1,972 Quotes About Buddhism

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have any fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.

Searching outside of you is Samsara (the world). Searching within you leads to Nirvana.

Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.

Please don't worry. As long as you're practising this faith, you can definitely become happy. That's what Buddhism is for. Also, your current suffering and misfortune exist so that you may fulfil your own unique and noble mission. Everything will turn to defeat if all you do is worry about your karma and let it make you miserable.

If you are fortunate enough to enjoy great success, you should never forget the spirit of the beginner, and not grow indolent and arrogant.

For Persons are selves and, in one respect at least, I was now a Not-self, simultaneously perceiving and being the Not-self of the things around me. To this new-born Not-self, the behavior, the appearance, the very thought of the self it had momentarily ceased to be, and ofother selves, its one-time fellows, seemed not indeed distasteful (for distastefulness was not one of thecategories in terms of which I was thinking), but enormously irrelevant.

If we take something to be the truth, we may cling to it so much that when the truth comes and knocks on our door, we won't want to let it in.

Whether it’s the waitress who brings steaming hot food to a table of hungry people or the janitor who keeps an office clean and free of germs, each of us have the power to deliver joy and happiness to the people around us through the work we do.

A boddhisattva is someone who is on the way to becoming a buddha. All of us become boddhisattvas as soon as we start to take our Zen work seriously and the work we do contributes to creating a world in which all good actions become more efficacious.