Buddhist Quotations

He who loves with purity considers not the gift of the lover, but the love of the giver.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

I'm a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, 'Everything changes, don't take it personally.'

Maitake mushrooms are known in Japan as 'the dancing mushroom.' According to a Japanese legend, a group of Buddhist nuns and woodcutters met on a mountain trail, where they discovered a fruiting of maitake mushrooms emerging from the forest floor. Rejoicing at their discovery of this delicious mushroom, they danced to celebrate.

Not just Christians and Jews, but also Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and the followers of many other religions believe in values like peace, respect, tolerance and dignity. These are values that bring people together and enable us to build responsible and solid communities.

I don't really go down one path. I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, or a Catholic or a Christian or a Muslim, or Jewish. I couldn't put myself into any organized faith.

Cambodia wanted no part of SEATO. We would look after ourselves as neutrals and Buddhists.

I certainly haven't lived the life of a Buddhist monk.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

Mary, my little girl, was confirmed in a Buddhist temple. She saw the Life write up on Buddhism, with pictures of the ceremony, and she said she wanted to be confirmed there because she only liked Jesus as a kid. She was a little disappointed in him when he grew up.

I think Gore does have to worry. He is tied to Bill Clinton. We know that there were telephone calls that he made from his office. We know that there were visits to the Buddhist temple.

There is pleasure when a sore is scratched, But to be without sores is more pleasurable still. Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires, But to be without desires is more pleasurable still.

Buddhist mindfulness is about the present, but I also think its about being real. Being awake to everything. Feeling like nothing can hurt you if you can look it straight on.

I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion.

How many Buddhists does it take to change a lightbulb? Many in body, one in mind.

I don't care if you're Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or whatever your religion is, when you listen to a spiritual song and you really open your heart, you can feel it. You can feel the message of it. Just a simple story.

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. There will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.

According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.

I went on a Buddha jag. I read 'Confession of a Buddhist Atheist' by Stephen Batchelor and Karen Armstrong's biography of Buddha, which is a great book.

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.

A Buddhist or a good atheist is as acceptable to God as a good Catholic.

To me, this is from a Buddhist perspective or whatever, sometimes people who are working out their political beliefs, they can rage against the man, and yet at the same time can be oblivious to their own way of stepping on the foot of the person right next to them.

Anywhere in the world, any day of the week, in 192 countries and territories worldwide, one can find an SGI Buddhist meeting where dialogue is at the fore.

I used a lot of pancake makeup and a prayer, and a Buddhist chant.

My father is an atheist. My mother is Buddhist. They encouraged my siblings and me to take the best part of other religions to make our own belief system.

May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians give strength to you to carry out your noble idea.

Mindfulness is often spoken of as the heart of Buddhist meditation. It's not about Buddhism, but about paying attention. That's what all meditation is, no matter what tradition or particular technique is used.

'The Last Airbender' is genetically engineered for me. I love martial arts. I study it. The movie's based on a lot of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. I was raised Hindu.

I'm a Buddhist and active in my Buddhist's Association, and I'm actually a National Young Women's representative for the organization, so I travel a lot helping young women who are practicing Buddhism.

I think my Buddhist practice has a profound influence on my life and encompasses my creative projects

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

I sort of believe that my voice was preordained; I'm a Buddhist who believes in reincarnation so I think that my voice is a few lifetimes old.

Buddhist practices offer a way of saying, 'Hey, come back over here, reconnect.' The only way that you'll actually wake up and have some freedom is if you have the capacity and courage to stay with the vulnerability and the discomfort.

My first encounter with Buddhist dharma would be in my early 20s. Like most young men, I was not particularly happy.

Right now, I'm following the Buddhist principle: Smile as abuse is hurled your way and this too shall pass.

I think the reason Buddhism and Western psychology are so compatible is that Western psychology helps to identify the stories and the patterns in our personal lives, but what Buddhist awareness training does is it actually allows the person to develop skills to stay in what's going on.

When asked if I consider myself Buddhist, the answer is, Not really. But it's more my religion than any other because I was brought up with it in an intellectual and spiritual environment. I don't practice or preach it, however. But Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them.

Yoga has brought me closer to myself. It's helped me realize the interconnectedness of the mind, body and spirit, in the Buddhist sense of the word.

Well I travelled quite a lot in the east, and one of the things that impressed me greatly was the buddhist notion of the continuity of things, the wheel of life which is what we're talking about, the ever turning wheel.

