Gautama Buddha Quotes
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To understand everything is to forgive everything.
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Rage is a powerful energy that with diligent practice can be transformed into fierce compassion. However much we disagree with our enemies, our task is to identify with them. They too feel justified in their point of view.
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Water surrounds the lotus flower, but does not wet its petals.
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The world is a looking glass. It gives back to every man a true reflection of his own thoughts. Rule your mind or it will rule you.
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In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom.
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There is no satisfying the senses, not even with a shower of money. "The senses are of slight pleasure and really suffering." When a wise man has realised this, he takes no pleasure, as a disciple of the Buddhas, even in the pleasures of heaven. Instead he takes pleasure in the elimination of craving.
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Life can only take place in the present moment. If we lose the present moment, we lose life.
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To have much learning, to be skillful in handicraft, well-trained in discipline, and to be of good speech -- this is the greatest blessing.
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And so, with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings.
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Imagine that every person in the world is enlightened but you. They are all your teachers, each doing just the right things to help you learn perfect patience, perfect wisdom, perfect compassion.
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It is not life and wealth and power that enslave men, but the cleaving to life and wealth and power.
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All descriptions of reality are temporary hypotheses.
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The masters only point the way. But if you meditate And follow the dharma You will free yourself from desire. 'Everything arises and passes away.' When you see this, you are above sorrow. This is the shining way.
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It is the fool who is haunted by fears, dread of dangers, oppression of mind, not the wise man.
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Until he has unconditional and unbiased love for all beings, man will not find peace.
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The glorious chariots of kings wear out, and the body wears out and grows old; but the virtue of the good never grows old.
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The heavens and the earth may be captured by the mind's eye.
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Nirvana is this moment seen directly. There is no where else than here. The only gate is now. The only doorway is your own body and mind. There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing else to be. There’s no destination. It’s not something to aim for in the afterlife. It’s simply the quality of this moment.
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To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.
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People cleave to their worldly possessions and selfish passions so blindly as to sacrifice their own lives for them. They are like a child who tries to eat a little, honey smeared on the edge of a knife. The amount is by no means sufficient to appease his appetite, but he runs the risk of wounding his tongue.
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As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to other meshes.
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As an elephant in the battlefield withstands arrows shot from bows all around, even so shall I endure abuse.
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Abstain from all sinful, unwholesome actions, perform only pious wholesome ones, purify the mind; this is the teaching of enlightened ones.
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Through vigilance, restraint and control the wise will construct and island that no flood will overcome.