Buddhism Quotes

#1. What more could there be, but the absolute beauty of our lives? Look around you, for heaven's sake and stop thinking. It is only in your thoughts and in analytical processes that you lose yourself. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#2. A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality. #Quote by William Winwood Reade

#3. We see an enlightened teacher to gain a sense of humor, to learn balance and proportion and of course to learn wisdom. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#4. The Dalai Lama, these days, encourages Westerners not to take up Buddhism, partly because he feels that our roots are deep in other traditions, and we should go deeper into our own traditions rather than just acquiring the surfaces of others. #Quote by Pico Iyer

#5. Towards the end of your meditation session, or when you feel your meditation is deep, chant "Kring" seven times. Repeat it with sharp intensity, without elongating the syllables. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#6. One day liberation will come, and it won't be a day; it won't be a year; it won't be a time, a place or a condition. It will be immortality reflecting through you. What will you do then? #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#7. A man may take his own life for many reasons, and it is impossible to make a general statement; but whenever suicide is a gesture - done, that is, to impress or influence or embarrass others - it is always, so it seems to me, a sign of immaturity and muddled thinking. However much we may admire the fortitude of this Vietnamese monk, the wisdom of his action remains very much in doubt. I do not know the details of the provocation offered by the Catholic Head of State, but the monk appears to have killed himself 'fighting for the cause of Buddhism'. Certainly this action is infinitely more honourable than the setting fire to churches and the crowning of statues that seem to be the favoured methods of giving battle in this country; but it does not follow that it is any the less misguided. #Quote by Nanavira Thera

#8. The top of the band would be happiness, contentment and peace of mind. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#9. The willingness to challenge hardships taps the power within human beings to transform even a place of tragedy into a stage for fulfilling one's mission. #Quote by Daisaku Ikeda

#10. Zen and Buddhism have produced martial arts, because of the Buddhist injunction against weapons. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#11. In Zen there must be satori; there must be a general mental upheaval which destroys the old accumulations of intellection and lays down the foundation for a new life; there must be the awakening of a new sense which will review the old things from a hitherto undreamed-of angle of observation. #Quote by D.T. Suzuki

#12. Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me understand it more completely. Perhaps the best way to phrase it is to say that meditation showed me that the other side of anxiety is desire. They exist in relationship to each other, not independently. #Quote by Mark Epstein

#13. All of the energy of existence is going to flow through you. You will be in thousands of planes of consciousness at once or beyond in nirvana or having a sandwich with a friend. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#14. Compassion grows in us when we know how the energy of love is available all around us. #Quote by Sharon Salzberg

#15. Buddhism is simply a methodology, a way of becoming one with the part of ourselves that is happy. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#16. Next to the dragon, and connected with it, water is the most frequently used symbol in Taosim. It is the strength in apparent weakness, the fluidity of life, an also symbolic of the state of coolness of judgment, acceptance and passionlessness, as opposed to the heat of argument, the friction of opposition, and the emotion of desire. Water fertilizes, refreshes and purifies and it is symbolic of gentle persuasion in government of the state and the individual. It occupies the lowest position, yet is the most powerful of forces. The highest goodness in like water. #Quote by J.C. Cooper

#17. Your own nature is pure, spotless, and pristine. Through association we drag ourselves down or we can raise ourselves up. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#18. You tell me to stand still, but I am not walking," he shouted, "whereas you who are walking say you are still. How is it that you are standing still but I am not?"
The Buddha turned round. "My legs move but my mind is still," he said. "Your legs are still but your mind moves all the time in a fire of anger, hatred, and feverish desire. Therefore, I am still but you are not. #Quote by Majjhimanikaya

#19. A very enjoyable meditation on the curious thing called 'Zen' -not the Japanese religious tradition but rather the Western clich of Zen that is embraced in advertising, self-help books, and much more ... Yamada, who is both a scholar of Buddhism and a student of archery, offers refreshing insight into Western stereotypes of Japan and Japanese culture, and how these are received in Japan. #Quote by Alexander Gardner

#20. By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy & equanimity as our home. #Quote by Sharon Salzberg

#21. After two or three days, the door will close and you will not be able to make those changes as easily. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#22. From the first, in people and in things, there is no such thing as trash. These words point to the fundamental truth of Buddhism, a truth I could not as yet conceive in those days. #Quote by Soko Morinaga

#23. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it difficult enough to live - this very difficulty being necessary. #Quote by Friedrich Nietzsche

