Buddhism Quotes

We all have issues & we have usually come by them honestly.

~ Allan Lokos

Being a senior doesn't automatically make one wise but the wise & foolish alike have things to teach us.

~ Allan Lokos

Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more aware— not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here & now.

~ Sharon Salzberg

No one should ever despair because the entrance to his or her chosen career path is clogged. There is an ancient saying: The persistent drip wears through stone.

~ Kentetsu Takamori

Because the development of inner calm & energy happens completely within & isn’t dependent on another person or a particular situation, we begin to feel a resourcefulness and independence that is quite beautiful—and a huge relief.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We train the mind so that we can enjoy greater peace, happiness, wisdom & equanimity.

~ Allan Lokos

Amida's unimpeded light is the sun of wisdom that destroys the mind of darkness.(Preface in Teaching, Practice, Faith, Enlightenment)

~ Kentetsu Takamori

The erruption of feelings & emotions that follows a near-death exerience, or any event that causes us to stop & look deeply at the reality of our lives, is ripe with the potential for insight & clarity.

~ Allan Lokos

If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.

~ Albert Einstein

Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

The thought manifests the word;The word manifests the deed;The deed develops into habit;And habit hardens into character;So watch the thought and its ways with care,And let them spring forth from loveBorn out of compassion for all beings.As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

~ Juan Mascaró

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.

~ Pema Chödrön

The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary.

~ Tom Robbins

What each of us believes in is up to us, but life is impossible without believing in something.

~ Kentetsu Takamori

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.

~ David Brazier

Once a Buddha, always a Buddha, Sam. Dust off some of your old parables. You have about fifteen minutes.' Sam held out his hand. Give me some tobacco and a paper.

~ Roger Zelazny

It is the nature of the Kali Yuga that most human beings are now held back from spiritual liberation due to the gravity of inertia, apathy and laziness, (known in Sankrit as the quality of tapas) that overwhelms this age. Despite this seemingly gloomy prognosis, there is a way out of this predicament for those with the will and stamina to awaken from the rampant lethargy, within and outside of themselves, to take action.

~ Zeena Schreck

Bliss and suffering, it seems, always go hand in hand.

~ Kentetsu Takamori

A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life.

~ Christopher Hitchens

Many Buddhist temple priests regard their parishioners as possessions and fear their departure as a diminishing of assets.

~ Kentetsu Takamori

If one does not make an ego out of gender, one would still know whether one is a man or a woman, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender—whatever else we may think of. But those identities need to fit very loosely and be worn very lightly. All sense of privilege or deprivation that has developed around one’s gender identity, all rigidity regarding proper roles and behaviors for the various genders, must be cut through.

~ Rita M. Gross

This kind of renunciation, in fact, has often been the strength, born of necessity, of the world's disinherited, of those who do not fit in with their surroundings or with their own body or with their own race or tradition and who hope, by means of renunciation, to assure for themselves a future world where, to use a Nietzschean expression, the inversion of all values will occur.

~ Julius Evola

But, the true reason for the success of such new expositions [translated Eastern religious texts] is to be found where they are the most accommodating, least rigid, least severe, most vague, and ready to come to easy terms with the prejudices and weaknesses of the modern world. Let everyone have the courage to look deeply into himself and to see what it is that he really wants.

~ Julius Evola

It is recorded in the monastic rules that a monk once performed an abortion on a girl; the Buddha judged his action seriously wrong, which incurred him the highest offense in the monastic rule. A monk committing this kind of wrongful deed must be expelled from the monastic community. The Buddha considered the embryo to be a person like an adult, so the monk who killed the embryo through abortion was judged by Buddhist monastic rules as having committed a crime equal in gravity to killing an adult. In the commentary on the rule stated above, it is stated clearly that killing a human being means destroying human life from the first moment of fertilization to human life outside the womb. So, even though the Buddha himself did not give a clear-cut pronouncement about when personhood occurs, the Buddhist tradition, especially the Theravada tradition, clearly states that personhood starts when the process of fertilization takes place.

~ Soraj Hongladarom

Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes,Or any searcher know by mortal mind,Veil after veil will lift--but there must be Veil upon veil behind.

~ Edwin Arnold

Accepting the reality of change gives rise to equanimity.

~ Allan Lokos

I cannot say this too strongly: Do not compare yourselves to others. Be true to who you are, and continue to learn with all your might.

~ Daisaku Ikeda

We need the courage to learn from our past and not live in it.

~ Sharon Salzberg

True patience is grounded in wisdom & compassion.

~ Allan Lokos

When we teach a child patience we offer them the gift of a dignified life.

~ Allan Lokos

Observe & accept what ever arises & know that everything is as it needs to be.

~ Allan Lokos

While meditating we are simply seeing what the mind has been doing all along.

~ Allan Lokos

Beliefs are a powerful thing. I often travel the world and sometimes the local waitresses attending me are nervous if they can’t speak English. Now, when this happens, I point at the pictures in the menu. However, I’ve noticed that the ones with the strongest beliefs, the most nervous ones, still do a mistake in my order. Another interesting things to notice in these situations is that, when I correct them, by pointing again at what I ordered before, they recognize their mistake, but get angry, as if their mistake was my fault, and that’s called irresponsibility. Now, when you combine irresponsibility with the wrong beliefs, you have a a very dumb person. That’s what stupidity is, it’s a human being doing the wrong things with the wrong beliefs and never ever accepting any responsibility for it. That’s how those with the lowest spiritual conscience behave in general with themselves and others.

~ Robin Sacredfire

Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known.

~ Mark Epstein

The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there is another kind of union than the one we imagine. In this union, achieved when the egocentric model of dualistic thinking is no longer dominant, we are not united with it, nor am I united with you, but we all just are. The movement from object to subject, as described in both Eastern meditation and modern psychotherapy, is training for this union, but its perception usually comes as a surprise, even when this shift is well under way. It is a kind of grace. The emphasis on sexual relations in the tantric teachings make it clear that the ecstatic surprise of orgasm is the best approximation of this grace.

~ Mark Epstein

I once found an ego, crawling around and trying to shine on me. I took it in my arms and the ego turned itself into a virus. First it took over my mind, then my heart, and finally attempted to destroy my soul by corrupting me with fear and guilt. Therefore, with as much energy as I could gather, I trapped the ego within my anger and pulled it out of me. Once on the floor, the ego begged me for mercy and compassion, promising to give me joy in return. I allowed it once again into my life, and again, it tried to hurt me once more, this time with abandonment. So I unveiled the ego for what it truly was, and that was resentment filled with desire for power, a power the ego was feeding from me, from my compassion and willingness. Now unprotected by deceit, the ego shown itself weak and scared. In panic, it run from me, boasting a delusional victory. And when it looked back, searching for another chance, I stepped on it. But believe me, it hurt me far much more than it hurt the ego.

~ Robin Sacredfire

You don't have to love yourself unconditionally before you can give or receive real love.

~ Sharon Salzberg

So often we operate from ideas of love that don’t fit our reality.

~ Sharon Salzberg

One foundation of loving relationships is curiosity, keeping open to the idea that we have much to learn even about those we have been close to for decades.

~ Sharon Salzberg