Nirvana Quotes

As long as it's a world, it has laws. Why, I don't know, it's just the way it is. In Nirvana, there are no laws. ~ Frederick Lenz

Attaining bliss can take lifetimes, or one can simply choose to experience it in their deepest dreams. Sleep well my friend, as dreams are vehicles that can quickly take you to the awareness that you call Nirvana ~ Gary Hopkins

I will say that I know Nirvana did a show and played a few chords from 'More Than a Feeling' before they did 'Teen Spirit,' and it wasn't very good. But in all seriousness, 'Teen Spirit' was a great song. If subconsciously or somehow I had any influence on that, I'll take that as a compliment. ~ Tom Scholz

Thank you for the overwhelming support to novel. NIRVANA 2020
Authors-Suryanarayana&Janaki ~ Saripalli Suryanarayana

Nirvana is not really a physical place, although sometimes I talk about it as if it were. It is not really an experience, although sometimes I mention it as if it was. ~ Frederick Lenz

It is called enlightenment, nirvana, God, truth, call it what you will. There is no activity other than the eternal activities of the universe, perfect being, the awareness of all suchness, knowledge. ~ Frederick Lenz

So in the world of Enlightenment, things are just things, except they're not things. We're in nirvana. There is no debating team. ~ Frederick Lenz

I have very eclectic taste in music. I like everything from Nirvana, which is featured in the film, to world music, to orchestral and jazz. For me, the nineties were about Oasis, because I was travelling around Britain when that band exploded onto the music scene. ~ Isla Fisher

I know a lot of people who wouldn't be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don't understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music. ~ Dave Grohl

For thousands of years we have been searching for happiness. Happiness is the lost paradise. Humans have worked so hard to reach this point, and this is part of the evolution of the mind. This is the future of humanity. This way of life is possible, and it's in your hands. Moses called it the Promised Land, Buddha called it Nirvana, Jesus called it Heaven, and the Toltecs call it a New Dream. Unfortunately, ~ Miguel Ruiz

Celia and I are hoping for a new start in a our thus far tortuous path to Nirvana ~ Jaime Olmos

Anton Brookes: I think I was within my right to accuse him of selling out a little bit, if you think about what Nirvana was supposed to be about and what they stood for; they did antirape benefits for Bosnia and stuff like that. Nirvana were supposedly right-on, weren't they? They were the voice of a generation, the conscience of a generation. And for all intents and purposes, Kurt mutated into everything he was against. He became your attitudinal rock star, with the tantrums and the plush hotels and everything. And then, for all intents and purposes, Kurt was sucking corporation cock. ~ Mark Yarm

In both Surfing the Himalayas and Snowboarding to Nirvana, I have tried to transmit as best I could the spirit of humor, and the sense of humor of the monks I have encountered. ~ Frederick Lenz

Well, this place was not purgatory, Nirvana, or any sort of rebirth, and it occurred to Nick that regardless of what people believed, the universe had its own ideas. ~ Neal Shusterman

This is one of the sweet spots where, as anyone who has done repetitive manual labor understands, the single minded focus, concentration, and hard physical work combine to form a sort of temporary nirvana. ~ Finn Murphy

I'm not the type to generalise about an entire generation. I think the most general thing I can say, is that things are way more dispersed, and way more de-centralised than they were twenty years ago. I don't really feel like people talk about my generation the way people would talk about Generation X in their early 90's when Nirvana blew up. I feel like there was an easier, more coherent narrative to find, than you can now. ~ Chris Baio

Finding Nirvana is like locating silence. ~ Jack Kerouac

He has no need for faith who knows the uncreated, who has cut off rebirth, who has destroyed any opportunity for good or evil, and cast away all desire. He is indeed the ultimate man. ~ Gautama Buddha

