faith. ~ Andrew Davidson

Meditation helps me feel the shape, the texture of my inner life. Here, in the quiet, I can begin to taste what Buddhists would call my true nature, what Jews call the still, small voice, what Christians call the holy spirit. ~ Wayne Muller

What I find is that we're all human beings and that it's all very similar, what we believe. At the bottom, there's really not that much difference between Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. We all worship God. ~ Dennis Quaid

Well neither of us were "Buddhists" then because it was new to us. We were 60's people. Psychedelic relics, you know ... whatever, right on, radicals and world changers, social peaceniks perhaps, with a Buddhist spiritual veneer. ~ Surya Das

By identifying impermanence as a fundamental characteristic of existence itself, rather than a problem to be solved, the Buddhists are encouraging us to let go our hold on illusory solidity and learn to swim freely in the sea of change. ~ Andrew Olendzki

Parables were never my strong suit. If you wan to say something, say it. So, of course, Joshua and Buddhists were the perfect people to hang out with, straight talkers that they were. ~ Christopher Moore

Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system administration. ~ Philip Greenspun

An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call "a hungry ghost" - forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Nowadays, people of many lands and cultures are being intermingled more and more. Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists may live in the same apartment building. In which case it is more important to accept each other's beliefs than to ask why everyone does not believe the same thing ~ Jostein Gaarder

I do know that some Buddhists are able to attain peace of mind. ~ Martin Scorsese

Forget what you might have heard. There are no separate corps of angels for agnostics, atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Unitarians, Hindus, Druids, Shintoists, Wiccans, and so on. To put a spin on the old saying, it's okay if you don't believe in angels.
We believe in you. ~ Cynthia Leitich Smith

The thing the Buddhists and the Sufis have in common is a belief that religious certainties are destructive. ~ Luke Rhinehart

The Buddhists say that you have to think about your own death every single day. It makes you more humble to know this day is all there is, so be joyful and be grateful, and enjoy it. ~ Iris Krasnow

With the near-death or clinical near-death phenomenon some people who are brought back from 'death' have reported being alive the entire time they were 'dead.' This phenomenon occurs among people with a wide diversity of religious belief and no religious belief at all - from atheists to Zen Buddhists. ~ John Ankerberg

There is a blissful period of existence which the Yen Buddhists* call plinki. It is defined quite precisely as that interval between waking up and being hit on the back of the head by all the problems that kept you awake the night before; it ends when you realize that this was the morning everything was going to look better in, and it doesn't. ~ Terry Pratchett

Maya is Time, the illusion of the ego, the stuff of individual existence, the dream that separates us from a true perception of the whole. It is often likened to a sealed glass vessel that separates the air within from the clear and unconfined air all around, or water from the all encompassing sea. Yet the vessel is not different from the sea, and to shatter or dissolve it brings about the reunion with all universal life that mystics seek, the homegoing, the return to the lost paradise of our "true nature."

Today science is telling us what the Vedas have taught mankind for three thousand years, that we do not see the universe as it is. What we see is Maya, or Illusion, the "magic show" of Nature, a collective hallucination of that part of our consciousness which is shared with all of our own kind, and which gives a common ground, a continuity, to the life experience. According to Buddhists (but not Hindus), this world perceived by the senses, this relative but not absolute reality, this dream, also exists, also has meaning; but it is only one aspect of the truth, like the cosmic vision of this goat by the crooked door, gazing through sheets of rain into the mud. ~ Peter Matthiessen

The perfect man of pagans was the perfection of the man there is; the perfect man of christians, the perfection of the man there isn't; the buddhists' perfect man, the perfection of not existing a man. ~ Fernando Pessoa

I envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory. ~ F. Sionil Jose

The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also. ~ Swami Vivekananda

To put it bluntly, the central question Buddhists have faced from the beginning is this: Is awakening close by or far away? Is it readily accessible and available only through supreme effort? If its proximity and ease of access are emphasized, there is the danger of trivializing it, of not according it the value and significance it deserves. Yet if its distance and difficulty of access are emphasized, there is the danger of placing it out of reach, of turning it into an icon of perfection to be worshipped from afar. Doesn't the question itself deceive us? Aren't we tricked by its either/or logic into assuming that only one option can be true? Couldn't the ambiguous logic of both/and be more appropriate here? Awakening is indeed close by - and supreme effort is required to realize it. Awakening is indeed far away - and readily accessible. ~ Stephen Batchelor

When the Buddha declares there is escape from sorrow, the escape is Nirvana, which is not a place, like heaven, but a psychological state of mind in which you are are released from desire and fear. And your life becomes harmonious, centered and affirmative. Even with suffering.

