Buddhism Quotes - Page 12

Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.

Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.

Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back.

A person of wisdom is not one who practices Buddhism apart from worldly affairs but, rather, one who thoroughly understands the principles by which the world is governed.

In my mind, there is no reason why Stoicism shouldn't become as popular as Buddhism, especially in the Western world, where the dominant culture, Christianity, itself absorbed a large number of elements from Greco-Roman Stoicism.

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.

The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.

Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.

Born out of concern for all beings.

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt.

Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation.

You're composed of an aggregate of different forms and energies, the samskaras. These are lines within your own being. When you go into samadhi, these lines dissolve gradually so you become less formed.

Once you are enlightened, you can do whatever you want without fear or sorrow. You can go snowboarding, get married, stay single, be rich and famous, or live unknown in a high Himalayan cave. It is up to you.

You don't have to do anything to be happy, nor do you have to avoid anything. Happiness comes from within your mind. Happiness already exists.

Buddhism isn't about temples, and incense, and shaved heads, and robes. It's not about church. There are aspects of Buddhism that involve that. People enjoy that, it helps them, it strengthens their practice.

As a former English professor, I can assure you that grammar is the qualitative interpolation of language. Adjectives, pronouns, predicates, past pluperfect indicative - ridiculous. It has qualities, shadings, differentiations, rhythmic structures of symbolic meaning.

Time does not really exist as we know it; rather it's a transfiguration of a concept in which mortality, mutability, is conditioned.

Without that poise and balance and gentle humor and caring sense, nothing happens at all. It's just egotism and vanity and jealousy and possessiveness.

We're blind, deaf and dumb. It is only that Self, which is our life force that makes who and what we are. The realization of that is self-realization.

Humility feels that there is someone, somewhere who can do anything I can do better - except one thing: no one can be better at being me.

Humility is my best friend, I've always valued it above all other spiritual qualities.

Meditation is existence. When we meditate, all we are simply doing is letting go and allowing ourselves to dissolve back into that which we really are. We are merging with life and light.

Purity means lack of hatred, jealousy, fear, greed and lust - the absence of anything that can stain consciousness.

Even sickness becomes an experience that we pass through in happiness because our happiness is not dependent upon how our body feels, but how our spirit feels.

We have this recurring dream that we're human beings, that we have bodies, that we're in time and space, that there is birth and death. To awaken from the dream of life is to be conscious of eternity.