#24. Mindfulness is the difficult art of simply replacing thinking with experiencing. #Quote by Mokokoma Mokhonoana

#25. If you pursue meditation with a non-competitive attitude, with a hopeful and helpful attitude, without violence, then you will find that you will become a very benign and powerful being, one who is at peace with himself and the universe. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#26. Zen professes
itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all
religions and philosophies, #Quote by D.T. Suzuki

#27. To become more aware, it is necessary to do something that you haven't done. Everything that you have done will only make you as aware as you are now. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#28. Chaos theory simply suggests that what appears to most people as chaos is not really chaotic, but a series of different types of orders with which the human mind has not yet become familiar. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#29. The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither colour nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains.
I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in pure air. #Quote by Bassui Takusho

#30. Humility is my best friend, I've always valued it above all other spiritual qualities. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#31. Stop trying to do things that will make you happy. Happiness is a state of mind; because otherwise, you are a slave to circumstance. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#32. No one can be by himself or herself alone. We have to inter-be, connected with everyone and everything else. #Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh

#33. The reasons why I left were to do with my interest in Buddhism. There were experiences over a period of about six months which caused me to decide to give up music, so one morning I felt I had to go to E.G. Management and tell them. #Quote by Jamie Muir

#34. To be free, to come to terms with our lives, we have to have a direct experience of ourselves as we really are, warts and all. #Quote by Mark Epstein

#35. All the joys in all the worlds of all beings who have ever been or will ever be, will never equal the perfection of one moment of absorption into the stillness of nirvana. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#36. As much as possible, it is useful to think of all other beings as being just like me. Every living being strives for happiness. Every being wants to avoid all forms of suffering. They are not just objects or things to be used for our benefit. You know, Mahatma Gandhi once said: 'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. #Quote by David Michie

#37. A person who is insane has no sense of their place; they've lost that ability, which our friend don Juan describes as the tonal. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#38. You must go to Mahometanism, to Buddhism, to the East, to the Sufis Fakirs, to Pantheism, for the right growth of mysticism. #Quote by Florence Nightingale

#39. Sleeping and waking - for him the states grew ever less distinct. Sleep gained in truth as waking lost the arrogance of certainty. Dreams, three-D and portentous, sported a logic no less satisfactory than that of what, by mere consensus, was called the real. Categories dissolved; things floated free of their names, and a kind of geriatric Buddhism became ever more unquestioned and serene. #Quote by Laurence Shames

#40. If you're constantly ruminating about what you just did- or what you should have done- or what you would have done if you only had the chance, you will miss your life. Ok, you will fail to connect with it. You will fail to connect with other people. #Quote by Sam Harris

#41. Ah Buddha, you boastful charlatan. You may have learned nothing after 6 years of suffering, but then what of 7 years? What of 17? What might you have learned from a lifetime of pain? [ ... ] From what I can tell, the wisest man in all these scriptures was the first person Buddha ever tried to teach - an Ajivika named Upaka. Buddha bragged to him of how he achieved nirvana, to which Upaka simply replied: "That may be so," and walked away. #Quote by Mark X.

#42. I am a liberated teacher. A person who meditates with me, even though they may be thousands of miles away, will draw that light into them. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#43. Just as mind rises up and rebels at un unskillful attempt to subdue it in meditation, a relationship will fall apart if the partners are not respectful of each other's differences. <...> Separateness and connection make each other possible; they are not mutually exclusive. #Quote by Mark Epstein

#44. I think that we all at some point are in search of something - a higher power, whatever you want to call it, the meaning of life. I know I was, especially at even my son's age in my 20s, and dabbling in Eastern philosophies and yoga and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam. I kind of touched them all, you know, just trying to figure out the meaning of life or if nothing else, figure myself out. #Quote by Denzel Washington

#45. If you are doing that which is within you, what that part of you that is beyond body would like you to do, then you would not experience stress because you would be very fulfilled. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#46. Suppose a man threw into the sea a yoke with one hole in it, and the east wind carried it to the west, and the west wind carried it to the east, and the north wind carried it to the south, and the south wind carried it to the north. Suppose there were a blind turtle that came up once at the end of each century. What do you think, bhikkhus? Would that blind turtle put his neck into that yoke with one hole in it?"
"He might, venerable sir, sometime or other at the end of a long period."
"Bhikkhus, the blind turtle would sooner put his neck into that yoke with a single hole in it than a fool, once gone to perdition, would take to regain the human state, I say. Why is that? Because there is no practising of the Dhamma there, no practising of what is righteous, no doing of what is wholesome, no performance of merit. There mutual devouring prevails, and the slaughter of the weak. #Quote by Gautama Buddha

