Showing posts with label Buddhist quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddhist quotes. Show all posts

Monday, October 20, 2025

What is 'gained' by enlightenment?


If the great problem in life is clinging (upadana) to illusions -- such as things being able to satisfy/fulfill us, things being permanent, and things being personal -- then the great awakening to their true nature as suffering, impermanent, and impersonal, we suddenly are able to let go, internally renounce (nekkhamma), and awaken (bodhi). The great awakening to Truth sets us from and allows us to lay down the burden we have carried in this samsara, this wheel of life after life meeting with suffering in this form or that, in this plane or that, within this sphere or that. It is like breathing a sigh of relief with tears of joy that there is an escape, a freeing oneself from the thicket of views, and finding peace. That is one way to look at it. But it is much more joyful and blissful than Anand is letting on. Imagine years of imprisonment then being released. Imagine painful illness then getting well. Imagine being in a shadowy world or illusions and goblins then stepping into the light. Nirvana is like that.
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Sunday, February 23, 2025

What sets Buddhism apart? (Ego podcast)


What sets Buddhism apart from other religions?
Ego Podcast (Buddhism) Feb. 23, 2025: Buddhism Explained. Experience a wisdom that permanently transforms – not just temporarily soothes. When we hear the word “wisdom,” we often imagine calming, wise sayings that bring a temporary sense of peace.


But the Buddha’s wisdom goes far beyond that. This video explores how the Buddha’s teachings offer a transformative training of the mind/heart -- a real path to ending suffering (disappointment, pain, misery) rather than merely providing comforting words. Discover:
  • Beyond the Surface: How conventional wise sayings compare with the deep, practical training offered by the Buddha.
  • The Buddha’s approach to identifying suffering as stemming from our own desires and cravings.
  • The Real Problem and True Transformation: Why true wisdom demands dissecting (analyzing) the mind to see the real causes of suffering.
  • How the Buddha’s insight into the nature of craving (tanha) and clinging (upadana) leads to genuine liberation (nirvana).
  • The Training of Wisdom: The role of the Noble Eightfold Path and threefold training (virtue, concentrated calm, and insight) in cultivating lasting inner peace.
  • Practical steps to replace superficial wisdom with a transformative, embodied understanding.
TIMESTAMPS
  • 00:00 – Introduction: Beyond Wise Sayings
  • 03:00 – The Limitations of Conventional Wisdom
  • 07:00 – The Buddha’s Diagnosis: Suffering and Craving
  • 12:00 – Transformative Training: Virtue, Concentrated Calm, and Wisdom
  • 17:00 – Realizing True Liberation and Ending Suffering
Join the journey: If ready to move beyond mere words and into a practice that truly transforms the mind, please like, share, and subscribe for more in-depth explorations of Buddhist wisdom and its practical application. #BuddhaWisdom #BuddhistTeachings #TrueTransformation #Mindfulness #Enlightenment
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Saturday, March 25, 2023

Quotes: Buddhist and Ancient Roman (video)

While the Buddha didn't say this as such, the sentiment is certainly a good one and true.

Ancient philosophers' life lessons people wished they knew sooner
(Quotes) Jan. 3, 2023. This livestream is made from the best quotes in the world and we expect these life quotes to make us change our attitude to the world. These quotes are worth noting or taking screenshots of to save them in a collection for inspiration. On this quotes stream, quotes are broadcasting 24/7. #quotes 

Top 30 Buddha quotes on life that can teach us beautiful life lessons
(Words of Wisdom) Jan. 8, 2021 Gautam Buddha (the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama) was one of the greatest enlightened persons on earth. Here are some of the best quotes attributed to him -- even though many were never said by him but are beautiful or strange translations of something he did say. In any case, they can teach us some valuable life lessons. #words_of_wisdom_channel
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Friday, February 10, 2023

Pema Chodron quote when we don't feel right

Nicole Cameron (elephant journal, 1/11/23); Ananda (DBM), Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
You want to watch the Big Game rather than come with me to yoga class to get closer?
.
Author Nicole Cameron (elephant journal)
Lately, I’ve had the sensation that I’m crawling out of my skin. It’s a constant state of discomfort -- of not being able to sit without feeling antsy.

