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Buddha Quotes

Browse 275 quotes about Buddha.

Buddha Quotes

“Khun Mae went to bed past midnight. After a few minutes, her mouth opened. Her hair was a dark cloud on the pillow. Up and up, she drifted above her bed, through the white mosquito nets, until she was as light as a sea bird. She drifted through the open flap of her window, into the balmy night air. Through the rainstorm, she flew, over the city of Bangkok and its blurry lights, until the stars themselves, guided this bird on her journey into the mountains, and above Tham Luang cave.”

“When people are sad they usually make such unreasonable requests that, deity though I am, I am unable to fulfill them. Some pray to be made rich overnight. Some covet other people's wives. Some want to kill the people they hate. Some want the rain changed to sunny weather. Some even want the nose they were born with to be a little bigger. Everyone wants something else. They all pray in vain to Buddha and to the gods, even though their requests cannot possibly be granted, thus making nuisances of themselves.”

“As the world experiences different seasons, life must also experience different emotions. Everyone strives to be happy in life, but it is impossible to always remain happy. Although Gautama Buddha's ideas about eliminating sadness are beautiful, we should not attempt to eradicate sadness completely because it goes against the natural order. Instead, we should allow life to flow like a river. Just as eternal life on earth would become monotonous, eternal happiness would leave us feeling incomplete. Therefore, a fulfilling life must consist of a mixture of various emotions. Sadness is not a disease; it is an emotion, just like happiness. Furthermore, it would be absurd to be constantly happy. If humans had no sadness, they would laugh inappropriately in both positive and negative situations. For example, when someone experiences an accident, we should not feel joy; we should feel sadness. Happiness is like a fleeting butterfly, and we should cherish the moments when it lands in our lives!”

“বিশ্ব যেমন বিভিন্ন ঋতু অনুভব করে, জীবনকেও অবশ্যই বিভিন্ন আবেগ অনুভব করতে হবে। সবাই জীবনে সুখী হওয়ার চেষ্টা করে, কিন্তু সবসময় সুখী থাকা অসম্ভব। যদিও দুঃখ দূর করার বিষয়ে গৌতম বুদ্ধের ধারণা সুন্দর, তবুও আমাদের দুঃখকে সম্পূর্ণরূপে নির্মূল করার চেষ্টা করা উচিত নয় কারণ এটি প্রাকৃতিক নিয়মের বিরুদ্ধে যায়। পরিবর্তে, আমাদের জীবনকে নদীর মতো প্রবাহিত হতে দেওয়া উচিত। পৃথিবীতে অনন্ত জীবন যেমন একঘেয়ে হয়ে উঠবে, তেমনি অনন্ত সুখ আমাদেরকে অসম্পূর্ণ বোধ করাবে। অতএব, একটি পরিপূর্ণ জীবন অবশ্যই বিভিন্ন আবেগের মিশ্রণ নিয়ে গঠিত। দুঃখ কোনো রোগ নয়; এটা সুখের মতই একটি আবেগ। তদুপরি, ক্রমাগত খুশি হওয়াটা অযৌক্তিক হবে। মানুষের দুঃখ না থাকলে, তারা ইতিবাচক এবং নেতিবাচক উভয় পরিস্থিতিতেই অনুপযুক্তভাবে হাসবে। উদাহরণস্বরূপ, যখন কেউ দুর্ঘটনার সম্মুখীন হয়, তখন আমাদের আনন্দ অনুভব করা উচিত নয়; আমাদের দুঃখ অনুভব করা উচিত। সুখ একটি ক্ষণস্থায়ী প্রজাপতির মতো, এবং আমাদের সেই মুহূর্তগুলিকে উপভোগ করা উচিত যখন এটি আমাদের জীবনে আসে!”

“If we ask a random orthodox religious person, what is the best religion, he or she would proudly claim his or her own religion to be the best. A Christian would say Christianity is the best, a Muslim would say Islam is the best, a Jewish would say Judaism is the best and a Hindu would say Hinduism is the best. It takes a lot of mental exercise to get rid of such biases.”