#47. When we talk, answer questions, I'm addressing your tonal. I'm teaching you a way or a series of ways of dealing with the world. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#48. Nature is not something to conquer, but something to learn from or to merge with and be part of - to dance with, celebrate. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#49. Tantric Zen is more suited for this age that we live in. It give you rules, but in a gentle way. It's not as demanding. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#50. Love is self-realization. Love is liberation. The only way beyond time, to unravel the knot of existence, is to love. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#51. Zen has been called the "religion before religion," which is to say that anyone can practice, including those committed to another faith. And that phrase evokes that natural religion of our early childhood, when heaven and a splendorous earth were one. But soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, at the bottom of each breath, there is a hollow place filled with longing. We become seekers without knowing that we seek, and at first, we long for something "greater" than ourselves, something apart and far away. It is not a return to childhood, for childhood is not a truly enlightened state. Yet to seek one's own true nature is "a way to lead you to your long lost home." To practice Zen means to realize one's existence moment after moment, rather than letting life unravel in regret of the past and daydreaming of the future. To "rest in the present" is a state of magical simplicity...out of the emptiness can come a true insight into our natural harmony all creation. To travel this path, one need not be a 'Zen Buddhist', which is only another idea to be discarded like 'enlightenment,' and like 'the Buddha' and like 'God. #Quote by Peter Matthiessen

#52. Unlike most other world religions, Buddhism has never been too rigid in its structure. #Quote by Abhijit Naskar

#53. If you meditate and continue to have fun with yoga and Buddhism, you will amass knowledge and will move to a higher incarnation. In your next lifetime you will be much wiser, much happier. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#54. There's no risk in doing a lousy meditation or not meditating at all. There's no risk in being convenient and comfortable. There's a lot of risk in the world of enlightenment. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#55. I approached Buddhism the way I approach almost everything. I read books about it. Even though, at first, I didn't understand much of what I was reading, I found the writing soothing. Reading made me feel lighter and more positive. It somehow gentled me toward myself. I intuitively responded to Buddhist ideas. They helped me see the world and my place in it more clearly. #Quote by Mary Pipher

#56. It is as important to monitor your mind constantly as it is to sit down and practice meditation. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#57. What you need to learn are basic types of concentration, bringing more energy into your life, plugging up the holes where you lose energy, the basics of self-discovery. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#58. Career success means making enough money to lead the kind of life you would like to lead as a practicing Buddhist. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#59. Do not feel that you are destined to enlightenment in this life. You have no idea. This is an illusion of selfhood. It's gross ignorance and egotism. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#60. We see in meditation that our experiences are endless, that we are endless, eternal spirit, not as a thought or an idea you read in a book. You have the experience yourself, every day. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#61. Nirvana and enlightenment exist just on the other side of your sensory perceptions and your thoughts. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#62. People sometimes find Buddhism pessimistic, saying there is too much talk about death. It's essential to understand that Buddhists don't contemplate death because they are morbid or depressed; they focus on death, mortality, and human frailty as a means of better understanding and appreciating life. #Quote by Lama Surya Das

#63. I am very interested in the enlightenment of women. Very few teachers of advanced self discovery work with women, and if they do it's usually in a very second handed way. They treat women as second class citizens. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#64. Molecules are moving. Universes are colliding. Generations are being born and dying simultaneously, throughout eternity. As one of our great American poets, Walt Whitman, once said: "I contain multitudes." #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#65. Don't just sit there. Go do something and don't expect that it's going to be fun unless you make it fun. You have got to work on things. That is when you are happy. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#66. If you must believe your thoughts, at least choose ones that elevate you, that set you free, that help you soar. Change your mind, change your reality. #Quote by Jonathan Eli Herrick

#67. I've never met anyone who's serious about enlightenment. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#68. Begin to see that life is very, very complex. It is made up of thousands of dimensions of wonder. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#69. [A] book is not merely a book, it is the sun as well. #Quote by Steve Hagen

#70. However, the path itself must eventually be abandoned, just as you abandon a boat when you reach the other shore. You must disembark once you have arrived. At the point of total realization, you must abandon Buddhism. The spiritual path is a temporary solution, a placebo to be used until emptiness is understood. #Quote by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

