Buddhism Quotes

Buddha first taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises.

The mind is a useful tool but not a very good friend.

Heaven is the natural spaciousness of our mind before we make it small with self-protection.

Our senses are often the gateway to our stories.

There was something important being overlooked, they argued, in the mainstreaming of meditation - a central plank in the Buddhist platform: compassion.

In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

The manifestation of the free mind is said to be lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

This is what it means to be mindful. To watch the thoughts as they come and go without judgment while completely accepting what arises in the present moment.

You are the space in which these thoughts arise, but not the thoughts themselves.

For many of us, especially being so fortunate to live in a first-world country, the vast majority of pain we experience is due to the seriousness with which we identify with our thoughts.

Again and again, counteract the agitation and turbulence of the mind by relaxing more deeply, not by contracting the body or mind.

When you can no longer tell the difference between being yourself and being love, you are not far from waking up.

Search not for happiness outside yourself, for nothing could be further from the truth.

It is possible to refine awareness itself so much that the emptiness of things, and the role mental construction plays, becomes a directly apprehended reality.

The awareness that seeks to know is the very object of its own seeking.

Our task and challenge as human beings is to appreciate, in the same instant, both the infinite significance and absolute insignificance of life.

Through meditation we come to know that we are dying & being reborn in every moment.

The way is not clear, and it is when you do not have clarity, when this is allowed, that you will finally have clarity.

You necessarily have to be lost, before you’re found.

Maybe it’s something which can’t be defined, ” Enso Roshi says. “Maybe it’s a question, to be lived.

The mind is limitless, in its creations.

Let whatever happens, be what needs to happen, so that I may awaken.

Nothing needs to be done, and things get done.

When you find out that there was never anything in the dark side to be afraid of … Nothing is left but to love.

Just as a prism refracts light differently when you change its angle, each experience of love illuminates love in new ways, drawing from an infinite palette of patterns and hues.

To forgive does not mean to condone.

Christ did to the Jewish orthodoxy, what Buddha did to the Hindu orthodoxy.

Jesus recognized that God within him and became Christ - so did Siddhartha Gautama and became Buddha - so did I - and so can you.

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

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

You don´t have to let it linger Within the palm of your hand, The tip's already in your finger:All beginning comes to an end.

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

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

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

Compassion is not complete if it does not include oneself.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We can discover the capacity of the mind to be aware, to love, to begin again

If a picture is worth a thousand words, why did God invent captions?

Life is a series of awakenings.

To know yourself you must know the transience of your self.

Perfection itself is not the ultimate goalbut the ultimate condition of life.