Every religion holds forth the promise of either defeating time, escaping time, overcoming time, reissuing time, or denying time altogether. We use our religions as vehicles to enter the state of nirvana, the heavenly kingdom, or the promised land. We come to believe in reincarnation, rebirth, and resurrection as ways of avoiding the inevitability of biological death. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

There was someone sitting in his room, over on that chair -
"Are you kidding me?" He exhaled a curse and rubbed the back of his brain. "Really? Are you fucking kidding me?"
Across the way, like some fucked-up scarecrow, a pair of blue jeans, that Nirvana concert T-shirt of the angel's, the flannel bullshit, and a set of Nikes had been stuffed with God only knew what. The head of the "Lassiter" was made out of a nylon bag that had had potatoes in it, and the black and yellow hair was a collection of knee-high business socks - probably Butch's - and Swiffer cleaning rags that had been safety pinned in place.
Around its neck? A handwritten sign that read: the boss was here. ~ J.R. Ward

At the beginning and the middle and the end of all things, there is only the perfection of enlightenment that is nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz

Nirvana; closing the eyes to see the world inside. ~ Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma

Hqve you never heard of priests proclaim that the meek will inherit the earth and wondered if kings of old didn't smile to hear it? Your reward comes after death. Nirvana. The wheel of life turns and we are elevated from animals to women, from women to men, from men to kings, from kings to gods, from gods to... perfection. And what is perfection now? Not crucifixion, not poverty endured patiently on the mountaintop. No--the perfect life is to have an annual salary of £120,000, an Aston Martin, a £1.6million-pound home, a wife, two children and at least two foreign holidays a year. Perfection is an idol built upon oppression. Perfection is the heaven that kept the masses suppressed; the promise of a future life that quells rebellion. Perfection is the self-hatred an overweight woman feels when she sees a slim model on TV; perfection is the resentment the well-paid man experiences when he beholds a miserable billionaire. Perfection kills. Perfection destroys the soul. ~ Claire North

When Nirvana came onto the scene, they pretty much saved music. ~ Caprice Crane

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

Human language is too poor to express the real nature of the Absolute Truth or Ultimate Reality which is Nirvana. Language is created and used by masses of human beings to express things and ideas experienced by their sense organs and their mind. A supramundane experience like that of the Absolute Truth is not of such a category. Therefore there cannot be words to express that experience, just as the fish had no words in his vocabulary to express the nature of the solid land. ~ Walpola Rahula

I always like to think that I make movies that are like Nirvana songs. They have a slow verse and then they pop into high gear and then they go back into slow and then they pop into high gear again. ~ James Gunn

A lot of the state-sponsored growth in India was just too fast. You went from cradle to Nirvana in a short period of time. ~ Jerry A. Webman

If you look at the history of popular music, the most successful musicians have started out being really marginal and esoteric. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Madonna. Prince. Bruce Springsteen. Fleetwood Mac. David Bowie. Public Enemy. Nirvana. ~ Moby

They were properly mad in the Shakespearean sense, talking sense when you least expected it. In North London, where councillors once voted to change the name of the area to Nirvana, it is not unusual to walk the streets and be suddenly confronted by sage words from the chalkfaced, blue-lipped, or eyebrowless. From across the street or from the other end of a tube carriage they will use their schizophrenic talent for seeing connections in the random (for discerning the whole world in a grain of sand, for deriving narrative from nothing) to riddle you, to rhyme you, to strip you down, to tell you who you are and where you're going (usually Baker Street - the great majority of modernday seers travel the Metropolitan Line) and why. But as a city we are not appreciative of these people. Our gut instinct is that they intend to embarrass us, that they're out to shame us somehow as they lurch down the train aisle, bulbous-eyed and with carbuncled nose, preparing to ask us, inevitably, what we are looking at. What the fuck we are looking at. As a kind of preemptive defense mechanism, Londoners have learned not to look, never to look, to avoid eyes at all times so that the dreaded question "What you looking at?" and its pitiful, gutless, useless answer - "Nothing" - might be avoided. ~ Zadie Smith