#71. We hide from ourselves by being with others. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#72. The only loser who walks away from a wise man is the one who walks away. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#73. Eternity becomes more beautiful as we age, if we age well. If we age poorly, then we don't improve our minds; we don't refine all the aspects of our being. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#74. In order to go beyond ideas to direct realization, it's essential to have a great deal of purity. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#75. As in other Buddhist Tantric techniques, recommended preliminaries for these practices include developing skill at both calm-abiding (zhi gnas; śamatha) and insight meditation (lhag mthong; vipaśyanā). As in earlier Buddhist teachings, many Chöd dehadāna practices emphasize renunciation, purification, and self-transformation through the accumulation of merit and the exhaustion of demerit. Rather than suggesting that one must wait to accumulate adequate merit before offering the gift of the body, however, Chöd provides the opportunity for immediately efficacious offering of the body through techniques of visualization. Using a technique which echoes the traditional Buddhist teaching of the of the mind-made body (manomayākāya), the practitioner engages in visualizations which allow her to experience the non-duality of agent and object as she offers her body.

The process of giving the body as a means of attainment is commonly articulated in Chöd practice texts (sgrub pa; sādhana). These practice texts exhibit the framework of mature Tantra sādhana, including the stages of generating bodhicitta, going for refuge, meditating on the four immeasurables, and making the eight-limbed offering. Generally speaking, the main section of a developed Chöd sādhana has three components. The first two - a transference of consciousness (nam mkha' sgo 'byed) practice, and a body maṇḍala (lus dkyil) practice - have distinctly purifying purposes. The Chöd transference of consciousness pr #Quote by Michelle J. Sorensen

#76. Follow emptiness, the rise and fall of breath, the sun greeting the moon, one thought dissolving into the next. Let all preconceptions fall away. Let the purity of each moment rise up. Your own mind is unsubstantial like the sky. #Quote by Cheryl Pallant

#77. Interbeing: If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. "Interbeing" is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix "inter-" with the verb "to be," we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper #Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh

#78. Your mind is your life. It's your essence and your substance. It's the part of you that has always been and will always be. Its formations change constantly, which is what makes you always new. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#79. The danger in mysticism is that you push yourself too far into the nagual too soon. This is obsession. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#80. The word "Guru", as it is used in the contemporary American scene, is someone who takes all your money and tells you what to do with your life. You assume no responsibility. A lot of people want that free ride. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#81. A more common explanation for the feeling of being Old in Soul is tied up in Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation, or metempsychosis. Interestingly, this is most likely where the origin of the phrase "Old Soul" came from in the first place. #Quote by Aletheia Luna

#82. Boston is a great center of learning. That surgeon was a tantric Buddha," said Ram in admiration, "The smell of cautery is the finest incense. It sharpens the mind. #Quote by Joe Niemczura

#83. Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct difficulty and discomfort. We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death and loss and hiding from the basic truths of the natural world and of our own nature. #Quote by Jack Kornfield

#84. We are not interested in developing eternity or immortality, or in preventing being sick or being born. We are interested in doing something while we are alive, while we are breathing, while we can see the beauty of the snow, the flowers, the blue sky, the sunshine, and the many other things we can imagine. #Quote by Chogyam Trungpa

#85. Achala, worrying and scheming about your next life, before you have even completed this one, is not a good practice. Rinpoche #Quote by Daniel Prokop

#86. No amount of insult can change the height or grandeur of the mountain, nor the length of time required to climb it. #Quote by Alpha Four

#87. Im often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions ...
For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem. #Quote by Erwin Raphael McManus

#88. In Tantric Zen you can be humorous and make fun of anything or you can be very serious. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#89. A koan is like a riddle that's supposed to help you toward enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. For my answer, I wrote about this guy Banzan. He was walking through the market on day when he overheard someone ask a butcher for his best piece of meat. The butcher answered, "Everything in my shop is the best. You cannot find a piece of meat that is not the best." Upon hearing this, Banzan realized that there is no best and no worst, that those judgments have no real meaning because there is only was is, and poof, he reached enlightenment. #Quote by John Green

#90. It's necessary for you to work out a way of living that's very strong and very tight and very powerful, otherwise you will not be able to deal with the unknown. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#91. Whether we eat, sleep, work, play, whatever we do life contains dissatisfaction, pain. If we enjoy pleasure, we are afraid to lose it; we strive for more and more pleasure or try to contain it. If we suffer pain we want to escape it. We experience dissatisfaction all the time. All activities contain dissatisfaction or pain, continuously. #Quote by Chogyam Trungpa