“Christ did to the Jewish orthodoxy, what Buddha did to the Hindu orthodoxy.”

“Jesus recognized that God within him and became Christ - so did Siddhartha Gautama and became Buddha - so did I - and so can you.”

“These are the three stages of enlightenment, the three glimpses of satori. 1. The first stage enlightenment: A Glimpse of the Whole The first stage of enlightenment is short glimpse from faraway of the whole. It is a short glimpse of being. The first stage of enlightenment is when, for the first time, for a single moment the mind is not functioning. The ordinary ego is still present at the first stage of enlightenment, but you experience for a short while that there is something beyond the ego. There is a gap, a silence and emptiness, where there is not thought between you and existence. You and existence meet and merge for a moment. And for the first time the seed, the thirst and longing, for enlightenment, the meeting between you and existence, will grow in your heart. 2. The second stage of enlightenment: Silence, Relaxation, Togetherness, Inner Being The second stage of enlightenment is a new order, a harmony, from within, which comes from the inner being. It is the quality of freedom. The inner chaos has disappeared and a new silence, relaxation and togetherness has arisen. Your own wisdom from within has arisen. A subtle ego is still present in the second stage of enlightenment. The Hindus has three names for the ego: 1. Ahamkar, which is the ordinary ego. 2. Asmita, which is the quality of Am-ness, of no ego. It is a very silent ego, not aggreessive, but it is still a subtle ego. 3. Atma, the third word is Atma, when the Am-ness is also lost. This is what Buddha callas no-self, pure being. In the second stage of enlightenment you become capable of being in the inner being, in the gap, in the meditative quality within, in the silence and emptiness. For hours, for days, you can remain in the gap, in utter aloneness, in God. Still you need effort to remain in the gap, and if you drop the effort, the gap will disappear. Love, meditation and prayer becomes the way to increase the effort in the search for God. Then the second stage becomes a more conscious effort. Now you know the way, you now the direction. 3. The third stage of enlightenment: Ocean, Wholeness, No-self, Pure being At the third stage of enlightenment, at the third step of Satori, our individual river flowing silently, suddenly reaches to the Ocean and becomes one with the Ocean. At the third Satori, the ego is lost, and there is Atma, pure being. You are, but without any boundaries. The river has become the Ocean, the Whole. It has become a vast emptiness, just like the pure sky. The third stage of enlightenment happens when you have become capable of finding the inner being, the meditative quality within, the gap, the inner silence and emptiness, so that it becomes a natural quality. You can find the gap whenever you want. This is what tantra callas Mahamudra, the great orgasm, what Buddha calls Nirvana, what Lao Tzu calls Tao and what Jesus calls the kingdom of God. You have found the door to God. You have come home.”

“Sermon of the Mounts Matthew 5 AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES, HE WENT UP INTO A MOUNTAIN, AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM The Gospels starts in a very beautiful way. The Bible is the book of the books. The meaning of the word "bible" is - the book. It is the most precious and beautiful document that humanity has. These statements are the most beautiful ever made. That is why it is called "The Testament", because Jesus has become the witness of God. While Buddha's words are refined and philosophic, Jesus words are poetic, plain and simple. The beginning of the Gospel of Matthew states that 42 generations have passed from Abraham, the founder of Judaism, to Jesus. Jesus is the flowering, the fulfillment, of these 42 generations. The whole history that has preceded Jesus is the fulfillment in him. Jesus is the fruit, the growth, the evolution, of those 42 generations. The path of Jesus is the path of love. Jesus moved among ordinary people, while Buddha - whose path is the path of meditation, intelligence and understanding - moved with sophisticated people, who was already on the spiritual path, Jesus is the culmination of the whole Jewish consciousness, while Buddha was the culmination of the Hindu consciousness and Socrates was the culmination of the Greek consciousness. But the strange things is that the tradition rejected both Jesus, Buddha and Socrates. All the prophets of the Jews that had preceded jesus was preparing the ground for him to come. That is why John the Baptist was saying: "I am nothing compared to the person that I am preparing the way." But when Jesus came, the etablishment, the religious leaders and the priests, started feeling offended. His presence made the religious leaders look small. Hence Jesus was crucified. And this has always been so, because of the sleep and the stupidity of humanity.”