[It's a feeling] of not being able to lay down without adjusting and readjusting, of feeling like there’s something I’m forgetting to do, of wanting things to feel “just right” but not being able to reach that imaginary point.

I’m not drowning in unhappiness, and I’m not facing major personal drama at the moment. In fact, things feel relatively calm on one level.
Listen to my podcast, Nicole! I'm Sahara Rose!
On another level, there’s a buzz of excitement…of plans and moments that I’m looking forward to. And still, my mind and body struggle to relax. I try to rest, to listen to meditations and will my mind to settle. I pray and light candles and sage [smudge] my space until I get scared I’m going to set the smoke detector off.

I move my body. I stretch and do yoga sun salutations. I dance salsa and swing my kettle bell. I breathe and bend and squat until it feels like my legs are begging for mercy. But that current of discomfort remains a quiet, nagging whisper.

Kendall is miserable when she gets anxious.
My anxiety likes to convince me that this feeling is proof that something is wrong or that if something isn’t wrong right now, it’s most certainly coming ― so I better be ready.
My stubbornness tells me that I just haven’t found the right cure, the right mix of self-care practices, that will allow me to chill the f*ck out. That maybe a different meditation or podcast or ritual will do the trick.

My optimism tells me that I just need to be more gracious, that I need to be outwardly thankful for all the good in my life. That if I can focus more on the positive, those antsy feelings will slowly disappear. 

American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron understands
My anger tells me that I’m holding something in that needs to burst out, that it’s time to take all my latent frustration out on whoever is closest, consequences be damned.

My rational mind tells me I need to call my therapist. The truth is that I could try all of these things and still feel like I want to bust out of my skin.

...Instead, I can be guided by these words from American Vajrayana Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön:

“We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have any fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.”

As crappy as this feeling is, it is also proof of life ― of my life in this moment. It is my fresh air. More
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Friday, December 9, 2022

100 quotes by the historical Buddha (video)

Relaxation and Learn, 2018; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
WARNING: Be wary of anything attributed to the historical Buddha. There are fake quotes around.

100 quotes by Gautama Buddha
(Relax and Learn) The author these saying is the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. Katie Haigh is the narrator. Gautama Buddha was also known as Prince Siddharta Gautama, or simply "the Buddha, which means the "Awakened One" or "Enlightened One." Born a prince in Central Asia (Gandhara), he chose a path of wandering ascetism only to realize that extreme austerity was as misguided an illusion as luxurious self-indulgence. He achieved awakening after years of meditation.

The Buddha taught awakening.
(WQ) This great awakening consisted of his rediscovery of the cause of all our suffering and the way to eliminate it. This realization led to the founding of Buddhism (not by the Buddha but by Ven. Maha Kassapa, a prominent enlightened disciple), and the Four Ennobling Truths form the heart of Buddhism's little understood teachings.

All life is not suffering. Rather, all planes of existence are beset by unsatisfactoriness, disappointment, and the inability to fulfill us.

Realizing this, one sets off on the path of letting go of the cause of our suffering, which is threefold: desire, aversion, and delusion.

It is really delusion (wrong view, ignorance) that is at the root of all suffering, but the Buddha points to craving (desire, thirst, tanha) as the cause we can do something about here and now, a lynchpin, realizing that we are clingy and can thereby let go when we see the harm we are doing to ourselves and others.

The realization that there is a state of complete freedom from suffering (nirvana) leads us to pursue the path to this attainment, which is called the Ennobling Eightfold Path. "Noble" (arya) means "enlightened" or "awakened."

Music SONG How to Cope with Stress: Exercise 2 (Pranayama) ARTIST Stuart Walker & John Mac ALBUM How to Cope with Stress: Guided Relaxation and Music LICENSES Get YouTube Premium Music
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Monday, December 5, 2022

These Buddha quotes are life changing

Quotes (Dec. 15, 2021), Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

These Buddha quotes are life changing
(Quotes) The Buddha was a wandering ascetic (shramana), a spiritual leader and teacher who lived in ancient Gandhara (Central Asia) and India (South Asia).