#92. A human being can only absorb a small amount of the mystical kundalini, you can be exposed again and again to it, but it won't really make a difference. You can only absorb so much. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#93. Today's satori:
Such a change of mind would
Not exist without
My lifelong habit of having
My mind immersed in blossoms. #Quote by Saigyo

#94. When you meditate, you are shifting your state of mind to a higher vibratory level that will give you a much more expansive view. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#95. [S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68) #Quote by Anne Lamott

#96. A person who is asleep is either lost in deep unconsciousness or absorbed in a dream. Metaphorically, this was how the Buddha must have seen both his previous self as well as everyone else he had known: they either were blind to the questions of existence or sought consolation from them in metaphysical or religious fantasies. #Quote by Stephen Batchelor

#97. Violence only makes a situation worse. It cannot help but provoke a violent response. Strictly speaking, satyagraha is not "nonviolence." It is a means, a method. The word we translate as "nonviolence" is a Sanskrit word central in Buddhism as well: ahimsa, the complete absence of violence in word and even thought as well as action. This sounds negative, just as "nonviolence" sounds passive. But like the English word "flawless," ahimsa denotes perfection. Ahimsa is unconditional love; satyagraha is love in action. Gandhi's message #Quote by Eknath Easwaran

#98. There are people I feel in other parts of the world who will never meet me or hear my name. They are probably better off. I help them inwardly. I feel their souls seeking light, and I help all who come. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#99. When we speak of the sangha, we speak of the "arya sangha," which means the "exalted sangha". At the time of the Buddha this referred to the arhats and bodhisattvas, the disciples who studied under him and achieved various levels of realization through their practice. But now who is the arya sangha? It is all of us, all of the practitioners of the present time. The moment we take refuge, which is to begin on the path, we hold the title of "sangha". As such, you should understand that you are one of the Three Jewels. You shouldn't put the Three Jewels outside of yourselves; you should always think of yourselves as being one of the Three Jewels - and that includes your body, your speech, and your mind. #Quote by Dhomang Yangthang

#100. Patience from a Buddhist perspective is not a "wait and see" attitude, but rather one of "just be there" ... Patience can also be based on not expecting anything.Think of patience as an act of being open to whatever comes your way. When you begin to solidify expectations, you get frustrated because they are not met in the way you had hoped ... With no set idea of how something is supposed to be, it is hard to get stuck on things not happening in the time frame you desired. Instead, you are just being there, open to the possibilities of your life. #Quote by Lodro Rinzler

#101. You see, that's the fun of Buddhism. We do have a wild card in the deck that can't be explained, that changes value continuously, and that's enlightenment. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#102. The human field of perception is not the only band of perception. Nor is it necessarily the best; there is no such thing in infinity. Infinity does not label. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#103. Some people travel to other dimensions in their astral bodies when they meditate. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#104. God does everything perfectly. The world doesn't really need saving; it's exactly the way God wants it to be at the moment. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#105. In meditation what you are trying to do is simply get rid of your own junk. You are trying to move all the confusion out of your mind, all the heaviness, all the emotional upsets, all the impressions that you have picked up since your last meditation. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#106. We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don´t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home. #Quote by Sogyal Rinpoche

#107. The goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. #Quote by Adyashanti

#108. ...The words Dalai Lama mean different things to different people, that for me they refer only to the office I hold. Actually, Dalai is a Mongolian word meaning 'ocean' and Lama is a Tibetan term corresponding to the Indian word guru, which denotes a teacher. From Freedom in Exile, the Autobiography of the Dalai Lama #Quote by Tenzin Gyatso

#109. To forgive does not mean to condone. #Quote by Allan Lokos

#110. Buddha first taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises. #Quote by Sharon Salzberg

#111. KODO SAWAKI: Studying originally meant aspiring to discover the meaning of life. These days studying has become all about getting a job. #Quote by Kosho Uchiyama

#112. So what you are accomplishing is entrenching yourself more and more in this world. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#113. It seems the guys who are best at sex approach it with the serenity of a Buddhist monk. They are never going to beg for it and when the time is right (and all signs point to yes), then they take charge masterfully and completely. #Quote by Roberto Hogue

#114. A friend of mine told me a bunch of stuff on Buddhism and about Avicii being the lowest level of Buddhist hell, and it just sort of got stuck in my head. Later on when I went to setup a MySpace, I tried a bunch of names and they were all taken so I just kind of ended up with Avicii and then I got really attached to it. #Quote by Avicii