“Sermon of the Mounts Matthew 5 AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES, HE WENT UP INTO THE MOUNTAINS, AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM. The multitudes, the masses, the crowd, is the lowest state of consciousness. It is a deep ignorance and sleep. If you want to relate and communicate with the masses, you have to come down to their level. That is why whenever you go into the masses, the crowd, you start to feel suffocated. This suffocation is physical and psychological, beacuse you relate to people, who functions from a very low state of consciousness. They pull you down and you become physically and psychologically tired and drained. That is why a need for meditation and aloneness arises. There is a practice in the life of Jesus that he noves into the crowds of people, but after a few months he goes to the mountains. He goes away from the crowd, to be with God. When you are alone, you are with God. To relate to the masses brings you down to their level of consciousness, but only in the presence of God, you can fly. With the crowd, you can not fly, you become crippled, and the masses will not tolerate if you do not live according to them, according to their level of consciousness. To be able to work with the masses, to be able to help them, you have to relate to them according to their level fo consciousness - and this is tiring and draining. Both Jesus and Buddha moved to the mounatins, to a lonely place, just to be themselves, and to be with God to regain their vitality to be able to come back to the masses where people are thristy. The montain is where Jesus do not need to think about the masses, where he can forget the mind and the body. In that moment of aloneness and meditation, one simply is. This is the inner being, the source of life. And when you are full again, you can share again. AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM. To talk to the masses and to talk to disciples is two very different things. To talk to the crowd is to talk to people, who are indifferent. The crowd is resisting, defensive and argumentative. To talk to disciples means to talk to people, who have a basic thirst. It means that they are not defensive, they are open to listen to the heart of truth. AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH, AND TAUGHT THEM, SAYING. Jesus escaped into the mountains from the crowd, but he did not escape from the disciples. He was available to the disciples. In his aloneness, Jesus is with God. And through Jesus, the disciples can feel God. The closer the disciple come to Jesus, the more they will see that Jesus is a silence and emptiness through which God can sing. And the more the disciple himself will become an emptiness, he will also be able to help other people. AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH, AND TAUGHT THEM, SAYING. BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT, FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This is the most fundamental statement of Jesus. With this statement, Jesus has said everything. The "poor in spirit" is exactly what Buddha means with the term Shunyatta - "emptiness", no-self, nothingness. It is when the ego disappears, and you are a nobody, a silence. If you are a nobody, if you are nothing, you are God.”

“New struggles. -- After Buddha was dead, they still showed his shadow in a cave for centuries -- a colossal, horrible shadow. God is dead, but given the way people are, there may still be caves for millennia in which his shadow is displayed. -- And we -- we must still defeat his shadow as well!”

“13. A Buddha In Tokyo in th Meiji era there lived two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha's precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat after eleven o'clock in the morning. The other teacher, Tanzan, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, never observed the precepts. When he felt like eating he ate, and when he felt like sleeping in the daytime he slept. One da Unsho visited Tanzan, who was drinking wine at the time, not even a drop of which is supposed to touch the tongue of a Buddhist. "Hello, brother," Tanzan greeted him. "Won't you have a drink?" "I never drink!" exclaimed Unsho solemnly. "One who never drinks is not even human," said Tanzan. "Do you mean to call me inhuman just because I do not indulge in intoxicating liquids!" exclaimed Unsho in anger. "Then if I am not human, wht am I?" "A Buddha," answered Tanzan.”

“Although transmission lineages in Zen begin with the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity, the seventh of which is Shakyamuni Buddha, many Zen practitioners do not understand the core of their practice to depend on the historical existence of even Shakyamuni Buddha, much less the six mythical Buddhas that are said to have preceded him. If historical scholarship were to one day prove that Jesus was a fictional character made up by the authors of the New Testament, that would be doctrinally devastating to Christianity. Christians would have to fundamentally rethink their understanding of the Incarnation as a unique historical event. By contrast, many Zen Buddhists have said that even were it to be revealed someday that Shakyamuni Buddha did not exist as a historical person, the core teachings and practices of Zen Buddhism would remain unaffected.”