Nirvana has nothing do with any of this. None of this is there. ~ Frederick Lenz

In the rest of Nirvana all sorrows surcease: Only Buddha can guide to that city of Peace Whose inhabitants have the eternal release. ~ William Rounseville Alger

If you're a big Nirvana fan, a big Hole fan, then I understand why you would want to get to know me, but I'm not my parents. ~ Frances Bean Cobain

Health is the first benefit. Content is the first fortune. Friendliness is the first kindness. Nirvana is the first happiness. ~ Gautama Buddha

True nirvana will come when we enlighten the world of awareness and higher consciousness. ~ Debasish Mridha

Despite its convict history, the Australian state of Tasmania is no longer associated only with austerity and privation. Nowadays it's a sybarite's nirvana surrounded by some of the most untouched nature on the planet. "Mainland Tassie," as the Tasmanians who live on the outer islands call it, covers 35,000 square miles, and 45% of that is preserved in bio-reserves, national parks or World Heritage sites. On the other 55%, there are just 515,000 people. ~ Anonymous

Outside of nirvana, the planes begin, the subtlest planes of light that vibrate fastest, all the way on down through the astral realms through the physical and so on. ~ Frederick Lenz

Do you know what my ambition is in life? To be without ambition. As far back as I can remember I've been absolutely hag-ridden. I'd like to attain the state of mind that the Indians call Nirvana. That, for me, would happen if I were free of ambition. ~ Tallulah Bankhead

By fully focusing your mind on your chakras, stilling your thoughts, and increasing your kundalini flow, you can rise above your body consciousness and unite your mind with the clear light of nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz

She had just given Liger his food when a tap sounded on the connecting door. Priss's heart leaped into her throat.
With excitement.
Not dread, or annoyance, or even indifference.
Pure, sizzling stimulation. Suddenly she was wide-awake.
Tamping down her automatic smile, Priss leaned on the door. "Yeah?"
"Open up."
Still fighting that twitching grin, Priss tried to sound disgruntled as she asked, "Why?"
Something hit the door - maybe his head - and Trace said, "I heard you up and moving around, Priss. I have coffee ready, but if you don't want any - "
Being a true caffeine junkie, she jerked open the door. "Oh, bless you, man." She took the cup straight out of Trace's hand, drank deeply and sighed as the warmth penetrated the thick fog of novel sentiment. "Ahhhh. Nirvana. Thank you."
Only after the caffeine ingestion did she notice that Trace wore unsnapped jeans and nothing else. Her eyes flared wide and her jaw felt loose. Holy moly.
"That was my cup," Trace told her, bemused.
But Priss could only stare at him. Despite the delicious coffee she'd just poured in it, her mouth went dry.
When she continued to stare at him, at his chest and abdomen, her gaze tracking a silky line of brown hair that disappeared into his jeans, Trace crossed his arms.
Her gaze jumped to his face and she found him watching her with equal fascination.
A little lost as to the reason for that look, Priss asked with some belligerence, ~ Lori Foster

It's impossible to fall of mountains you fool! ~ Jack Kerouac

It's an adversarial world outside of the safety of nirvana and enlightenment. In life, all beings need to feed on other beings just in order to exist. Some beings also like to cause others to needlessly suffer, just out of pure maliciousness ~ Frederick Lenz

Effortlessness is a great phenomenon. Once you know it, many millions of things become possible to you. Through effort the market; through effortlessness the God. Through effort you can never reach to nirvana - you can reach lo New Delhi, but not to nirvana. ~ Rajneesh

Beyond the astral dimensions are the causal dimensions. They are not spatial or time oriented. They are planes of light, and they make up the outer limits of nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak, I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks. ~ Nirvana

