Buddhism famous quotes
05-20-2025
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It just seemed like Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism - because that's mainly what I've been exposed to - was a real solid organization of teachings to point someone in the right direction. Some real well thought out stuff. But I don't know, like, every last detail about Buddhism.
-- Adam Yauch -
To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind.
-- Ajahn Chah -
To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, 'Don't cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.'
-- Ajahn Chah -
Instead of becoming the world’s expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go.
-- Ajahn Sumedho -
And as I stumbled onto Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, it was the first time I had ever read any sort of philosophy that really made a tremendous amount of sense. What I liked that was missing from my experience of Christianity growing up was a sort of acceptance, a sort of being OK with being imperfect and not focusing on the sin.
-- Alan Ball -
Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.
-- Alan Watts -
A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.
-- Alan Watts -
Here's an example: someone says, "Master, please hand me the knife," and he hands them the knife, blade first. "Please give me the other end," he says. And the master replies, "What would you do with the other end?" This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical. When the question is, "Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Then he replies, "There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool." That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday, and that is, more or less, the principle zen works on. The mundane and the sacred are one and the same.
-- Alan Watts -
If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.
-- Albert Einstein -
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism....
-- Albert Einstein -
The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.
-- Annie Dillard -
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 -
On days when the sky is grey, the sun has not disappeared forever.
-- Arnaud Desjardins -
Life is expressed in a perpetual sequence of changes. The birth of the child is the death of the baby, just as the birth of the adolescent is the death of the child.
-- Arnaud Desjardins -
If you study carefully, you will see that Buddhism is based on reason. There is an element of flexibility inherent in it, which is not found in any other religion
-- B. R. Ambedkar -
All of the religions - with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven - teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.
-- Barbara Walters -
Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.
-- Bell Hooks -
Buddhism is all about finding your own way, not imitating the ways of others or even the ways of Buddha himself.
-- Brad Warner -
Buddhism doesn't promise to fulfill our desires. Instead it says, 'You feel unfulfilled? That's okay. That's normal. Everybody feels unfulfilled. You will always feel unfulfilled. There is no problem with feeling unfulfilled. In fact, if you learn to see it the right way, that very lack of fulfillment is the greatest thing you can ever experience.' This is the realistic outlook.
-- Brad Warner -
Much of the hatred and fear of sexuality found in religions stems from the idea that sex is a thing of the body and that the body must be denied so that the spirit may be elevated. In Buddhism there is no notion that the body is made of inferior matter while the spirit flies free within.
-- Brad Warner -
And this presence of the Spirit will enlighten not only yellow skin people or white skin people but even black skin people. I believe in the last days the Spirit of God will be poured out in the nations of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Because Jesus Christ is the Lord. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Universe. Amen.
-- Brother Yun -
To believe straight away is foolishness, to believe after having seen clearly is good sense. That is the Buddhist policy in belief; not to believe stupidly, or to rely only on people, textbooks, conjecture, reasoning, or whatever the majority believes, but rather to believe what we see clearly for ourselves to be the case. This is how it is in Buddhism.
-- Buddhadasa -
The followers of Derrida are pathetic, snuffling in French pockets for bits of pieces of a deconstructive method already massively and coherently presented and with a mature sense of the sacred in Buddhism and Hinduism.
-- Camille Paglia -
The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments.
-- D.T. Suzuki -
Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies,
-- D.T. Suzuki -
Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth.
-- D.T. Suzuki -
Suzuki's works on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism... We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task.
-- D.T. Suzuki -
The idea of interdependence is central to Buddhism, which holds that all things come into being through the mutual interactions of various causes and conditions.
-- Daisaku Ikeda -
Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.
-- Daisaku Ikeda -
If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.
-- Dalai Lama -
The essence of Buddhism is if you can, help others. If not, then at least refrain from hurting others.
-- Dalai Lama -
Don't use Buddhism to become a Buddhist. Use Buddhism to become better at whatever else in your life you are doing already.
-- Dalai Lama -
There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt.
-- Dalai Lama -
If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.
-- Dalai Lama -
Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.
-- Dalai Lama -
In Buddhism, both learning and practice are extremely important, and they must go hand in hand. Without knowledge, just to rely on faith, faith, and more faith is good but not sufficient. So the intellectual part must definitely be present. At the same time, strictly intellectual development without faith and practice, is also of no use. It is necessary to combine knowledge born from study with sincere practice in our daily lives. These two must go together.
-- Dalai Lama -
If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.
-- Dalai Lama -
As an individual, I think you have to find your own path. I like the simplicity and purity of Hinduism and many elements of Buddhism. These are all means of accessing spiritual energy.
-- Dave Davies -
I was studying Tibetan Buddhism when I was quite young, again influenced by Kerouac.
-- David Bowie -
Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary.
-- David Sylvian -
When you dig a well, there's no sign of water until you reach it, only rocks and dirt to move out of the way. You have removed enough; soon the pure water will flow," said Buddha.
-- Deepak Chopra -
I think that we all at some point are in search of something - a higher power, whatever you want to call it, the meaning of life. I know I was, especially at even my son's age in my 20s, and dabbling in Eastern philosophies and yoga and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam. I kind of touched them all, you know, just trying to figure out the meaning of life or if nothing else, figure myself out.
-- Denzel Washington -
The first precept in Buddhism is "Do not kill." This precept is not merely a legalistic prohibition, but a realization of our affinity with all who share the gift of life. A compassionate heart provides a firm ground for this precept.
