1,972 Quotes About Buddhism

Everybody is trying to put clothes of their own size on the Eternal Truth.

We are still too much a part of the story of what is happening to religious consciousness to assess its meaning.

A scientist is more doubtful of his theories than the science teacher who teaches those theories. A Guru is more doubtful of his words than his followers because he knows that everything except silence is a corruption of truth.

There is a beautiful custom in India: On her first Makar Sakranti after marriage, the bride pretends to awaken her in-laws who pretend to be deep asleep. Similar thing happens between the Guru and seekers. God inside seekers is pretending to be deep asleep. God inside Guru pretends to awaken them. It's all a divine play.

Machik thus maintains that what is conventionally referred to as a "god" is in fact the positive nature of reflexive awareness that characterizes the full potential of the enlightened mind when it is unsullied by discriminative thinking. In contrast, when "demons" are conventionally invoked, one should understand this as the obstruction of the full potential of the Universal Base [kun gzhi; ālaya] by non-aware emotional reactions (nyon mongs; kleśa).

Westereners often think that the East is one vast Buddhist temple, which is rather like thinking the West is one vast Carthusian monastery. If the [Western people who like Buddhism] were to visit the East, he'd certainly experience many new things, but he'd find first, that the food is under lock and key and second, that humans are considered to be a miserable, destructive, greedy lot, just as they are in the West.

Many seekers start "overdoing" it. They become like a fish that desperately wants to get out of ocean. Calm down. Fish can't get out of ocean. Ocean is all there is. And you're the ocean, not a fish.

The information that you get from outside is at best the general truth; it applies to many people in general. It isn't your truth. Your truth is inside you. You can't express it to anyone else. It takes you into silence, which is the supreme truth.

It is true that philosophy is quite aware of the Buddhistic picture of life, of the sorrows and sicknesses which drag him down at times. That is why it makes equanimity a leading item of the inner work upon himself, why it becomes so necessary. But it is also true that moments, moods, and glimpses are also possible when there is uplift, and he can confirm for himself that the human link with the higher power is a very real thing.