For the Buddha of the Pali Canon, the goal is liberation: the cessation of suffering, the end of the endless hamster-wheel of dependent origination, of mental formations leading to desire leading to clinging leading to suffering and so on. Nibbana, or nirvana, was not originally conceived as some magical heavenly world, or even a permanent altered state of consciousness. It is usually described, in the early texts, negatively: as a candle being snuffed out. ~ Jay Michaelson

I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasure of gold and gems as so many bricks
and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of
fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of,
magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the
illuminated one as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of
daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs
as but traces left by the four seasons. ~ Gautama Buddha

Buddha's goal was to help people avoid suffering by teaching them to live according to four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The truths are that the world is full of suffering; that desire and attachment are the causes ofworldly life; that worldly life can be stopped if we destroy desire and attachment; and that to do this we must learn the way. The way is the Eightfold Path: right speech, right action; right living; right effort; right thinking; right meditation; right hopes; and right view. The Eightfold Path leads us to "Nirvana," a state of eternal bliss and peace. ~ Irina Gajjar

He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana. ~ Buddha

Nothing is distinct and separate. The waves of the ocean arise and have a separate birth, crashing on the shore, but then back into the ocean they go. They never left it. There is no movement in Nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz

Consider that nirvana is itself no other than our life. ~ Dogen

This side of Nirvana, there is no such escape for any of us as far as I know. ~ Frederick Buechner

Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real. ~ Hermann Hesse

The more emphasis we put on wanting things to change, the more unpeaceful we will be. The more emphasis we put on accepting and having gratitude for 'What is' the closer we are to arriving at Nirvana. ~ Matthew Donnelly

Nirvana isn't a physical place. It is not like going to heaven. It just means no more individualized awareness, no aggregate body of experience. ~ Frederick Lenz

Wisdom is to see the difference between nirvana and this world, this self-reflection that the mind creates. ~ Frederick Lenz

In Tantric Buddhism, we believe that Samsara is Nirvana. That is to say that everything in the universe is part of us. And we also are part of everything in the universe. ~ Frederick Lenz

Nirvana is where you are, provided you don't object to it. ~ Alan Watts

Universes collide and conjoin inside us and beyond all is nirvana, the final, absolute resting place of the soul. ~ Frederick Lenz

Inflowing thoughts come to an end in those who are ever alert of mind, training themselves night and day, and ever intent on nirvana ~ Gautama Buddha

There is no movement in Nirvana. There is no sameness. And one does not consider it to be timeless because one is not one. It is you, my friend, who go away. ~ Frederick Lenz

Which is better: to achieve Nirvana, or become a Boddhissatva? ~ Taner Edis

I'd love to see a Nirvana biopic. I loved them when I was younger. I really like jazz music, so I'd like to see a Billie Holiday biopic - she was a fascinating woman. ~ Antonia Thomas

Dream of the impossible: dream of surpassing yourself, dream of nirvana, dream of moksha, dream of the kingdom of God. Only then will you start working and moving towards it, and only then with that dream, will your feet have the quality of dance. ~ Osho

Often, during times when I am in a state of absolute bliss and gratitude, those are the times that people will ask me, "Are you happy or are you sad?" It's funny, because when you are happy in a way that most people are happy in, that is, when you are jumping up and down and laughing and smiling and giggling, people will recognize that as happiness. But when you go beyond that state and on into the state of blissfulness - nirvana - only a very few number of people are going to be able to recognize and understand that. Why? Because only very few people have gone beyond the level of obvious happiness, to experience actual nirvaana. Nirvana is what I describe as being in a state of worship; you see, you go beyond just feeling happy and grateful, and you enter into a state of mind that allows you to worship what you have been given or what you have attained or achieved, or whatever circumstance you are in that is making you happy. You stop and you worship the person, the place, the thing, the feeling. I'm easily flung into that state, so, I often find it strange that I can be in an absolute state of bliss, meanwhile, the other person can be asking me if I am either happy or sad. But I am worshipping. ~ C. JoyBell C.

