1,972 Quotes About Buddhism

The essence of the Buddha’s teachings was that while formal practice can help us to develop direct experience of emptiness, wisdom, and compassion, such experiences are meaningless unless we can bring them to bear on every aspect of our daily lives. For it’s in facing the challenges of daily life that we can really measure our development of calmness, insight, and compassion.

The real guru is always within, and while we may need an external guide to serve as a mirror to reflect our highest potential, we should never abandon our innate common sense, intuition, emotions, and wisdom. (p. 163)

As we progress along the path we should adopt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is uniquely ours.

The way we relate to all of phenomena alters when our mind perceives phenomena as a process and expression of flow […] why does it matter? Because we realize we can‘t hold on to processes, just as we can‘t hold a stream of water. We can savor and skillfully work with dynamic things, but we can‘t control or own them. Meditate on this idea; it‘s healing. (p. 174)

Strive to accomplish the supreme unchanging goal. For life is passing, and there is no certainty about the time of death. Even if you should die tomorrow, you should have confidence and be without regret.

Covered by the web of disturbing emotions,One is a sentient being.Freed from disturbing emotions,One is called a buddha.– Nagarjuna

The final disappearing act of the great magician, the great medicine itself, is that a correct view of emptiness prevents even emptiness from being the final source of clinging. The point is that we have nothing to hold on to – not the world of forms and differentiation, not the formless realm of oneness, and not even the dissolving method of emptiness. „Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond, hail awakening“ as the Heart Sutra pronounces. (p. 204)

Our hero's journey combines two arcs: the inward arc involving leaving home, slaying the demon, and gaining insight into selflessness, and the outward arc involving finding the treasure of compassion and returning home with the elixir. (p. 205)

It takes only a flicker of the light of wisdom to dispel the vast darkness of ignorance. (p. 225)