I am a Buddhist, therefore I should not be collecting anything - however, I have a collection of Buddhas. I have a lot of them.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

I used homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga and meditation in conjunction with my chemotherapy to help me get stronger again after the cancer. I also chanted with Buddhist friends and prayed with Christian friends. I covered all my bases.

I loved science, and when I discovered Buddhist meditative practices and martial arts, I was able to bridge those ways of knowing the world into my own unique way. From that grew the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which became my karmic assignment.

I have had moments where I've had mental-health issues and I've felt like yoga and meditating and reading these Buddhist self-help books actually really help.

I believe forgiveness is possible for everybody, for everything, but I'm a Buddhist.

Because of my Buddhist practice, I'm never lacking for inspiration

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life - if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters.

I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.

I do some compassionate mindfulness every day. It's like a Buddhist thing. I tell myself that I'm doing a good job, that kind of thing. It makes me feel better.

Now I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation, I can let go of everything. I'm not Hugh Jackman. I'm not a dad. I'm not a husband. I'm just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it.

A friend of mine told me a bunch of stuff on Buddhism and about Avicii being the lowest level of Buddhist hell, and it just sort of got stuck in my head. Later on when I went to setup a MySpace, I tried a bunch of names and they were all taken so I just kind of ended up with Avicii and then I got really attached to it.

What I find is that we're all human beings and that it's all very similar, what we believe. At the bottom, there's really not that much difference between Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. We all worship God.

We all have to live together, so we might as well live together happily.

The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.

There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.

I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice.

When she was younger, my mother was quite committed to Roman Catholicism. But she got disillusioned with it and moved closer to something like Buddhist beliefs near the end of her life.

Ju jitsu is very Buddhist. All that we fear we hold close to ourselves to survive. So if you're drowning and you see a corpse floating by, hang on to it because it will rescue you.

My family is Jewish, Buddhist, Baptist and Catholic. I don't believe in man-made religions.

I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.

I want to love all the children of God - Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist - everyone. I want to love gay Christians and straight Christians.

I grew up in a mostly Buddhist environment.

Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.

One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced.

Buddhists talk about nirvana in very much the same terms as monotheists describe God.

I was exposed to a mix of cultures, lots of different religions and beliefs. I was a spiritual kid and went to Indian powwows and Buddhist temples. But over a period of time, with reading and thinking, I started to feel it was all so absurd: The whole idea of life after death is ridiculous.

If you're a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism.

I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that's my religion.

I'm just the worst little Buddhist in town.

In Buddhist culture, offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality, then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness.

What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.

I have always had this view about the modern education system: we pay attention to brain development, but the development of warmheartedness we take for granted.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

I am a practicing Buddhist. I have been for 25 years.

The basic Buddhist stand on the question of equality between the genders is age-old. At the highest tantric levels, at the highest esoteric level, you must respect women: every woman.

I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy - it's serious business.

In our usual mind state, we are continually activating the process that in Buddhist terminology is known as 'bhava,' which literally means 'becoming.' In this space of becoming, we are subtly leaning forward into the future, trying to have security based on feeling that we can hold on, we can try to keep things from changing.

I like change. There's something Buddhist about it - continuous change is wonderful.

One of the happier ironies of recent history is that even as Tibet is being wiped off the map in Tibet itself, here it is in California, in Switzerland, in Japan. All over the world, Tibetan Buddhism is now part of the neighborhood. In 1968, there were two Tibetan Buddhist centers in the West. By 2000, there were 40 in New York alone.

There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.

I do know that some Buddhists are able to attain peace of mind.

I describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. No more, no less.

I have done one thing that I think is a contribution: I helped Buddhist science and modern science combine. No other Buddhist has done that. Other lamas, I don't think they ever pay attention to modern science. Since my childhood, I have a keen interest.

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.

I'm not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I've always liked the Buddhist religion. When I've been to Japan, I've been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.

The idea that Buddhism denies what is called in the West 'individual immortality' is a mistake, so far as the Buddhist scriptures are concerned.

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. And, of course, there are Christian monks and nuns who already use Buddhist methods in order to develop their devotion, compassion, and ability to forgive.

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.

I am a simple Buddhist monk - no more, no less.

I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

He's a Catholic, a Hindy, an atheist, a Chein, a Buddhist, a Baptist and a Jew, and he knows, he shouldn't kill.

Writing generally, it may be said that in design, roof, and general aspect, Japanese Buddhist temples are all alike. The sacred architectural idea expresses itself in nearly the same form always.

Just as the highest and the lowest notes are equally inaudible, so perhaps, is the greatest sense and the greatest nonsense equally unintelligible.

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then , my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.