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

We even, at the worst, reach the state for which Buddhism, in the East presents most ably the case: as in the West, does James Thomson (B.V.) in The City of Dreadful Night; we come to wish for - or, more truly to think that we wish for "blest Nirvana's sinless stainless Peace" (or some such twaddle - thank God I can't recall Arnold's mawkish and unmanly phrase!) and B.V.'s "Dateless oblivion and divine repose."

I insist on the "think that you wish," because, if the real You did really wish the real That, you could never have come to exist at all! ("But I don't exist." - "I know - let's get on!")

Note, please, how sophistically unconvincing are the Buddhist theories of how we ever got into this mess. First cause: Ignorance. Way out, then, knowledge. O.K., that implies a knower, a thing known - and so on and so forth, through all the Three Waste Paper Baskets of the Law; analysed, it turns out to be nonsense all dolled up to look like thinking. And there is no genuine explanation of the origin of the Will to be.

How different, how simple, how self-evident, is the doctrine of The Book of the Law! ~ Aleister Crowley

As I started going deeper into meditation, I realised that its silence is more melodious than all the songs of the world. ~ Shivanshu K. Srivastava

To encounter such a being is considered the ultimate karmic blessing in the sense that your life will be so configured that every single variant problematic karma will surface, which means you have the opportunity of passing through them all correctly, going over the ocean of the samsara and reaching nirvana yourself. ~ Frederick Lenz

Marketers are making retirement respectable. Instead of being the beginning of the end, it sounds like Nirvana-do what you want without any responsibilities. The boomers think that they're 16. Marketers try to keep the charade going. Retirement will look so good, others are going to be jealous. ~ Jerry Della Femina

Three days ago we not only ruled the earth, we had survivor's guilt about all the other species we'd wiped out on our climb to the nirvana of round-the-clock cable news and microwave popcorn. Now we're the Flashlight People. ~ Stephen King

The pedigree's pretty high. For people who are really scary movie fans, this is nirvana. If you're in the mood to get scared, just watch this every week. It'll creep you out. ~ John Landis

When I first got famous, Greg Dulli was also just starting to cook with the Afghan Whigs, and because of the MTV awards I met Dave Grohl and Nirvana and all these rock and roll bands. So I had experience with what it was like when people were taking off at that time. ~ Denis Leary

Nirvana is a step beyond. You dissolve into the universe. The universe dissolves into you until there is no longer a difference. There is no sense of individual self as perceiver. ~ Frederick Lenz

I haven't had a single thought for 26 years. I have only understanding. It's somewhat complicated to understand that. I've hardly ever spoken about it. You're in a state of total peace of mind. A kind of nirvana. ~ Byron Katie

A person who is enlightened does not have to reincarnate, or they may. If they chose not to, they can go beyond the wheel, and slide into nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz

Nirvana is this moment seen directly. There is no where else than here. The only gate is now. The only doorway is your own body and mind. There's nowhere to go. There's nothing else to be. There's no destination. It's not something to aim for in the afterlife. It's simply the quality of this moment. ~ Gautama Buddha

In any town in India the European Club is the spiritual citadel, the real seat of the British power, the Nirvana for which native officials and millionaires pine in vain. ~ George Orwell

I blow my own mind like Nirvana, and go the whole nine like Madonna. ~ Big Pun

So too, friend, purification of virtue is for the sake of reaching purification of mind; purification of mind is for the sake of reaching purification of view; purification of view is for the sake of reaching purification by overcoming doubt; purification by overcoming doubt is for the sake of reaching purification by knowledge and vision of what is the path and what is not the path; purification by knowledge and vision of what is the path and what is not the path is for the sake of reaching purification by knowledge and vision of the way; purification by knowledge and vision of the way is for the sake of reaching purification by knowledge and vision; purification by knowledge and vision is for the sake of reaching final Nibbāna [Nirvana] without clinging. It is for the sake of final Nibbāna without clinging that the holy life is lived under the Blessed One. ~ Gautama Buddha

