Buddha Quotes

Sometimes people claim they don't need a crutch like Jesus, but he's not a crutch, he's a teacher. If you want to be a writer, you read the classics. If you want to make great music you listen to music that's been made by great musicians who have gone before. If you're studying to be a painter, it's a good idea to study the great masters. If Picasso came into your room while you were learning to draw and said 'Hi, I have a couple of hours would you like some hints?' would you say no? So it is with spiritual masters: Jesus, Buddha or any other enlightened being. They're geniuses in the way they used their minds and hearts just as Beethoven was a genius with music, or Shakespeare a genius with words. Why not learn from them, follow their lead, study what they were doing right.

~ Marianne Williamson

My world view is somewhat unique. I have learned from many great philosophers including Plato, Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, Darwin, Tagore, Emerson, and many more.

~ Debasish Mridha

When I did a therapist education in USA 1984, one of the course leaders – who had given personal and spiritual guidance to thousands of seekers of truth from all over the world, and who I consider to be one of the best spiritual therapists in the world – said that I was going to get enlightened, that I would ”disappear into the silence”. I did not really understand what he meant then, and it was totally absurd for me when other course participants congratulated me afterwards. The thought that I was going to be enlightened was totally absurd for me. For me enlightenment was something that happened to special and chosen persons like Osho, Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu and Krishnamurti. I did not feel either special or chosen. I did not feel worthy of being enlightened.

~ Swami Dhyan Giten

Every living thing is sacred to me. Compassion and love can heal this world, which is set on fire of violence and hatred. I will teach the world about compassion, and end the suffering by halting these floods of sorrow. Said Prince Siddhartha and began his journey of saving the man kind.”

~ Ama H. Vanniarachchy

The stupa is a white dome with a conical stone tower emerging from its center. There are two eyes painted on the tower, the all seeing eyes of Buddha. They're purple, and look a little sinister, like an Old Testament Buddha.

~ Joshua Isard

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.

~ Gautama Buddha

Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering.

~ Terry Tempest Williams

Siddhartha embarked on a mission that human civilization has been on since its inception – How to overcome pain and suffering in human life. Siddhartha was perhaps the first scientist on the planet who wanted to address pain and suffering at their roots. While every other thinker from every other religious traditions speculated on the goals of life and afterlife, such speculative queries were nonsensical for Siddhartha for in the mold of a true scientist, he saw no evidential basis for them. Siddhartha didn’t even query what is pain, and where does it come from. He directed his query on how can pain and suffering be removed, an enquiry no speculative philosopher had undertaken before.

~ Ajit Kumar Jha

You are the community now. Be a lamp for yourselves. Be your own refuge. Seek for no other. All things must pass. Strive on diligently. Don’t give up.

~ Gautama Buddha

Emotion arise from Desire, hence an Illusion.

~ Gautama Buddha

The moral, I suppose, would be that the first requirements for a heroic career are the knightly virtues of loyalty, temperance, and courage. The loyalty in this case is of two degrees or commitments: first, to the chosen adventure, but then, also, to the ideals of the order of knighthood. Now, this second commitment seems to put Gawain's way in opposition to the way of the Buddha, who when ordered by the Lord of Duty to perform the social duties proper to his caste, simply ignored the command, and that night achieved illumination as well as release from rebirth. Gawain is a European and, like Odysseus, who remained true to the earth and returned from the Island of the Sun to his marriage with Penelope, he has accepted, as the commitment of his life, not release from but loyalty to the values of life in this world. And yet, as we have just seen, whether following the middle way of the Buddha or the middle way of Gawain, the passage to fulfillment lies between the perils of desire and fear.

~ Joseph Campbell

Meditation brings Nirvana, and Nirvana brings Buddhahood.

~ Abhijit Naskar

And the Buddha pointed out that his confusion was justified, for 'the dharma is profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond the sphere of logic, subtle, and to be understood by the wise'. The reason for this is that it is not readily comprehended by one who holds a different view and has different learnings and inclinations, different involvements and instruction. It is clear from this statement that the conception of nibbāna in beyond logical reasoning, not because it is an Ultimate Reality transcending logic, but because logic or reason, being the 'slave of passions', makes it difficult for one who has a passion for an alien tradition to understand the conception of nibbāna.

~ David J. Kalupahana

It [enlightenment] has not come to you by means of teaching! And-thus is my thought, oh exalted one,-nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! (character of Siddhartha, speaking to the Buddha)

~ Hermann Hesse

Rather than allowing our response to an even affect our breathing, we can learn instead to let our breathing change our relationship to the event.

