Buddhism Quotes

The most expected thing you can expect is what's unexpected.

~ Dick Allen

The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or waste your time trying to look right, you will never achieve contentment and emotional balance. People you encounter in life can’t be controlled by you. You only have control of yourself. Build your life around a relationship with a higher power and achieving what you’re passionate about. When you let go of what you can’t control, true peace can then enter your life. This is the path to achieving emotional balance.

~ Shannon L. Alder

It seems the guys who are best at sex approach it with the serenity of a Buddhist monk. They are never going to beg for it and when the time is right (and all signs point to yes), then they take charge masterfully and completely.

~ Roberto Hogue

The virtues of free enterprise can become distorted by greed & delusion.

~ Allan Lokos

When you begin to relinquish your ego, you will no longer feel compelled to prove to people how busy you are in an attempt to validate your sense of worth.

~ Miya Yamanouchi

We can free ourselves from the old stories that have reduced us & allow real love for ourselves to blossom.

~ Sharon Salzberg

It is entirely conceivable that life's splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from our view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summonsFranz Kafka, 18 October 1921Es ist sehr gut denkbar, dass die Herrlichkeit des Lebes um jeden und immer in ihrer ganzen Fülle bereitliegt, aber verhängt, in der Tiefe, unsichtbar, sehr weit. Aber sie liegt dort, nicht feindselig, nicht widerwillig, nicht taub. Ruft man sie mit dem richtigen Wort, beim richtigen Namen, dann kommt sie. Das ist das Wesen der Zauberei, die nicht schafft, sondern ruft.Kafkas Tagebücher,18 Oktober 1921

~ Franz Kafka

Kundalini means, according to Zeena ‘She Who is Hidden,’ and points to the dormant goddess in every human being’s body. While the kundalini force is found in muladharachakra, she hypnotizes humans, like maya herself, and renders them slaves to the illusory. Kundalini can only awaken people if she travels up along the spine.'--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

~ Zeena Schreck

Zeena Schreck believes that the right-hand path and the left-hand path have traditionally had the same end goal; it is only the method that is different and the fact that adepts on the left-hand path seek liberation in this life.--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

~ Zeena Schreck

Zeena believes that the breaking of taboos creates access to blocked energy that is let loose in a forceful way. The left-hand path is about consciously breaking with a ‘sleepwalker orthodoxy’ to be able to act as a fully awaken and conscious individual. In her book, George Orwell (1984) is quoted: “Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” At the same time she notes that the left-hand path is the ‘way of action’. It is not about intellectual contemplation, or worse, just reading about action.'About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger from: Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its backgroundand role within new Western religiosity, University of Stockholm, 2004

~ Zeena Schreck

In Demons of the Flesh, Zeena describes how Shiva and Shakti are actually ‘two sides of the same deity’. The goal of the initiate on the left-hand path is to become ‘this bisexual twin godhead’ and activate a state of perceptual sexual ecstasy within one's own consciousness. Zeena points out that a corresponding symbolism is found in the western hermeticism in the idea of ‘the inner androgyne.’--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

~ Zeena Schreck

Zeena Schreck believes that the right-hand path and the left-hand path have traditionally had the same end goal; it is only the method that is different and the fact that adepts on the lefthandpath seek liberation in this life.--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

~ Zeena Schreck

A certain amount of native skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through sorcery.(...) These outer changes, no matter how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully manifests.'--Zeena Schreck for “Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its backgroundand role within new Western religiosity,” University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004

~ Zeena Schreck

God stipulates in the Bible that Jesus Followers are to love and serve everyone regardless of their faith or lack of it. But, this does not require us to honour and respect their Biblically-heinous cultural practises like multiculturalism does!

~ Gary Patton

Bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya:For the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.

~ Gautama Buddha

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

Patience has all the time it needs.

~ Allan Lokos

We don’t need any sort of religious orientation to lead a life that is ethical, compassionate & kind.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We find greater lightness & ease in our lives as we increasingly care for ourselves & other beings.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Once someone appears to us primarily as an object, kindness has no place to root.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The embodiment of kindness is often made difficult by our long ingrained patternsof fear & jealousy.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The essence of the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) is about identifying the cause of our suffering & alleviating it.

~ Allan Lokos

Ultimately humanity is one, and this small planet is our only home. If we're to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to experience a vivid sense of universal altruism and compassion.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

Compassion is not complete if it does not include oneself.

~ Allan Lokos

One who is patient glows with an inner radiance.

~ Allan Lokos

Technology offers us a unique opportunity, though rarely welcome, to practice patience.

~ Allan Lokos

Patience requires a slowing down, a spaciousness, a sense of ease.

~ Allan Lokos

I asked the Dalai Lama what it was like to wake up with joy, and he shared his experience each morning. 'I think if you are an intensely religious believer, as soon as you wake up, you thank God for another day. And you try to do God’s will. For a nontheist like myself, but who is a Buddhist, as soon as I wake up, I remember Buddha’s teaching: the importance of kindness and compassion, wishing something good for others, or at least to reduce their suffering. Then I remember that everything is interrelated, the teaching of interdependence. So then I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

With mindfulness, loving kindness, and self-compassion, we can begin to let go of our expectations about how life and those we love should be.

~ Sharon Salzberg

If a person shows anger to you, and you show anger in return, the result is disaster. If you nurse hatred, you will never be happy, even in the lap of luxury. By contrast, if you control your anger and show its opposite - love, compassion, tolerance, and patience - then not only do you remain in peace, but gradually the anger of others also will diminish.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

It seems that, without clarity and honesty, we don't progress. We just stay stuck in the same vicious cycle. But honesty without kindness makes us feel grim and mean, and pretty soon we start looking like we've been sucking on lemons. We become so caught up in introspection that we lose any contentment or gratitude we might have had. The sense of being irritated by ourselves and our lives and other people's idiosyncrasies becomes overwhelming. That's why there's so much emphasis on kindness.

~ Pema Chodran

For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannon build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy.When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather it assists the production of the effect.

~ Śāntideva

He who fights is powerless, but he who loves is power itself.

~ Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Forgiveness that is insincere, forced or premature can be more psychologically damaging than authentic bitterness & rage.

~ Sharon Salzberg

To sense which gifts to accept & which to leave behind is our path to discovering freedom.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Sometimes kindness is stepping aside, letting go of our need to be right & just being happy for someone.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The key to cultivating confidence in ourselves is understanding our right to make the truth our own.

~ Sharon Salzberg

While happiness is an end in itself, it is also the state of mind we can have right now.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness is the agent of our freedom. Through mindfulness we arrive at faith we grow in wisdom & we attain equanimity.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Thinking we are only supposed to have loving & compassionate feelings can be a terrible obstacle to spiritual practice.

~ Sharon Salzberg