1,972 Quotes About Buddhism

The Bodhisattva, being joyful, spreads confidence and happiness wherever he or she goes. In a sense it is one’s duty to be happy and joyful. One can’t gladden others unless one is glad oneself.

The Enlightened person is like a clear window through which the light of reality shines, through which that light can be seen almost as it is. Or one can say that he or she is like a crystal or diamond concentrating and reflecting that light.

We believe in ourselves in this narrow, limited, egoistic sense, as identified with the body and the lower mind. We are blind to any higher vision, any more ultimate selfhood, any more universal mindor consciousness. This belief in self in this sense is a fetter that has to be broken before we can enter the Stream and break through into a higher, wider dimension of being and consciousness.

Tara is the spiritual daughter of Avalokitesvara. She is usually either white or green in colour, and according to another beautiful legend she was born from the tears of Avalokitesvara as he wept over the sorrows of existence. In the midst of a great pool of his tears there appeared a white lotus. The lotus opened, and there was Tara , the very essence, indeed the quintessence, of compassion.

When we practice Right Mindfulness, we see the seed of Buddhahood in everyone, including ourselves. This is Right View. Sometimes it is described as the Mother of All Buddhas (prajna paramita), the energy of love and understanding that has the power to free us. When we practice mindful living, our Right View will blossom, and all the other elements of the path in us will flower, also.

The way of faith is always an integrated, single way. Whereas, the way of wisdom is always a highly differentiated, capricious way.

It takes no deep insight to see that the source of both our well-being and our maladies lies within our own hearts and minds. To change our experience of life we must inevitably change our hearts and minds, or rather our heart/minds.

The goddess Kuan Yin is perhaps the most famous bodhisattva in East Asia. She is the graceful lady of the Orient. She's related in iconographical background to Isis in the ancient world, or the Virgin Mary in our modern Western World.

All phenomena are subject to instantaneous transformation.