Buddhism Quotes - Page 36

Buddhism resonated very powerfully with a lot of my preoccupations.

Christianity and Islam are concerned with the idea of justice, which can turn into political justice, social justice, economical justice, and so on. Buddhism is not so concerned with the idea of rights. There is more talk of responsibility than of demanding rights.

Buddhism has always been a religion for people who've worked their way through a cycle of materialism and still feel discontented and want more, or have questions that their state of prosperity is not answering.

You need to work yourself up into some kind of a state every morning and believe that you are doing something terribly important upon which the future of literature, if not the world, depends. Buddhism tells you that this is just a foolish fantasy. So, I try not to think too much about Buddhism early in the morning. From noon on, I think about it.

Buddhism cannot be true to itself until Buddhists resolve their ambivalence toward nonhuman animals and extend the full protection of their compassion to the most harmless and helpless of those who live at our mercy in the visible realms.

The fact of the matter is that Buddhism has changed a lot. When St. Francis of Xavier arrived in Japan, he wrote back to the Vatican and made a joke. "It is unfortunate," he said, "that the Lutherans were here before me." By this he meant that Pure Land Buddhism was so much like Lutheranism.

One of the effects of religions getting together is that they borrow from one another. An example is the growing number of Catholics who are practicing Yoga and meditation techniques borrowed from Buddhism and Hinduism. So there are these borrowings which I think fertilize the religions.

Change is one of the only constants in Buddhism; as meditation became the way I breathed in the days, this became apparent.

Just like in Christianity or Buddhism, obviously there are certain practices that dictate one's life, but I don't think you can say all Muslim women are a certain way.

If you're a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism.

There are many, many Christians who practice Buddhism, and they become better and better Christians all the time.

Buddhism has to do with your daily life, with your suffering and with the suffering of the people around you.

Buddhism is in your heart. Even if you don't have any temple or any monks, you can still be a Buddhist in your heart and life.

I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness.

In Zen Buddhism, "The Great Cessation" is a term that points to the abandoning of the effort to define one's self by any outer definition and to give up acts of futility. It is to let the world remain a mystery that cannot be captured by science, language, or any invention of the mind.

The Dalai Lama once said that 'If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change!' This is a great thought! And great thoughts belong to great men only!

There are clearly people for whom Stoicism immediately "clicks," it comes natural, and others for whom it doesn't. Then again, Stoicism isn't the only positive philosophy of life. Buddhism is an excellent alternative, if it speaks more clearly to one's personality or cultural background.

Buddhist nirvana ... is based on egolessness and is not anthropocentric but rather cosmological. In Buddhism, humans and the things of the universe are equally subject to change, equally subject to transitoriness or transmigration. A person cannot achieve emancipation from the cycle of birth and death until he or she can eliminate a more universal problem: the transience common to all things in the universe.

In Buddhism, compassion always goes with wisdom. Compassion without wisdom is not understood to be true compassion, and wisdom without compassion is not true wisdom.

I had read some books on the Baha'i Faith. I had read - I was looking into Buddhism and trying to understand sort of the agnostic approach, so there was just a bunch of stuff I was just looking at.

Buddhism in one long prayer.

I know that Buddhism is to Hinduism what Protestantism is to Roman Catholicism, only in a much stronger light, to a much greater degree.

Gut level is a good level to deal with life, and for me, I have to say that Buddhism makes sense for me because it's how I'm an artist.