Buddha Quotes
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According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha Gotama is not merely one unique individual who puts in an unprecedented appearance on the stage of human history and then bows out forever. He is, rather, the fulfillment of a primordial archetype, the most recent member of a cosmic “dynasty” of Buddhas constituted by numberless Perfectly Enlightened Ones of the past and sustained by Perfectly Enlightened Ones continuing indefinitely onward into the future. Early Buddhism, even in the archaic root texts of the Nikāyas, already recognizes a plurality of Buddhas who all conform to certain fixed patterns of behavior, the broad outlines of which are described in the opening sections of the Mahāpadāna Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 14, not represented in the present anthology). The word “Tathāgata,” which the texts use as an epithet for a Buddha, points to this fulfillment of a primordial archetype. The word means both “the one who has come thus” (tath̄ ̄gata), that is, who has come into our midst in the same way that the Buddhas of the past have come; and “the one who has gone thus” (tath̄ gata), that is, who has gone to the ultimate peace, Nibbāna, in the same way that the Buddhas of the past have gone.
Bhikkhu Bodhi
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It is said that “there is a self,” but “non-self” too is taught. The buddhas also teach there is nothing which is “neither self nor non-self.” Everything is real, not real; both real and not real; neither not real nor real: this is the teaching of the Buddha.
Nagarjun
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Muichi Motsu: "Hold nothing": If you meet Buddha, kill Buddha. If you meet the patriarchs, kill the patriarchs. Free of all, bound by nothing, you live your life simply as it is
Kazuya Minekura
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When ever Buddhism has taken root in a new land, there has been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion and the situation of those who were listening to him.
Dalai Lama
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When people suffer, their relationships usually suffer as well. Period. And we all suffer because, as the Buddha says, that's the nature of being human and wanting stuff we don't always get.
Mary Karr
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As human beings we have the same experience of destructive and constructive emotions. We also have a human mind capable of developing wisdom. We all have the same Buddha nature.
Dalai Lama
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I have been blessed often by Buddha, but equally by America.
Nguyen Cao Ky
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Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance ... can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent.
Nikola Tesla
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I've always tried to learn from the greats: Orson Welles, Humphrey Bogart, Ghandi, Buddha, Jesus... it's just that there's this tremendous pressure to correct all the things they got wrong.
Zach Braff
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The blessings of stupas are such that they benefit all beings, regardless of their connection and motivation. If one participates in a stupa's construction and ritual activities, or honors the completed stupa with an altruistic resolve to benefit all beings, then the blessings are such that the Buddha himself could not describe them.
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
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Buddha emphasized and re-declared the eternal and unalterable existence of the moral government of this universe. He unhesitatingly said that the law was God Himself.
Mahatma Gandhi
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One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the Messiah?" "No," answered Buddha. "Then are you a healer?" "No," Buddha replied. "Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted. "No, I am not a teacher." "Then what are you?" asked the student exasperated. "I am awake," Buddha replied.
Gautama Buddha
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He could've had Jesus, Buddha, he could have had every God in his corner, it wouldn't have helped him against me.
David Haye
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The founders of the great world religions, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Mohammed, all seem to have striven for a worldwide brotherhood of man; but none of them could develop institutions which would include the enemy, the unbeliever.
Geoffrey Gorer
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The Buddha said, ‘Gripped by fear, men go to the sacred mountains and sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines.’ I am not afraid of death, my lady. I need no god to comfort me in my fear.
Conn Iggulden
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Buddha never rejected Hinduism, but he broadened its base. He gave it a new life and a new interpretation.
Mahatma Gandhi
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Buddha was a responsible guy and believed in his monks being responsible, their responsibility would no longer be to their practice or to the sangha, but to their child because that's the only honest way to do it. You can't have it both ways. So anytime a monk would have sex, there was always that possibility and it was a very big deal.
Brad Warner
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Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real.
Hermann Hesse