The Buddha is regarded as the founder of the world religion of Buddhism and revered by Buddhists and others as an awakened (enlightened) being, who rediscovered an ancient path to freedom from suffering, craving, aversion, and ignorance, the otherwise endless cycle of rebirth and suffering.

Here are a few sayings of the Buddha, mixed in with a few fake Buddha quotes (like the last two). The best quotes and aphorisms of the Buddha make us pause and think about many things in life. The words of the Buddha are definitely worth our time.

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ABOUT: Quotes works to give new life to famous words said through the centuries. Let this channel be an inexhaustible source of wisdom, to which all can come back at any given moment. Subscribe. #quotes #Buddha #quote
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Sunday, July 19, 2020

The Dalai Lama's Koan (Insight LA)

Trudy Goodman (insightLA.org); Amber Larson, Ananda (DBM), A. Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Decades ago in the 1970s, before the Dalai Lama became famous, his smiling face was on the cover of a newspaper called The Snow Lion.

The quote under it struck me so powerfully that I cut out the cover page and stuck it on the kitchen cupboard.

There it yellowed and tattered over the years and is long gone, but I always remember what he said: “Maybe I am the last Dalai Lama. It’s all right. There’s nothing wrong.”

These words shook me, a young Buddhist practitioner. How can it be all right for the Dalai Lama's legacy and tradition to disappear in the slow genocide China is unfolding in Tibet? How to understand what he said, given how much his people rely on his compassionate and courageous leadership?

Hey, what's this, Commandant?
Uttered in the context of Tibet’s tragedy, these words became a koan. “It’s all right. There’s nothing wrong” inspired me through many hard and sad times in my life.

I remember sitting quietly in the meditation hall, tears of grief streaming down my face, simultaneously knowing that deep down, everything’s still okay.

Mysteriously, it is all right, all of it, not the breezy all right of “it’s all good,” which can be a dismissal or denial of reality, but the “all right” of humbly embracing our broken-heartedness with loving awareness.

Then we can discover the “all right” of compassionate presence and act wisely, responding with grace and humor.

Next time you feel that all is lost, try sitting down right in the midst of this grief, rage, or despair. Sitting and walking mindfully in meditation, it’s easier to be with ourselves more kindly and loving.

Through the courage to meet life as it is and drink it in -- straight up -- we embody the compassion of our clear, radiant true nature, deeply knowing: Yes, this heart is aching. And it’s all right. There’s nothing wrong.

Love, Trudy Goodman,
Founder of insightLA.org

Let's connect. Register now for these upcoming affinity groups, practice groups, and special events.


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Friday, July 17, 2020

“Rule your mind or it will rule you”

Bodhipaksa (fakebuddhaquotes.com) edited by Dhr. Seven, Ananda, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly
While this quote is not Buddhist in origin, it is close. The Buddha gives similar advice in the Dhammapada. Anger is no friend.

It is a derived English translation of the Roman poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus). It came from something he wrote in Latin in a letter to his friend, Lollius Maximus: Ira furor brevis est; animum rege, qui, nisi paret, imperat; hunc frenis, hunc tu compesce catena.

R.M. Millington translated it in his book The Epistles of Horace in Rhythmic Prose, for the Student (1870):

“Rage is brief madness; so, then, for it is or the slave or lord. Restrain the mind with bridle and with chain.”

H. P. Haughton’s archaic translation in The Classical Student’s Translation of Horace (1844) is:

“Ire is a brief fury; rule you your mind; which unless it obeys, commands. This do you restrain with curbs, this do you restrain with a chain.”


The style here, particularly the final sentence, is close to early Buddhist scriptures. A more modern translation of the same passage by David Ferry (The Epistles of Horace, 2001) has:

"…A fit of rage
Is a fit of honest-to-goodness genuine madness.
Keep control of your passions. If you don’t,
Your passions are sure to get control of you.
Keep control of them, bridle them, keep them in chains."

In the 1926 edition of Putnam’s Complete Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words (p. 490), edited by William Gurney Benham, the quote is given as:

Animum rege, qui, nisi paret,
Imperat.
"Rule your mind, which, unless it is your servant, is your
master."
(Horace, Ep., 2, Part 1)

Horace inspired by devi muses.
This is different than the quote in question, which is actually from the index of the book, where references to the actual quotes are arranged by theme.

