Buddhist Quotes

I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure Soul. Love has befriended me so completely it has turned to ash and freed me of every concept and image my mind has ever known.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Follow the three R's: - Respect for self. - Respect for others. - Responsibility for all your actions.

Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.

We suffer because we want life to be different from what it is. We suffer because we try to make pleasurable what is painful, to make solid what is fluid, to make permanent what is always changing.

Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life.

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don't think my tradition defines God, I think it only points me to God.

Every civilization: Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, all of them understood that LEARNING was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING, LEARNING was NOT to MAKE MORE MONEY; It was to make a BETTER HUMAN BEING.

Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.

My religion is to live and die without regret.

All rising to great places is by a winding stair.

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.

Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.

All meditation must begin with arousing deep compassion. Whatever one does must emerge from an attitude of love and benefitting others.

All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow; acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births in death. Knowing this, one should, from the very first, renounce acquisitions and storing-up, and building, and meeting; and, faithful to the commands of an eminent Guru, set about realizing the Truth. That alone is the best of religious observances.

By whomsoever no evil is done in deed, or word, or thought, him I call a Brahmin (holy man) who is guarded in these three.

To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.

It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.

That which you give to another will become your own sustenance; if you light a lamp for another, your own way will be lit.

Each step may seem to take forever, but no matter how uninspired you feel, continue to follow your practice schedule precisely and consistently. This is how we can use our greatest enemy, habit, against itself.

Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.

I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.