If the selflessness of phenomena is analyzed and if this analysis is cultivated, it causes the effect of attaining nirvana. through no other cause does one come to peace. ~ Gautama Buddha

Salvakalpa samadhi is like a sea of perfect light; nirvikalpa samadhi is no light, no darkness, no way to describe it. Absorption is complete, that's nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz

We have ideas of God and nirvana or truth or enlightenment. These ideas will go away in nirvana because the suffusion is so complete and intense that nothing can be remembered. ~ Frederick Lenz

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap - and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and 'Heart Shaped Box' and stuff on 'In Utero' just happened that way. ~ Dave Grohl

A better name for nirvana might be endless love. Love not even in the sense that we see it if we're watching the romantic movie, but love in a sense of no absence. ~ Frederick Lenz

I think Kurt Cobain and Nirvana represent this giant wave that came crashing in and turned music on its head again, and there's definitely something to be said for that. ~ Pete Wentz

When Nirvana hit it big, it was overwhelming because we were part of the counterculture. Nirvana didn't go to the mainstream - the mainstream came to Nirvana. ~ Krist Novoselic

You may look back on your life and accept it as good or evil. But it is far, far harder to admit that you have been completely unimportant; that in the great sum of things all a man's endless grapplings are no more significant than the scuttlings of a cockroach. The universe is neither friendly nor hostile. It is merely indifferent. This makes me ecstatic. I have reached a nirvana of negativity. I can look futility in the face and still see promise in the stars. ~ Sebastian Horsley

I was heavily into Nirvana and I still am, but when I was 23 I got disillusioned by music. Then I just focused more on myself and gave up music for a while. ~ James McCartney

I call it nirvana, the complete destruction of old age and dying. ~ Gautama Buddha

But nirvana is a radical transformation of how it feels to be alive: it feels as if everything were myself, or as if everything
including "my" thoughts and actions
were happening of itself. There are still efforts, choices, and decisions, but not the sense that "I make them"; they arise of themselves in relation to circumstances. This is therefore to feel life, not as an encounter between subject and object, but as a polarized field where the contest of opposites has become the play of opposites. ~ Alan W. Watts

Nirvana bears no resemblance to anything in your current perceptual field. ~ Frederick Lenz

It was shocking to see Nirvana play, because it was like, "Here's this little guy with a monster-guitar sound." And it was heavier than Black Sabbath. That was shocking. ~ Billy Corgan

We could decide simply to remain absorbed in the mysterious, unformed, free-play of reality. This would be the choice of the mystic who seeks to extinguish himself in God or Nirvana - analogous perhaps to the tendency among artists to obliterate themselves with alcohol or opiates. But if we value our participation in a shared reality in which it makes sense to make sense, then such self-abnegation would deny a central element of our humanity: the need to speak and act, to share our experience with others. ~ Stephen Batchelor

This association of the idea of the orgasm and the idea of dying is a universal one. On the basis of these typical clinical examples, we arrive at the following conclusion: the striving after non-existence, nirvana, death, is identical with the striving after orgastic release, i.e., the most essential experience of the living organism. Thus, an idea of death stemming from the actual demise of the organism does not and cannot exist, because an idea can reflect only what has already been experienced. No one, however, has ever experienced his or her own death. ~ Wilhelm Reich

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana. ~ Gautama Buddha

To find perfect composure in the midst of change is to find nirvana. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

The USSR, which they'd begun to renovate and improve at
about the time when Tatarsky decided to change his profession, improved so
much that it ceased to exist (if a state is capable of entering nirvana,
that's what must have happened in this case) ~ Victor Pelevin

Something about John Cleese was always very unsettled, I felt. There was always something else he wanted to do. He seemed constantly driven by this sense that there was a nirvana somewhere; some unique place where mind, body and soul would be utterly satisfied. ~ Michael Palin