#115. Enlightenment is already there inside us and all things. All we have to do is get something out of the way that is causing us not to see that. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#116. Don't stand out. Be in a room and remain unnoticed. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#117. There are all these people running all over the planet who don't see what life is for, what their own lives are about, because they don't see psychically. Therefore, they miss most of the beauty of life. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#118. Anyone who meditates for a period of time will gradually become more sensitized to all of life. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#119. First, rely on the spirit and meaning of the teachings, not on the words;
Second, rely on the teachings, not on the personality of the teacher;
Third, rely on real wisdom, not superficial interpretation;
And fourth, rely on the essence of your pure Wisdom Mind, not on judgmental perceptions. #Quote by Gautama Buddha

#120. If the kundalini is flowing through you at a very rapid rate, if you are not in harmony with the dharma, then you will have great problems with the study. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#121. Throughout the day remind yourself that you are moving through eternity. Be focused. Be centered. Be in the now. Know what is going on in the world. Read a newspaper once in a while. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#122. I don't feel any great need to subscribe to a certain notion of Buddhism that says "You have to do this" or "You have to do that." Buddhism does not prescribe rituals or prohibitions in the way many religions do. #Quote by Pankaj Mishra

#123. With the frenzied pace in our own country, with the degenerating school system, with a crime rate that rises 30% a year, and with politicians that seem more interested in posturing than in governing, it has become more difficult, or should I say challenging, to achieve that inner symbiosis with life. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#124. There's a power that brings us to things, and there's a power that lets us move away from things, from people, places, experiences. And what you learn to do in metaphysics is accept. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#125. When emotions are long held and extremely complex, it sometimes takes years for them to enter fully into awareness. #Quote by Sharon Salzberg

#126. The siddhas are developed through the tonal, not the nagual. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#127. Again and again, counteract the agitation and turbulence of the mind by relaxing more deeply, not by contracting the body or mind. #Quote by B. Alan Wallace

#128. Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine. #Quote by Timothy Keller

#129. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught. #Quote by Tiger Woods

#130. A boddhisattva is someone who is on the way to becoming a buddha. All of us become boddhisattvas as soon as we start to take our Zen work seriously and the work we do contributes to creating a world in which all good actions become more efficacious. #Quote by David Brazier

#131. You have been programmed, brainwashed to see life in very specific forms. Life is endless and we are a body of perception. We are an awareness that is endless. The universe is only perception. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#132. If you can't hold a person in your mind with a good thought, it is better not to think about them at all. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#133. 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. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#134. While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate. #Quote by Mark Epstein

#135. We've developed a very complex filing system for existence. We see things in terms of good or bad. We feel happiness, joy, pain, loss, guilt and remorse. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#136. You need a job. You need a career. You need a focus. Otherwise, you will just pick up lots of strange psychic energy because you are not focused. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#137. Christ remains the most influential figure in history. Any list of world-transforming individuals would no doubt include Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad. Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad, however occupy totally different places in Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam than Christ occupies in Christianity. Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad never professed to perform miracles; indeed they never claimed to be anything more than men. They viewed themselves simply as God's messengers. Christ is the only person in history who has defined a whole religion around his person. #Quote by Dinesh D'Souza

#138. Old age and death are in the natural course of things. There is nothing a doctor can do about them. #Quote by Muso Soseki

#139. Who says you need to wait until you 'feel like' doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn't that you don't feel motivated; it's that you imagine you need to feel motivated. If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you're procrastinating on as passing weather, you'll realise that your reluctance about working isn't something that needs to be eradicated or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings and act anyway. #Quote by Oliver Burkeman

#140. Kundalini is almost a misleading word, unless you define it as broadly as I do. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#141. I come from an alcoholic Irish background - I know where I was going! But I met my wife and started to practise Buddhism, which is a levelling experience for me, and there hasn't been a day I've missed in 40 years. I apply it to everything - to my work and relationships. I try to be a compassionate person. #Quote by Patrick Duffy

#142. Everything sacred, nothing sacred. #Quote by Bodhidharma

#143. We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all. #Quote by Gautama Buddha

#144. Happiness does not mean that everything works out. Usually nothing works out, but you get a kick out of it anyway. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#145. You become someone else when you meditate. It isn't just a little technique. If you really pursue it, you change radically - you evolve. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#146. Although Buddhism is unattainable, we vow to attain it.If it is unattainable, how can we attain it? But we should! That is Buddhism. #Quote by Shunryu Suzuki