~ Cyndi Lee

Do what helps others. Refrain from harming others. Transcend your own ignorance, clinging, hate, fear and delusion. This and only this is the dispensation of all the Buddhas.

~ Paul R. Fleischman

Matter,” Vittoria repeated. “Blossoming out of nothing. An incredible display of subatomic fireworks. A miniature universe springing to life. He proved not only that matter can be created from nothing, but that the Big Bang and Genesis can be explained simply by accepting the presence of an enormous source of energy.”“You mean God?” Kohler demanded.“God, Buddha, The Force, Yahweh, the singularity, the unicity point—call it whatever you like—the result is the same. Science and religion support the same truth—pure energy is the father of creation.

~ Dan Brown

A Buddha is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.

~ Bodhidharma

The Amida Buddha delivers those who recognize their own weakness and cowardice... Those who admit their own faults and above all, those who believe... A wholehearted trust in Amida Buddha gives peace of mind to those who've known despair. Even the most vicious and evil of sinners will attain salvation and be reborn in paradise... Even a piece of shit like me!

~ Naoyuki Ochiai

To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.

~ Bodhidharma

Zen is the period of time during which a person has true clarity of vision.

~ Dr. Ernst Arnold

In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood

~ Shunryu Suzuki

The gods command that there can be only one king. But I swear that I am no better than a common soldier today, and you are as good as kings. Each man here is part of me. So what’s left for the king to say? Only two words, but they are the two that your hearts want to hear. Victory.And home!” Then his command cracked like a whip. “All together—move!

~ Deepak Chopra

We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins.

~ Joyce Cary

Purity or impurity depends on oneself,No one can purify another.

~ Gautama Buddha

Long is the night to him who is awake, long is a mile to him who is tired, long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.

~ Gautama Buddha

By incorporating him (Buddha) into the domain of Hindu traditions, and by depicting him as a Hindu sage who was a glorious incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Brahmins attempted to secure their position of authority in the society.

~ Abhijit Naskar

Unlike most other world religions, Buddhism has never been too rigid in its structure.

~ Abhijit Naskar

The most important and uniquely glorious element of Buddha’s character was that, he did not compel his pupils to be slaves either to his teachings or to himself, but like a conscientious human, demanded from his followers to accept his words not merely out of regard for him but after subjecting them to a thorough examination. And this is where Buddha stands out from the crowd of self-proclaimed prophets.

~ Abhijit Naskar

It is the ultimate religion, through which all humans neuropsychologically morph into Buddhas, or Enlightened Beings.

~ Abhijit Naskar

The impossibility of arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will only lead to an opinion.

~ Steve Hagen

Malin had been born and bred in an upper-class family. Was that the cause of his dissillusionment and bitterness with that way of life? The way he could have peace of mind therefore, was by detaching himself from that way of life and battling against it. Would Prince Siddharta have renounced the world if he had been born into poverty?

~ මාර්ටින් වික්‍රමසිංහ

Buddhism has become for me a philosophy of action and responsibility. It provides a framework of values, ideas, and practices that nurture my ability to create a path in life, to define myself as a person, to act, to take risks, to image things differently, to make art. The more I prize Gotama's teachings free from the matrix of Indian religious thought in which they are entrenched and the more I come to understand how his own life unfolded in the context of his times, the more I discern a template for living that I can apply at this time in this increasingly secular and globalized world.

~ Stephen Batchelor

The entire teaching of Buddhism can be summed up in this way: Nothing is worth holding on to.

~ Jack Kornfield

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.

~ Gautama Buddha

As long as we practice with a vow to help others, we are the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, and we become the leading figure in the Heart Sutra, whether we are a layperson or are ordained, whether celibate or married, living in the monastery or living in secular society.

~ Dosung Yoo

Resolutely train yourself to attain peace.

~ Gautama Buddha

The teachings of Buddha are eternal, but even then Buddha did not proclaim them to be infallible. The religion of Buddha has the capacity to change according to times, a quality which no other religion can claim to have...Now what is the basis of Buddhism? If you study carefully, you will see that Buddhism is based on reason. There is an element of flexibility inherent in it, which is not found in any other religion.

~ B.r. Ambedkar

Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the world. Buddhism was born with a disgust for the world, when a prince's son deserted his wife and child, turning from the pleasures of existence to the problems of existence. Burnt by the fires of the world, and already weary with it, Buddha turned to ethics.

~ Fulton J. Sheen