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Buddhist quotes
Bunks
Australia Veteran
I tried to find an old thread for this and there was one but it hadn't been touched since April 2016.
So here goes......
It's as if the Buddha had placed us at the beginning of the path; his job is now done.
Whether we walk along it or not is up to us.
Ajahn Chah
13
Comments
"To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say:
Don't cling to anything.
Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are"
(Ajahn Chah)
Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha.
Ajahn Chah
Love it! Thanks @Traveller
"All your thoughts are garbage. You may think that some of them are good but you should consider the possibility that all your thoughts are garbage." ~Ajahn Sumedho
LOL
Practice is like raising a duck. If it grows fast or slow, it’s the duck’s business not yours. Let go and just do your own work.
Ajahn Chah
https://zenquotes.org/ajahn-chah-quotes/
Everyone loves something, even if its just tortillas. Chogyam Trungpa
Body on my cushion, mind in my body, peace in my mind. Khenpo Sherab Sangpo
When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending. Thich Nhat Hanh
Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule. Buddha
Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose. -Yoda
"Meditating is not transforming oneself into a battlefield where one side is fighting another, where good fights against evil. This is not Buddhist meditation. Buddhist meditation is based on the principle of nonduality. This means that if we are mindfulness, if we are love, we are also ignorance, we are also suffering, and there is no reason to suppress anything at all." Thich Nhat Hanh
I made this back in 2013 based on listening to Ajahn Brahm a lot back then. It's paraphrasing obviously, but this quote / teaching as helped me a lot in the past, even though I forget about it from time to time
I've heard a similar one to this @Ukjunglist - Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die!
"Zen pretty much comes down to three things:
Everything changes.
Everything is connected.
Pay attention"
(Jane Hirshfield)
"The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention"
(Sharon Salzberg)
"Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing"
(Tilopa)
Hey Bunks thank you for starting this great thread. I am getting to read great quotes I haven't come across before. Much Metta to you.
"In order to stand in someone else's shoes, you have to stand in your own shoes first."
Pema Chödrön
"Enlightenment Is Absolute Cooperation With The Inevitable!"
~Chan~
"What Would Buddha Do ?"
~A Buddhist thought~
One of the most profound, simple and obvious practices (Also used in Freemasonry, though slightly differently) is to hear everything as a potential Buddhist quote or meaningful in some insightful way:
Everything becomes an expression of its nature. Even very trite sayings may have relevance for us ...
Bless Your Heart
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: You won’t be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.
Ajahn Chah.
"When you're speaking with three people, make sure you see four."
"Where would there be leather enough to cover the entire world? With just the leather of my sandals, it is as if the whole world were covered. Likewise, I am unable to restrain external phenomena, but I shall restrain my own mind. What need is there to restrain anything else?"
~Shantideva~
"Whatever can be conceptualized is therefore relative, and whatever is relative is Sunya, empty. Since absolute inconceivable truth is also Sunya, Sunyata or the void is shared by both Samsara and Nirvana. Ultimately, Nirvana truly realized is Samsara properly understood."
~Nagarjuna~
Good...bad...who knows?
Ajahn Brahm
"If you understand, things are just as they are.
If you do not understand, things are just as they are"
(Zen Proverb)
"I follow four dictates:
face it, accept it,
deal with, then let it go"
(Sheng Yen)
"Do no harm,
act for the good,
purify your mind"
(Dhammapada)
Fascinating
Mr Spock
Do you know, I think Vulcans may be Buddhists. However ... that is for another thread ...
Remember quotes are popular because they retain wisdom across a range of situations, understandings, personalties and ideally realisations ...
It may be that a quote seems wrong, immoral or a path distraction ... mull ... if a koan, immerse ... when ready ... come back at leisure/ease ...
Maybe ...
http://truecenterpublishing.com/zenstory/maybe.html
Yes maybe @lobster (.... for dinner tonight
)
Love it! Thanks @DhammaDragon.
It’s so true. No matter our beliefs, opinions, attitudes etc, things are just as they are.
Good ... bad ... ugly.
Clint Eastwood
I was looking for that Nagarjuna quote a while back, thanks.