“Rule your mind or it will rule you” is found twice, under “Inclination” and also under “Mind.” The wording given is not meant to be a translation of Horace, but rather a summary of what Horace was saying.

In fact, the index suggests that this paraphrase also applies to another quote, on page 559. So “Rule your mind or it will rule you” paraphrases Horace rather than directly translating him.

Over the decades, however, the paraphrase in the index came to be presented as a direct quote of Horace.

The Buddha says many things like this in the Dhammapada or "The Imprint or Way of the Dharma," that parallels this Latin phrase. He compares spiritual training with training a wild animal, like a young elephant brought out of the jungle to be tamed, trained, and put to good use. For example, in two translated verses of the Dhammapada run:

322. Excellent are well-trained mules, thoroughbred Sindhu horses, and noble tusker elephants. But better still is one who has subdued oneself.

323. Not by these mounts [animals one travels on such as the garuda], however, would one go to the Untrodden Land (nirvana), as one who is self-tamed goes by one's own tamed and well-controlled mind.

In the Numerical Discourses of the Buddha (Anguttara Nikaya) the Buddha says:

"Meditators, I know not of any other single thing so conducive to great loss as the untamed mind. The untamed mind indeed conduces to great loss.

"Meditators, I know not of any other single thing so conducive to great profit as the tamed mind. The tamed mind indeed conduces to great profit."

Another verse from the Dhammapada reads:

42. "Whatever harm an enemy may do to an enemy, or a hater to a hater, an ill-directed mind inflicts on oneself a greater harm."

New Age sentiments (fakebuddhaquotes.com)
The Buddha seems to have in mind an understanding similar to what Horace later wrote and expressed differently.

In one extended metaphor, the Buddha says that six wild animals tied together would all try to run off in different directions. The overall direction they would take would depend on the competing desires and relative strengths of the different beasts.

This collection represents the mind (as one of the six senses) divided and pulled in all directions by competing urges arising as sense desires or cravings.

Mindfulness is the solution the Buddha offers, for it acts like a stake placed in the ground to which the six may be fixed and brought under control then pacified then used for insight and liberation:

“It is just as if a person, catching six animals of different ranges and habitats, were to bind them with a strong rope. Catching a snake, one would bind it with a strong rope. Catching a crocodile… a bird… a dog… a hyena… a monkey, one would bind it with a strong rope. Binding them of all with a strong rope, one would tether them to a strong post or stake in the ground.

“Then those six animals, of different ranges and habitats, would each pull toward its own range and habitat. The snake would pull thinking, ‘I’ll go into the anthill.’ The crocodile would pull thinking, ‘I’ll go into the water.’ The bird would pull thinking, ‘I’ll go up into the air.’ The dog would pull thinking, ‘I’ll go into the village.’ The hyena would pull thinking, ‘I’ll go into the charnel ground.’ The monkey would pull thinking, ‘I’ll go into the forest.’

"And when these six animals become exhausted, they stand, sit, or lie down next to the post or stake.

"In the same way, when a meditator pursues and develops mindfulness fixed on the body,
  • the eye does not pull toward pleasing forms, and displeasing forms are not regarded as repulsive.
  • The ear does not pull toward pleasing sounds…
  • The nose does not pull toward pleasing aromas…
  • The tongue does not pull toward pleasing flavors…
  • The body does not pull toward pleasing tactile sensations…
  • The mind does not pull toward pleasing mental phenomena, and displeasing mental phenomena are not regarded as repulsive. This, meditators, is restraint.”
He said, "Do all that is good, avoid all bad."
If we watch our minds for any length of time in meditation, we notice that it does in fact dart here and there like a monkey suffering from ADHD.

Staying with an object of meditation (e.g., the breath or a sensation) is extremely difficult. But mindfulness, as it strengthens, gives us the power to notice when the mind goes astray. And as we notice we gain the power to bring it back to the object.

Since many of the thoughts to which the mind would turn if it were left unrestrained would reinforce anxiety, anger, doubt, and so on, we find ourselves growing calmer and happier. A mind compassionately and mindfully restrained is a happy mind. More
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