1,972 Quotes About Buddhism

Five styles of wrong livelihood 1. hypocrisy 2. flattery 3. soliciting 4. expropriating 5. calculated generosity

Watch your breath And unload your cart;The rays of the morning Sun Will wash your heart.

[T]he formless self is free from all suffering even as it compassionately ‘takes on’ the suffering of all.

If we don't take advantage of the opportunity that's in front of us in any moment - to awaken, to se, to know, to break free- then we may be giving up our very last chance.

Zazen is actually not complicated. The real problem is, we don’ t want to do it. If my boyfriend begins to look at other women, how long am I going to be willing simply to experience that? We all have problems constantly, but our willingness just to be is very low on our list of priorities, until we have practiced long enough to have faith in just being, so that solutions can appear naturally. Another mark of a maturing practice is the development of such trust and faith.

When I was younger, I followed the example of an experiment, once performed by Krishnamurti and placed a rock that held no special significance on my mantel and bowed to it each day. I did this deliberately to see whether I could infuse a unique quality into something completely ordinary, simply by incorporating the rock within a morning ritual. At the end of a month, the rock held a special, holy place in my perception.

The extent to which dharma practice has been institutionalized as a religion can be gauged by the number of consolatory elements that have crept in: for example, assurances of a better afterlife if you perform virtuous deeds or recite mantras or chant the name of a Buddha.

[S]urely the mysterious inner world of the psyche as such still offers an important forum where religions can meet, leaving their dogmas at the door, and pursue together the elusive quest for a common humanity that transcends religious differences.

While there may have lived an individual teacher who gave the ancient wisdom its peculiarly “Buddhist” coloring, his personality is completely overshadowed, as he must have wished it should be, by the eternal substance with which he identified himself. In other words, “the Buddha is only anthropomorphic, not a man”.