You're welcome....
Seek and ye shall find
~ Matthew 7:7:~ (Christzen
)
and knowing the inevitable is enlightenment, hi new member how's it hanging. your quote caught my eye as I was looking around, pleased to meet you
SN35. 85. The Sunna Sutta
Empty Is the World
"Then the Venerable Ānanda approached the Blessed One … and said to him: “Venerable sir, it is said, ‘Empty is the world, empty is the world.’ In what way, venerable sir, is it said, ‘Empty is the world’?”
“It is, Ānanda, because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’ And what is empty of self and of what belongs to self? The eye, Ānanda, is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Forms are empty of self and of what belongs to self. Eye-consciousness is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Eye-contact is empty of self and of what belongs to self…. Whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as condition—whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant—that too is empty of self and of what belongs to self.
“It is, Ānanda, because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’”
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn35.85
From the Heart Sutra:
“Listen Sariputra,
all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness;
their true nature is the nature of
no Birth no Death,
no Being no Non-being,
no Defilement no Purity,
no Increasing no Decreasing.
“That is why in Emptiness,
Body, Feelings, Perceptions,
Mental Formations and Consciousness
are not separate self entities."
https://plumvillage.org/news/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation/
Hi. If you're from Hull, feel free to speak English. Not everyone here is American. * Ahem! * The Moderator herself, (That would be me!) is from the UK....
Welcome!
Just as a mother would protect her only child with her life, even so let one cultivate boundless love towards all beings.
Karaniya Metta Sutta
Matthew 16:25 (On Clinging)
I'll see your Matthew 16:25, and top it with Matthew 6:25-34.
“Everything is always changing. If you relax into this truth, that is Enlightenment. If you resist, this is samsara (suffering).”
Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, “What Makes You (Not) a Buddhist”
“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
Dogen
(I have oftentimes been guilty of mis-quoting by adding/substituting 'truth' with Peace, happiness, serenity....)
Samsara Mind turned outward lost in its projection
Nirvana Mind turned inward recognising its true nature
A quote used by ~Sogyal Rinpoche~ but he is not the original quoter....
if it's in the illusion, one day you must experience it
I just posted this on another thread ...then thought 'Um it would also suit this thread too'..
so........
"Great Faith and Great Doubt are two ends of a spiritual walking stick. We grip one end with the grasp given to us by our Great Determination. We poke into the underbrush in the dark on our spiritual journey. This act is real spiritual practice -- gripping the Faith end and poking ahead with the Doubt end of the stick. If we have no Faith, we have no Doubt. If we have no Determination, we never pick up the stick in the first place."
~Sensei Sevan Ross~
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Redd Foxx
http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/resources/funny_quotes.html
A lot of people die of 'nothing, @lobster; my father had heart problems, prostate problems, cancer of the bladder, a broken back and mild asthma. But he died, because he simply died. No one thing actually killed him. His system just stopped.
His death certificate cited no contributing factors of complications.
But I was glad to be with him, nevertheless, when 'nothing' took his life away and Yama sat beside him.
Sorry to be a damp squib on your shot of humour; FWIW, it rather looks currently, as things stand, that I too, shall die of nothing. Moreso than he did, too.
~Anonymous~ (Because I don't know who said it
)
From Hakuin's Song of Meditation:
"When in reverence this truth is heard even once,
He who praises it and gladly embraces it has merit without end
How much more he who turns within
And confirms directly his own nature,
That his own nature is no-nature –
Such has transcended vain words.
The gate opens, and cause and effect are one;
Straight runs the way – not two, not three.
Taking as form the form of no-form,
Going or returning, he is ever at home.
Taking as thought the thought of no-thought.
Singing and dancing, all is the voice of truth."
https://www.tlayt.org/hakuins-song-of-meditation/
"Sabbe dhamma anatta" ( there is no self in the created or the uncreated )
From the Bahiya Sutta:
"Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.' In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya.
"When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering."
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
~ Buddha
@Karasti, Which book of Thich Nhat Hanh's is this quote from?
Thanks in advance.
"See for yourself" ( Ehipassiko )
~The Buddha~ (Thus have I been told)