-- Dhammananda Bhikkhuni -
Do not encumber your mind with useless thoughts. What good does it do to brood on the past or anticipate the future? Remain in the simplicity of the present moment.
-- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche -
Like a robe wears out over time and turns to rags, life wears out from day to day, from second to second.
-- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche -
Life is fragile, like the dew hanging delicately on the grass, crystal drops that will be carried away on the first morning breeze.
-- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche -
On the day that you were born, you began to die. Do not waste a single moment more!
-- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche -
If one were truly aware of the value of human life, to waste it blithely on distractions and the pursuit of vulgar ambitions would be the height of confusion.
-- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche -
To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.
-- Dogen -
I try to make sure that the Buddhism is more or less implicit in the music rather than explicit
-- Duncan Sheik -
Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.
-- Edward Abbey -
PrajñÄpÄramitÄ Buddhism is not a religion suitable for the brainless
-- Edward Conze -
It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time.
-- Eiji Yoshikawa -
And yet when you take Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, whatever, their combined killings in the name of religion -- well, that would be zero.
-- Eric Bolling -
I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism - whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion.
-- Erwin McManus -
I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions... For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem.
-- Erwin McManus -
Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing.
-- Eugen Herrigel -
The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point we are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
-- Flemming Rose -
You must go to Mahometanism, to Buddhism, to the East, to the Sufis Fakirs, to Pantheism, for the right growth of mysticism.
-- Florence Nightingale -
Soccer isn't the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community's fabric, a repository of traditions.
-- Franklin Foer -
The way we gain wisdom in meditation is not by explanation. If you go into the planes of light, you will come out of the meditation knowing things ... things that are inexpressible.
-- Frederick Lenz -
When you meditate and still your mind, you will gain the wisdom of knowing things in this world, in other worlds and beyond worlds - it just comes to you.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Wisdom is the ability to do two things at once, to be in the world and enjoy it and at the same time, to be in the realms of light, to be in samadhi.
-- Frederick Lenz -
True wisdom is to see and understand your relationship with the universe. When you gain that relational knowledge, then you are wise.
-- Frederick Lenz -
There is wisdom in not letting anyone really know who you are or what you are like. If you define yourself, people hold you in their mind a certain way making it difficult to change.
-- Frederick Lenz -
A person of knowledge and power never goes out looking for battles. All their battles are within.
-- Frederick Lenz -
This world only brings things apart that come together, and brings things together that weren't together.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Tragedy brings us closer to ourselves - it's the only thing that does.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Honestly admitting what you lost and not trying to rationalize it or push it off is an important step in self-assessment and mindfulness.
-- Frederick Lenz -
If you are truly wise, then you reflect the universe and you are relational in your approach to things. You are a mirror of infinity. That is wisdom.
-- Frederick Lenz -
The ultimate intelligence of all things is your essence. Your mind is the universe. Your body is all things.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Knowledge is the ability to love, the ability to feel, the ability to probe the depths and the heights of life. It is the experience of the experiencer, and at the same time, it is beyond that.
-- Frederick Lenz -
The only loser who walks away from a wise man is the one who walks away.
-- Frederick Lenz -
The universe is complicated and we're not going to get it all in one night or one incarnation or one infinity.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Spiritual balance is to be straight with yourself.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Only a pure heart, a completely pure heart can house eternity.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Most people lead their lives like they drive their cars.
-- Frederick Lenz -
There is always going to be pain. There is always going to be pleasure. But what is not always going to be there is balance, happiness. That is a personal decision.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Balance is to choose happiness, to feel that the purpose of life is to love, not necessarily to be loved, to be happy, to be conscious, to be aware, to be fulfilled.
-- Frederick Lenz -
Balance is the ability to be happy in the midst of the most chaotic or even boring or transient circumstance.
-- Frederick Lenz -
When you're happy it's pretty tough to knock you over. You can handle whatever comes along in life.
-- Frederick Lenz -
In martial arts one of the first things that you learn is to be balanced. Balance is the central principle in architecture and design. Balance is a way of trying to talk about being at the center of things.
-- Frederick Lenz -
When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.
-- Gary Snyder -
Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God... Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire.
-- George Santayana -
Today we can see many different forms of Buddhism, such as Zen and Theravada Buddhism. All these different aspects are practices of Buddha's teachings, and all are equally precious; they are just different presentations.
-- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso -
Buddhism’s cardinal ethical principle is to avoid causing harm.
-- Gil Fronsdal -
Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton -
One of Buddhism’s main practices is understanding and experiencing compassion, and how that ultimately is a road to happiness.
-- Goldie Hawn -
Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. [An infinitely old universe, always evolving may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end.] Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.
-- Hannes Alfven -
I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion,' he resumed presently. 'They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.
-- Hector Hugh Munro -
Oysters are more beautiful than any religion....Theres nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.
-- Hector Hugh Munro -
Buddhism advises you not to implant feelings that you don’t really have or avoid feelings that you do have. If you are miserable you are miserable; that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching. When you are having a bad time, examine that experience, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics. The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can’t trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is freedom.
-- Henepola Gunaratana -
The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.
-- Herbie Hancock -
Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.
-- Herbie Hancock -
One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.
-- Herbie Hancock -
We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.
-- Hermann Hesse -
Buddhism regards all living creatures as being endowed with the Buddha nature and the potential to become Buddhas. That's why Buddhism teaches us to refrain from killing and to liberate creatures instead.
-- Hsuan Hua -
Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.
-- Hugo Black