“We find Tankawosho breaking up a wooden statue of Buddha on a wintry day to make a fire. 'What sacrilege!' said the horror-stricken bystander. 'I wish to get the Shali out of the ashes,' calmly rejoined the Zen. 'But you certainly will not get Shali from this image!' was the angry retort, to which Tanka replied, 'If I do not, this is certainly not a Buddha and I am committing no sacrilege.' Then he turned to warm himself over the kindling fire.”

“On my journey from the fantastical to the practical, spirituality has gone from being a mystical experience to something very ordinary and a daily experience. Many don’t want this, instead they prefer spiritual grandeur, and I believe that is what keeps enlightenment at bay. We want big revelations of complexity that validates our perceptions of the divine. What a let down it was to Moses when God spoke through a burning bush! But that is exactly the simplicity of it all. Our spiritual life is our ordinary life and it is very grounded in every day experience. For me, it is the daily practice of kindness, mindfulness, happiness, and peace.”

“At times we will be asked to let go of things that we have always wanted to keep for ourselves, or things that we would never have thought that we would to have to let go of, such as the loss of a loved one or the betrayal of a dear friend. A tree never hesitates to shake off her leaves during fall, and so we must take another lesson given to us by the nature: let go when it is time. Although such losses can be difficult and painful, rise above this suffering. Focus within your mind, the image of the Lotus prospering above mud. We are the lotus; rise above.”

“And the Buddha pointed out that his confusion was justified, for 'the dharma is profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond the sphere of logic, subtle, and to be understood by the wise'. The reason for this is that it is not readily comprehended by one who holds a different view and has different learnings and inclinations, different involvements and instruction. It is clear from this statement that the conception of nibbāna in beyond logical reasoning, not because it is an Ultimate Reality transcending logic, but because logic or reason, being the 'slave of passions', makes it difficult for one who has a passion for an alien tradition to understand the conception of nibbāna.”

“The more you share, the more you grow. And the more you share, the more you have - whatsoever it is. It is not only a question of money. If you have knowledge, share it. If you have meditation, share it! If you have love, share it. WHATSOEVER you have, share it, spread it all over; let it spread like the fragrance of a flower going to the winds. It has nothing to do particularly with poor people. Share with anybody that is available... and there are different types of poor people. A rich man may be poor because he has never known any love. Share love with him. A poor man may have known love but has not known good food - share food with him. A rich man may have everything and has no understanding - share your understanding with him; he is also poor. There are a thousand and one types of poverty. Whatsoever you have, share it. If you want to really enjoy your food, you will have to call friends. If you REALLY want to enjoy food, you will have to invite guests; otherwise you will not be able to enjoy it. If you really want to enjoy drinking, how can you enjoy it alone in your room? You will have to find friends, other drunkards. You will have to share! Joy is always a sharing. Joy does not exist alone. How can you be happy alone? absolutely alone - think! HOW can you be happy, absolutely alone? No. Joy is a relationship. It is a togetherness. In fact, even those people who have moved to the mountains and have lived an alone life, they also share with existence - not alone. They share with the stars and the mountains and the birds and the trees - they are not alone. Just think! For twelve years Mahavir was standing in the jungles alone - but he was not alone. I say to you, on authority, he was not alone. The birds were coming and playing around, and the animals would come and sit around, and the trees would shower their flowers on him, and the stars would come, and the sun would rise. And the day and the night, and summer and winter... and the whole year around... it was joy! For twelve years Mahavir was silent: standing, sitting, with the rocks and the trees, but he was not alone - he was crowded by the whole existence. The whole existence was merging upon him. He had gone beyond. Jain scriptures talk only about the fact that he left the world, they don't talk about the fact that he came back into the world; that is only half the story, that is not the full story. Buddha went into the forest, but he came back. How can you go on being there when you HAVE it? You will have to come back and share it. Share! Whatsoever you have, share... and it will grow. That is a fundamental law: the more you give, the more you get. Never be a miser in giving.”