Gautama Buddha Quotes
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How easy it is to see your brother's faults, How hard it is to face your own. You winnow his in the wind like chaff, But yours you hide, Like a cheat covering up an unlucky throw. Dwelling on your brother's faults Multiplies your own. You are far from the end of your journey. The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. See how you love.
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If it is not truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and not helpful, don't say it. If it is not truthful and helpful, don't say it. If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the right time.
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If you sleep, Desire grows in you Like a vine in the forest. Like a monkey in the forest You jump from tree to tree, Never finding the fruit - From life to life, Never finding peace. If you are filled with desire Your sorrows swell Like the grass after the rain. But if you subdue desire Your sorrows shall fall from you Like drops of water from a lotus flower.
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Happiness follows sorrow, sorrow follows happiness, but when one no longer discriminates happiness and sorrow, a good deal and a bad deed, one is able to realize freedom.
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When a man venerates those worthy of veneration, be they Buddhas or their disciples, who have transcended all obstacles and passed beyond sorrow and tears - venerating such as these, whose passions are extinguished and for whom there is no further source for fear, no one can calculate how great his merit is.
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The mind contains all possibilities.
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The wise say that it is not an iron, wooden or fiber fetter which is a strong one, but the besotted hankering after trinkets, children and wives, that, say the wise, is the strong fetter. It drags one down, and loose as it feels, it is hard to break. Breaking this fetter, people renounce the world, free from longing and abandoning sensuality.
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No one can escape death and unhappiness. If people expect only happiness in life, they will be disappointed.
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One act of pure love in saving life is greater than spending the whole of one's time in religious offerings to the gods . . .
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Those who awaken never rest in one place. Like swans, they rise and leave the lake. On the air they rise and fly an invisible course. Their food is knowledge. They live on emptiness. They have seen how to break free. Who can follow them?
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We living beings, right down to crickets, ants, mosquitoes , and flies, all possess life that is without beginning or end.
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Sandalwood, tagara, lotus, jasmine - the fragrance of virtue is unrivalled by such kinds of perfume.
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Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean, nor by entering into mountain clefts, nowhere in the world is there a place where one may escape from the results of evil deeds.
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When an evil-doer, seeing you practise goodness, comes and maliciously insults you, you should patiently endure it and not feel angry with him, for the evil-doer is insulting himself by trying to insult you.
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Those who attempt to conquer hatred by hatred are like warriors who take weapons to overcome others who bear arms. This does not end hatred, but gives it room to grow. But, ancient wisdom has advocated a different timeless strategy to overcome hatred. This eternal wisdom is to meet hatred with non-hatred. The method of trying to conquer hatred through hatred never succeeds in overcoming hatred. But, the method of overcoming hatred through non-hatred is eternally effective. That is why that method is described as eternal wisdom.
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Happy indeed are the arahants! No craving can be found in them. Cut off is the conceit 'I am,' Burst asunder is delusion's net.
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Remember that the only constant in life is change.
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A contemplative should pay equal attention to concentration, energetic effort and equanimity, and not exclusively to one of these factors only.
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Buddha was speaking in a village square one day, when one of the inhabitants started to abuse him. Buddha paused and said to the man, "If you offer me a piece of paper and I refuse to accept it, what happens to the paper?" "Why, it stays with me, of course," the villager replied. Buddha smiled gently, "And that is exactly what I am doing with your abuse," he said. "I am not accepting it, therefore it stays with you."
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Fill your mind with compassion.
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To awaken, sit calmly, letting each breath clear your mind and open your heart.
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We will be thankful and grateful. Not even the last thing that is done for us shall be forgotten.
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The holy man is beyond time, he does not depend on any view nor subscribe to any sect; all current theories he understands, but he remains unattached to any of them.
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Through countless births in the cycle of existence I have run, not finding although seeking the builder of this house; and again and again I faced the suffering of new birth. Oh housebuilder! Now you are seen. You shall not build a house again for me. All your beams are broken, the ridgepole is shattered. The mind has become freed from conditioning: the end of craving has been reached.