Buddhism Quotes

To produce a primary [karmic] cause which is potentially capable of having an effect, three things are necessary: intention, the actual action, and then satisfaction.

Why is it that one of the best songs in the world has to be written by the BeeGees?"Benedict

Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism.

Dream: I look for  Lama Lodrö Kagyu  teacher friend  hearing he's ill & I'm ill, too -  I enter his room and he says "I've been trying to find you - I wanted you  to know illness is just phenomena

Siddhartha considered the ways of the demon, and in that moment he struck.

So I do fear death in the sense that I find the prospect of dying pretty scary. But I no longer fear that I will one day be annihilated and cease to exist.

The Buddha’s dharma didn’t teach peace and relaxation

Cease striving. Then there will be transformation.

As the twelfth-century Tibetian yogi Milarepa said when he heard of his student Gampopa's peak experiences, 'They are neither good nor bad. Keep meditating.'

My religion is to live - and die - without regret.

Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest?When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.

When happiness is liked by me and others equally, what is so special about me that I should strive after happiness only for myself?

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, fame and disripute, these are just the worldly winds of existence.

When fear and suffering are disliked by me and others equally what is so special about me that I protect myself and not the other?

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi')

It is not a Buddhist approach to say that if everyone practiced Buddhism, the world would be a better place. Wars and oppression begin from this kind of thinking.

The means and the results, the good and the bad, are within all of us who are aware and care.

It is better to know oneself than know to others. So not find fault others see first in yourself. When one experiences truth, the madness of finding fault with others disappears.

How much does he lack himself who must have many things?

Careful! Even moonlit dewdrops, If you’re lured to watch, Are a wall before the Truth. — Sogyo

Zen probably won’t solve a single one of our problems. What it might do is help us relate differently to what we consider problems.

When we attach to a problem, we make the problem worse. When we attach to a solution, we make the problem worse.

[A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well.

There's no rule in the end, but only the situation and the inclination of your mind

[H]ow can something cease to exist that has no solid existence in the first place?

The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what each moment is.

How can a hard and fast view of a world that is never hard and fast possibly be accurate?

Truth is not … something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.]

[A] view of the world is nothing more than a set of beliefs, a way to freeze the world in our mind. … [T]his can never match Reality, … because the world isn't frozen.

We can only be here. We can't leave. We are always here.

If your idea of good opposes something else, you can be sure that [it] is not absolute or certain.

Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality.

Good and bad aren't absolutes. They are beliefs, judgements, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

[E]ven in getting the wonderful things we long for, we tend to live in want of something more[.]

We have all sorts of stories about heaven and hell, about oblivion and nothingness, about 'coming back, ' and so on. But they are all stories.

Belief may serve as a useful stopgap measure in the absence of actual experience, but once you see … [it] becomes unnecessary.

There's nothing you can find - … nothing you can even imagine – that doesn't originate, develop, or exist in relation to other things.

We imagine that things come into existence, endure for a while, and then pass out of existence

To forget the self is to remember that we don't exist alone, but in relation to other people, to other creatures, to the planet, and to the universe.

[F]ocus not on ourselves as a force in charge of the manipulation of others, but on how our lives interpenetrate those of others – and … all creatures of a dynamic universe.

It is both dangerous and absurd for our world to be a group of communions mutually excommunicate.

At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

Achala, worrying and scheming about your next life, before you have even completed this one, is not a good practice." Rinpoche

I try to make sure that the Buddhism is more or less implicit in the music rather than explicit.