The Buddhists speak of the bodhisattva - the one who knows immortality, yet voluntarily enters into the field of the fragmentation of time and participates willingly and joyfully in the sorrows of the world. ~ Joseph Campbell

We believe in self creation. That's why Buddhists believe in the Four Noble Truths. ~ Dalai Lama

As Buddhists, our only task is to keep our room clean. ~ Frederick Lenz

We must be able to deal with ridicule and scorn, which it always seems that Buddhists receive. But we feel that it doesn't matter. God's laughing at us; God's laughing at God. We can take a joke too. We're pretty funny. ~ Frederick Lenz

The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God. I'm not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. God has had a great deal written about Him; nothing has been written about me. God is bigger, like my mother, easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can't describe myself I can't ask for help. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Buddhists have a long-standing tradition of believing that at some level we always know what the best course of action is in any given situation. We just have to be quiet enough to let that course of action present itself to us. And we need the confidence to act when life shows us what we need to do. ~ Brad Warner

Long before man traveled into space, rabbis debated how one would observe Shabbat there-not because they anticipated space travel but because Buddhists strive to live with questions and Jews would rather die. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Anna used to say that the Buddhists meditate about reactions. That we cannot control WHAT happens to us, only how we react to it. ~ Suzanne Hayes

My thoughts turn to something I read once, something the Zen Buddhists believe. They say that an oak tree is brought into creation by two forces at the same time. Obviously, there is the acorn from which it all begins, the seed which holds all the promise and potential, which grows into a tree. Everybody can see that. But only a few can recognize that there is anther force operating here as well-the future tree itself, which wants so badly to exist that it pulls the acorn into being, drawing the seedling forth with longing out of the void, guiding the evolution from nothingness to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Are, however, the terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term? Do they really believe? What they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, deep indifference towards the non-believer's way of life. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Forgiveness is for Buddhists. ~ Tarryn Fisher

Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the res ~ Mark Nepo

The Buddhists think that, because we've all had infinite previous lives, we've all been each other's relatives. Therefore all of you, in the Buddhist view, in some previous life ... have been my mother - for which I do apologize for the trouble I caused you. ~ Robert Thurman

What is required is the finding of that Immovable Point within one's self, which is not shaken by any of those tempests which the Buddhists call 'the eight karmic winds': 1-fear of pain, 2-desire for pleasure; 3-fear of loss; 4-desire for gain; 5-fear of blame, 6-desire for praise; 7-fear of disgrace; [and] 8-desire for fame. ~ Joseph Campbell

Much more than skeleton, it is flash, I mean the carrion flesh, which disturb and alarm us – and which alleviates us as well. The Buddhists monks gladly frequented charnel houses: where corner desire more surely and emancipate oneself from it? The horrible being a path of liberation in every period of fervor and inwardness, our remains have enjoyed great favor. In the Middle Ages, a man made a regimen of salvation, he believed energetically: the corpse was in fashion. Faith was vigorous than, invincible; it cherished the livid and the fetid, it knew the profits to be derived from corruption and gruesomeness. Today, an edulcorated religion adheres only to „nice" hallucinations, to Evolution and to Progress. It is not such a religion which might afford us the modern equivalent of the dense macabre.

„Let a man who aspires to nirvana act so that nothing is dear to him", we read in a Buddhist text. It is enough to consider these specters, to meditate on the fate of the flash which adhered to them, in order to understand the urgency of detachment. There is no ascesis in the double rumination on the flesh and on the skeleton, on the dreadful decrepitude of the one and the futile permanence of the other. It is a good exercise to sever ourselves now and then from our face, from our skin, to lay aside this deceptive sheathe, then to discard – if only for a moment – that layer of grease which keeps us from discerning what is fundamental in ourselves. Once exercise is over, we ~ Emil M. Cioran

Whether we call ourselves communists or capitalists, Hindus or Buddhists, Moslems or Christians, whether we are blind, lame, well or happy, this earth is ours ... not somebody else's ... it is not only the rich man's earth, but our earth ... yours and mine. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

We've always seen ourselves as Indian. We've never seen ourselves as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or Buddhists. ~ Azim Premji

Buddhists believe that you are who you are today is because of who you have been in all your past lives. ~ Frederick Lenz

The opportunity here in the U.S. is so unique because we are so diverse, with so many different cultures living together. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists, all with their own connections to the spiritual aspects of food and with lessons that we can learn from each other. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

Buddhists were actually the first cognitive-behavioral therapists. ~ Jack Kornfield

He was teaching them to hate, wife. He tells them to hate Hindus and Buddhists and Jains and Sikhs and who knows what other vegetarians. Will you have hateful children, woman? ~ Salman Rushdie

I've noticed that the more flooding there is, the more bullshit gets talked. I mean it was very noticeable in the Asian tsumai. It happened around Christmas-New Year. The Muslims of Sri Lanka said 'We knew this would happen because the Christians were using alcohol for their Christmas celebrations.' The Buddhists said 'We knew this would happen because of the horrible Muslim slaughter practices.' It's amazing to see how apocalypse or catastrophe makes people behave primitively. ~ Christopher Hitchens

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

Man must have results, real results, in his inner and outer life. I do not mean the results which modern people strive after in their attempts at self-development. These are not results, but only rearrangements of psychic material, a process the Buddhists call 'samsara' and which our Holy Bible calls 'dust'. ~ Jacob Needleman

When you feel that you are superior to someone else, you lack compassion. Compassion is a word Buddhists use to express the realization that even though we may differ greatly in evolution, appearance, talents, or intelligence from other beings in the universe, we are all equally valuable in the eyes of eternity. This is wisdom." - Surfing the Himalayas 202 ~ Frederick Lenz

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