#147. I would define the proper use of power as something that creates happiness for yourself and others. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#148. For some reason, there is a purity to the Swiss Alps - a certain energy - that is very reminiscent of my snowboarding experiences in the Himalayas. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#149. The tonal is also endless and limitless. We like to think of it as being finite so we feel better. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#150. Some people are drawn to meditation without knowing why. Their inner being realizes that they've totally fouled up their life so far, and now it's just going to drag them to the local meditation hall. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#151. I think there's beauty in repetition. And that's part of my culture and African culture as well: repeated things, mantra. It's spiritual, it's meditation, it's Buddhism, it's praying, it's all these things. #Quote by Robert Glasper

#152. The virtues of free enterprise can become distorted by greed & delusion. #Quote by Allan Lokos

#153. Boundaries are nothing more than imaginary lines drawn-up by delusional leaders and power hungry tyrants who wish to segregate the population into more easily controlled segments in any case.
-If you really think about it logically, the only place where the Buddha can be born is within the hearts and minds of the truly enlightened, otherwise you're simply wasting your time. #Quote by Andrew James Pritchard

#154. As the grounding effect of breath awareness disengages you from the often-overwhelming chatter of the mind, the level at which you think will seem to transcend the noise. #Quote by Benjamin W. Decker

#155. W are all carrying the imprints of our most ancient ancestors. Not simply in the genetic code, but in the imprints of attention that are passed on. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#156. We can free ourselves from the old stories that have reduced us & allow real love for ourselves to blossom. #Quote by Sharon Salzberg

#157. There will be times, for example, when you feel you are faking it. However hard you try genuinely to practice, it just doesn't feel right. And on the rare occasions it does feel authentic, the sensation is over almost before it began. So, try to be content with your practice, whatever it feels like, even when you are doing little more than paying it lip service, because at least you are making an effort. #Quote by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

#158. Inwardly the sun also has an energy field, it has an aura, so does the earth, so does the moon, and so do all the planets. We're affected by those auras. It's not something that you really want to reason out. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#159. Buddha once saw a jackal, a wild dog, run out of the forest where he was staying. It stood still for a while, then it ran into the underbrush, and then out again. Then it ran into a tree hollow, then out again. Then it went into a cave, only to run out again. One minute it stood, the next it ran, then it lay down, then it jumped up. The jackal had the mange. When it stood, the mange would eat into its skin, so it would run. Running, it was still uncomfortable, so it would stop. Standing, it was still uncomfortable, so it would lie down. Then it would jump up again, running to the underbrush, the tree hollow, never staying still. The Buddha said, "Monks, did you see that jackal this afternoon? Standing, it suffered. Running, it suffered. Sitting, it suffered. Lying down, it suffered. It blamed standing for its discomfort. It blamed sitting. It blamed running and lying down. It blamed the tree, the underbrush, and the cave. In fact, the problem was with none of those things. The problem was with his mange." We are just the same as that jackal. Our discontent is due to wrong view. Because we don't exercise sense restraint, we blame our suffering on externals. Whether we live in Thailand, America or England, we aren't satisfied. Why not? Because we still have wrong view. Just that! So wherever we go, we aren't content. But just as that jackal would be content wherever it went as soon as its mange was cured, so would we be content wherever we went once we rid ourselves of wrong vi #Quote by Ajahn Chah

#160. These teachings are like a raft, to be abandoned once you have crossed the flood. Since you should abandon even good states of mind generated by these teachings, How much more so should you abandon bad states of mind! #Quote by Gautama Buddha

#161. From a Buddhist perspective, it is incorrect to always assume that we know what is best. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#162. That's what Buddhism has been trying to unravel - the mechanism of happiness and suffering. It is a science of the mind. #Quote by Matthieu Ricard

#163. Seeking is endless. It never comes to a state of rest; it never ceases. #Quote by Sharon Salzberg

#164. It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time. #Quote by Eiji Yoshikawa

#165. Last month, Dean Sheeter (whose name usually transports Franny when I mention it) approached me with his gracious smile and bull whip, and I am now lecturing to the faculty, their wives, and a few oppressively-deep type undergraduates every Friday on Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. A feat, I haven't a doubt, that will eventually earn me the Eastern Philosophy Chair in Hell. #Quote by J.D. Salinger

#166. The most noble of all pursuits is to be enlightened, to know truth, to have knowledge and yet be beyond even truth and knowledge, to be God. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#167. Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known. #Quote by Mark Epstein

