Quotes About Buddhism

Buddhism is a heresy on Hinduism. It was Hinduism that did the dirty work for Buddhism, by the time Buddha came along priest-craft was an ancient tradition in India.

Today we can see many different forms of Buddhism, such as Zen and Theravada Buddhism. All these different aspects are practices of Buddha's teachings, and all are equally precious; they are just different presentations.

Dharma has several connotations in South Asian religions, but in Buddhism it has two basic, interrelated meanings: dharma as 'teaching' as found in the expression Buddha Dharma, and dharma as 'reality-as-is' (abhigama-dharma). The teaching is a verbal expression of reality-as-is that consists of two aspects-the subject that realizes and the object that is realized. Together they constitute 'reality-as-is;' if either aspect is lacking, it is not reality-as-is. This sense of dharma or reality-as-is is also called suchness (tathata) or thatness (tattva) in Buddhism.

There is much appeal for me in Eastern religion, the little I know of it. And something thorny in me finds American adaptations of Buddhism terribly self-indulgent, silly, gooey in the way the English call "wet."

The saying "no self, no problem" probably comes from Zen. In their cultures, where Buddhism is kind of taken for granted, as well as karma, causality, former and future life, and the possibility for becoming enlightened, then it's safe to skirt the danger of nihilism, which would be, I don't exist because Buddha said I have no self, and therefore I have no problem because I don't exist. That would be a bad misunderstanding. But in those cultures, it would not be as easy to have that understanding as it would be here in the west, where we really are nihilistic.

Part of what we seek in Buddhism is the sense of quiet observation. We don't get so involved in a state of mind that we forget that it's just another transient state of mind, no matter how much ecstasy or agony is involved.

Buddhism is perception, gaining control of the mind and directing one's attention, to raise the kundalini energy so that it flows with such volatility and force that we simply perceive life correctly.

The nature of Buddhism, as I understand it, is to believe that we are all pure and radiant at our core. And yet we see around us so much evidence that people are not acting from a place of purity and radiance.

I don't think about what I do. I do it. That's Buddhism. I jump off the cliff and build my wings on the way down.

I believe that everybody has the right to believe what they want to believe and to knock somebody's faith and religion is foolish, whatever it may be - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism.

In Buddhism you study how to release the kundalini to the levels that would certainly afford career success. If we move it further, into the planes of knowledge and wisdom, it enables the practitioner to do just about anything.

I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.

Really, whatever I was seeking and looking into in those days like creative arts, chant, the muse being in touch with the muse for poetry and writing and music. It's all part of the spirit and if we look particularly at Hinduism and Buddhism, the tantric stream of those traditions totally embraces all aspects of human life and life on this world.

All of Chinese thinking - Confucianism, Taoism, as well as Buddhism - contains the idea that in the course of life, man will shape harmoniously those psychic and physical predispositions that he received as capital assets by unifying them and giving them form from within a center.

Celibacy doesn't make you enlightened, otherwise every nun or priest in Buddhism or Christianity would be enlightened. People who don't date and can't get any action would be enlightened.

It is not a Buddhist approach to say that if everyone practiced Buddhism, the world would be a better place. Wars and oppression begin from this kind of thinking.

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.

Buddhism advises you not to implant feelings that you don’t really have or avoid feelings that you do have. If you are miserable you are miserable; that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching. When you are having a bad time, examine that experience, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics. The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can’t trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is freedom.

The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.

To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.

Prajñāpāramitā Buddhism is not a religion suitable for the brainless

What I find difficult about Buddhism, though it is also one of its significant fascinations, is the focus on what is immediately and physically present. To me, this seems a denial of the imagination, and the imagination is very important to me.

The essential premise of Buddhism is that there is enlightenment, there is nirvana. Beyond this world, beyond all worlds, there's something radiant, perfect and eternal.

The more truthful I am with myself and others, the more my conscience is clear and tranquil. Thus, I can more thoroughly and unequivocally inhabit the present moment and accept everything that happens without fear, knowing that what goes around comes around (the law of karma). Ethical morality and self-discipline represent the good ground, or stable basis. Mindful awareness is the skillful and efficacious grow-path, or way. Wisdom and compassion constitute the fruit, or result. This is the essence of Buddhism [...]

It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time.

I'm culturally Jewish but, like most scientists, an atheist: I don't believe there's a God or supernatural world. Buddhism offers guidance on what to do in a world without God: It opines that truly being present in the world‚ experiencing and hanging out with your loved ones, provides all the significance you could want.

Buddhism in one long prayer.

Buddha himself taught different teachings to different people under different circumstances. For some people, there are beliefs based on a Creator. For others, no Creator. The only "definitive truth" for Buddhism is the absolute negation of any one truth as the Definitive Truth.

Your Buddhism has made you mean Ray and makes you even afraid to take your clothes off for a simple healthy orgy

I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless smaller infections. Is there a conflict between science and religion here? There most certainly is.

I used to live in Buddhist monasteries and I finally had to leave them because they were just too cluttered for me. They were cluttered up with many thoughts about Buddhism.

I think when religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism - as well as Christianity and Judaism - were founded, at that time societies were generally male-dominated. So, therefore this social notion also influenced religion.

I could justify violence only in this extreme case, to save the last living knowledge of Buddhism itself.

Fundamentally, Buddhism is for the awakenment and benefit of beings. So, you can't say, "Oh, you can't have it because you're not ready for it." That goes against the fundamental principle.

Ultimately, I hope Jesus will save Buddhism, Islam and every other religion, including the Christian religion, which often seems to need saving about as much as any other religion does.

When you think of Buddhism, you're likely to think of peace and tranquility.

To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, 'Don't cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.'

Life isn't complicated. The reason it appears complicated to you is because you are in a very distorted state of mind. That's the basic premise of Buddhism - that you're in a very distorted state of mind.

I've worked in the prison system, on death row and maximum security. I did that work for six years. I've worked with some of the most difficult people in our society. Buddhism was accessible and helpful for these individuals.

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt.

A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.

All the other religions I had ever read about dealt with the idea of God, and your relationship with God. Buddhism is the only religion that deals with man himself and the nature of the mind - how to deal with yourself and your condition, here and now, as opposed to having to deal with something outside yourself.

But for me if I'm gonna read about something I'd rather read a pamphlet or the instructions to a synthesizer than a book on Buddhism.

What I like about Tibetan Buddhism is it was taken to Tibet in the 7th century and then again in the 11th. It has everything that had been collected in India up until that time. And so on all levels, it's so vast.