Gautama Buddha Quotes
-
I have passed in ignorance through a cycle of many rebirths, seeking the builder of the house. Continuous rebirth is a painful thing. But now, housebuilder, I have found you out. You will not build me a house again. All your rafters are broken, your ridge-pole shattered. My mind is free from active thought, and has made an end of craving.
-
There are no chains like hate...dwelling on your brother's faults multiplies your own. You are far from the end of your journey.
-
Comparing oneself to others in such terms as "Just as I am so are they, just as they are so am I," he should neither kill nor cause others to kill.
-
Better than a meaningless story of a thousand words is a single word of deep meaning which, when heard, produces peace.
-
By three things the wise person may be known. What three? He sees a shortcoming as it is. When he sees it, he tries to correct it. And when another acknowledges a shortcoming, the wise one forgives it as he should.
-
Do not look for a sanctuary in anyone except your self.
-
There are five things which no one is able to accomplish in this world: first, to cease growing old when he is growing old; second, to cease being sick; third, to cease dying; fourth, to deny dissolution when there is dissolution; fifth, to deny non-being.
-
Though he should conquer a thousand men in the battlefield a thousand times, yet he, indeed, who would conquer himself is the noblest victor.
-
By oneself the evil is done, and it is oneself who suffers: by oneself the evil is not done, and by one's Self one becomes pure.
-
He who walks in the company of fools suffers much. Company with fools, as with an enemy, is always painful. Company with the wise is pleasure, like meeting with kinfolk.
-
When you have great joy, you will become Buddhas!
-
Samsara-the Wheel of Existence, literally, the "Perpetual Wandering"-is the name by which is designated the sea of life ever restlessly heaving up and down, the symbol of this continuous process of ever again and again being born, growing old, suffering, and dying. (It) is constantly changing from moment to moment, (as lives) follow continuously one upon the other through inconceivable periods of time. Of this Samsara, a single lifetime constitutes only a vanishingly tiny fraction.
-
Letting go of our suffering is the hardest work we will ever do.
-
Keeping away for all evil deeds, cultivation of life by doing good deeds and purification of mind from mental impunities.
-
It is within this fathoms-long carcass, with its mind and its notions, that I declare there is the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world and the path leading to the cessation of the world.
-
I teach one thing and one only: that is, suffering and the end of suffering.
-
Health is the first benefit. Content is the first fortune. Friendliness is the first kindness. Nirvana is the first happiness.
-
In the end it is nothing other than the loving kindness with which the woman cares for her child that makes the difference. Her concern concentrates on one thing just like the Buddhist practice of concentration. She thinks of nothing but her child, which is similar to Buddhist compassion. That must be why, although she created no other causes to bring about it, she was reborn in the Brahma heaven.
-
The worlds originate so that truth may come and dwell therein.
-
When one drives away the negligent through vigilance, he climbs the heights of wisdom, and can see the suffering masses. Serene, you look upon the lost like one that stands on a mountain sees those that stand upon the plain.
-
But if you miss it, you will next be confronted with the angry deities, ... threatening you and barring your passage ... because you turned a deaf ear to the saving truths of religion. All these forms are strange to you, ... they terrify you, ... and yet it is you who have created them. Do not give in to your fright, ... flee them not! They are but ... the contents of your own mind... If at this point you should manage to understand that, ... and you will find yourself in a paradise among the angels.
-
Holding on to anger is like poisoning yourself and hoping someone else will die.
-
If a man going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current - how can he help others across?
-
There are two obstacles to enlightenment: 1. Thinking you know. 2 Thinking you don't know.