Buddhist Quotes

Thus we see that the all-important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being lucky or unlucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die; finally, how we choose. We walk, and our religion is shown (even to the dullest and most insensitive person), in how we walk. Living in this world means choosing, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself.
—R. H. Blyth


Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.
—Longchenpa(14th century Tibet)

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
—Shunryu Suzuki


People in the West are always getting ready to live.
—Chinese Proverb


The mind, the Buddha, living creatures - these are not three different things.
—Avatamasaka Sutra


If you live the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.
—Lin-Chi

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
—Dogen

We're all in this together — by ourselves.
—Lily Tomlin

Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky. Sometimes clouds come and cover it, but the moon is always behind them. Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly. So don't worry about clear mind: it is always there. When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind. When thinking goes, there is only clear mind. Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes, You must not be attached to the coming or the going.
—Zen Master Seung Sahn

Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision.
—Hsi-Tang

Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.
—Thich Nhat Hahn

Let us dig our gardens and not be elsewhere:
Let us take long walks in the open air...
Let us bathe in the rivers and lakes...
Let us indulge in games...
Let us be more simple: simple and true in our minds above all. Let us be ourselves.
—Robert Linssen

If you seek, how is that different from pursuing sound and form? If you don't seek, how are you different from earth, wood or stone? You must seek without seeking.
—Fo-Yan

Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop, than when we soar.
—William Wordsworth

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity"
-Albert Einstein