#168. You can just stay in oblivion, going through your days and your life and your experiences, staying with your friends, family. If that suits you, it's good. But for some people, it's not enough. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#169. In meditation we get a sense of the countless selves within ourselves, the different forms they take. Those that don't seem positive or helpful we push aside. Those that seem progressive we enjoy. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#170. If you seek the realms of light, the best thing to do is to meditate with love and the gentle aliveness. Meditation should not be forced. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#171. To sense which gifts to accept & which to leave behind is our path to discovering freedom. #Quote by Sharon Salzberg

#172. Without hope, Chöd practitioners are freed from the limits of hope and fear; having cut the ropes of grasping, definitely enlightened, where does one go? #Quote by Machik Labdrön

#173. Is it necessary to believe in the existence of the six realms and the heavens and hells to be a Buddhist? Not necessarily. It is possible to interpret these as, perhaps, referring to other dimensions of existence, parallel universes, or simply states of mind. #Quote by Damien Keown

#174. Some people get tired of continual perception of the finite universe. They feel the perception of the universe over and over in variant forms is kind of an unhappy condition, because it doesn't last. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#175. Prostration: placing the body in reverence, to submit, to surrender. In many faiths it is used to relinquish the ego. In Tibetan tantric Buddhism they do one hundred thousand prostrations to overcome pride. In Islam, prostration has been known to overcome many diseases. #Quote by Eve Ensler

#176. It took me forty years of dealing with buddhism to finally realize that actually Buddha's discovery was happiness and bliss. #Quote by Robert Thurman

#177. Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go. #Quote by Ajahn Sumedho

#178. Why is it that one of the best songs in the world has to be written by the BeeGees?
Benedict #Quote by Tricia Walker

#179. If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia. #Quote by Aung San Suu Kyi

#180. From infinite awareness, something comes forward, a sense of infinite awareness and finite awareness. That perception is the birth of a being. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#181. 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. #Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh

#182. A person, who no matter how desperate the situation, gives others hope, is a true leader. #Quote by Daisaku Ikeda

#183. Fasting is as sensual as eating. Being celibate is as sensual as having sex. They're just different choices, different videos that you've selected to view tonight. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#184. I have always worked with energy. Everything is energy. Buddhism. Christ teachings. These are foundation stones for a spiritual life. #Quote by Dave Davies

#185. One nationality supresses another. One religion claimsto be the exclusive way to truth or god. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#186. The earth is not the same everywhere. Certain powers are available in one part of the earth that are not available in another part. The rich realize this. They live in these places and they use that power to stay rich. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#187. The Akashic Records are the impressions from all of our past lives that are available within our causal body. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#188. Meditation is like taking a shower. You are going to wash all the dirt off that you have picked up since your last shower and be clean. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#189. America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others. #Quote by Parker Palmer

#190. When you go into the planes of light, all of the incorrect ways of seeing and understanding life that you pick up are washed away. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#191. The problem with love is attachment; love makes you dependent. Unattached love - you love for the hell of it. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#192. When you are in a condition of light everything is ecstatic, everything is joyous, everything is beautiful. Your attention field is subtle. The ego is quiet. The mind is still. Your heart is happy. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#193. Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently - thinking incessantly - is considered perfectly normal. #Quote by Sam Harris

#194. A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind. #Quote by Daisaku Ikeda

#195. If you're in the tantric sex state of mind, what someone else experiences when they have sex is not what you'll experience. You won't even notice what your body is doing, particularly. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#196. I've learned much from the land of many gods and many ways to worship. From Buddhism the power to begin to manage my mind, from Jainism the desire to make peace in all aspects of life, while Islam has taught me to desire goodness and to let go of that which cannot be controlled. I thank Judaism for teaching me the power of transcendence in rituals and the Sufis for affirming my ability to find answers within and reconnecting me with the power of music. Here's to the Parsis for teaching me that nature must be touched lightly, and the Sikhs for the importance of spiritual strength ... And most of all, I thank Hinduism for showing me that there are millions of paths to the divine. #Quote by Sarah Macdonald

#197. You can lie to yourself and fool yourself and rationalize that the choice you're making is what is right and what is true and what leads to liberation, when it's actually only the fulfillment of desire. #Quote by Frederick Lenz

#198. Part of why I love these angry, straight, white punks is that they are stripping the dharma of its bullshit, and applying it to contexts and styles that, even if they aren't mine, are at least different from the norm. #Quote by Jay Michaelson

#199. I have found a much greater appreciation of Buddhism because I couldn't take it for granted here in exile. #Quote by Dalai Lama

#200. I have a great deal of spiritual dignity. It's on loan from eternity, and you do too, and we have to use it in our relationship with each other. #Quote by Frederick Lenz