Your favorite quotes.

General forum on the teachings of all schools of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Topics specific to one school are best posted in the appropriate sub-forum.
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ground
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by ground »

An alltime non-favorite
"If I were to set up a Dharma to teach you, it would not be leading you. If I were to set up a Dharma, it would be deceiving you; it would be failing you. If I had a Dharma, how could I explain it to someone else? How could I speak of it to you? It comes down to this: If there are terms and written words, all of it will deceive you. How could I tell you even a mustard seed's worth of the meaning of the great path? If I could speak of it, what purpose would that serve?"

Master Yüan; The Bodhidharma Anthology, J. L Broughton
muni
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by muni »

Kashyapa, a belief in a self as huge as Mt Sumeru is easy to destroy, but the belief in emptiness with deep conceit is not destroyed so easily.

Shakyamuni Buddha.
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Grigoris
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Grigoris »

I deplore this vulgar place where demons dwell with worthies.
They say they're the same, but is the Tao impartial?
A fox might ape a lion's mien and claim the disguise is real,
but once ore enters the furnace, we soon see if it's gold or base.

Hanshan
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Mr. G
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Mr. G »

  • Although your realization is equal to that of the buddhas', make offerings
    to the Three Jewels. Although you have gained mastery over your mind, direct
    your innermost aims towards the Dharma. Although the nature of the Great
    Perfection is supreme, don't disparage other teachings.

    Although you have realized that buddbas and sentient beings are equal,
    embrace all beings with compassion. Although the paths and bhumis are beyond
    training and journeying, don't forsake purifying your obscurations through
    Dharma activities. Although the accumulations are beyond gathering, don't
    sever the roots of conditioned virtue.

    Although your mind lies beyond birth and death, this illusory body does
    die, so practice while remembering death. Although you experience dharmata
    free from thought, maintain the attitude of bodhichitta. Although you have
    attained the fruition of dharmakaya, keep company with your yidam deity.

    Although dharmakaya is not some other place, seek the true meaning. Although
    buddhahood is not anywhere else, dedicate any virtue you create towards
    unexcelled enlightenment. Although everything experienced is original
    wakefulness, don't let your mind stray into samsara.

    Although your mind essence is the awakened one, always worship the deity
    and your master. Although you have realized the nature of the Great Perfection,
    don't abandon your yidam deity. Those who, instead of doing this, speak foolishly
    with boastful words only damage the Three Jewels and will find not even
    an instant of happiness.


    - Guru Padmasambhava - The Jewel Spike Testament
  • How foolish you are,
    grasping the letter of the text and ignoring its intention!
    - Vasubandhu
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by muni »

"Lo! This is the self-aware primordial wisdom. It is beyond all avenues of speech and all thoughts of mind. I, Tilopa have nothing further to reveal. Know all to be the display of awareness. Without imagining, without deliberating, without analyzing, without meditating, without investigating, just let the mind be in its natural state." - India Mahasiddha Tilopa
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by muni »

Maitreya: ordinary beings are truly buddhas but this fact is obscured by adventitious distortions. Once these are removed, truly there is buddhahood.
Huseng
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Huseng »

One should live with few possessions
And dwell with one's back turned
To the things that cause grasping
Be as a wanderer in foreign lands
Taking food as it is found
Like the birds in migration.


-Atiśa
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by muni »

If you show a small child the moon, it will look to the moon. If you show a dog the moon, dog will look to your finger.
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Ogyen
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Ogyen »

Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator.
Do not become enlightened.
When you sit, let it be.
When you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing.
Resist nothing.
If you haven’t wept deeply, you haven’t begun to meditate.

- Ajahn Chah
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by White Lotus »

i love Ajahn Chah!
in any matters of importance. dont rely on me. i may not know what i am talking about. take what i say as mere speculation. i am not ordained. nor do i have a formal training. i do believe though that if i am wrong on any point. there are those on this site who i hope will quickly point out my mistakes.
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Mr. G
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Mr. G »

Not a Mahayana quote, but I like this one:
  • Passāmi naṁ manasā cakkhunā va,
    I see him in my mind as though with the eye,

    rattindivaṁ brāhmaṇa appamatto.
    (as I dwell) heedful night and day, brahmin.

    Namassamāno vivasemi rattiṁ,
    revering him I make the night pass by,

    ten’ eva maññāmi avippavāsaṁ.
    for that reason I think there is no (real) dwelling apart


    http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/T ... /index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
  • How foolish you are,
    grasping the letter of the text and ignoring its intention!
    - Vasubandhu
JohnJigmeHeimrShmidt
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by JohnJigmeHeimrShmidt »

Always take the lowest place. Wear simple clothes. Help other beings as much as you can. In everything you do, simply work at developing love and compassion until they have become a fundamental part of you.
- Patrul Rinpoche, Words of My Perfect Teacher
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Ogyen
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Ogyen »

JohnJigmeHeimrShmidt wrote:
Always take the lowest place. Wear simple clothes. Help other beings as much as you can. In everything you do, simply work at developing love and compassion until they have become a fundamental part of you.
- Patrul Rinpoche, Words of My Perfect Teacher
this text is loaded with 'favorite quotes' huh? I think the book IS a favorite quote...
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by AilurusFulgens »

Lest we forget.
Solzhenitsyn on evil

From "The Gulag Archipelago"

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.

Socrates taught us: "Know thyself."

Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the way things worked out that they were the executioners and we weren't.

From good to evil is one quaver, says the proverb.

And correspondingly, from evil to good.
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by muni »

If I had been taming own mind, I already had been awaken.

Alas! I have too much work in taming others!
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by muni »

It's not the appearance that binds you, it's the attachment to the appearance that binds you.

Tilopa
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Shanti
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Shanti »

"All beings and I awaken together."

-- The Buddha, at the moment of his enlightenment

“Live as if everything in the past dissolved yesterday, and all the future begins today.”

-- a Buddhist monk (I believe he was a Zen master)

The Dalai Lama's 18 rules for living:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs: 1. Respect for self 2. Respect for others 3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Also, I love anything from the Dhammapada, and anything from His Holiness the Dalai Lama's books.

:namaste:
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greentreee
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by greentreee »

The Buddha Dharma is in the world
Awakening is not apart from the world
If you seek enlightenment apart from the world
It is like seeking a rabbit with horns.

the Sixth Patriarch Huineng
scratching thick hair'd head,
"if air can be conditioned,
like where's the shampoo?"

"greentreee"
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Wesley1982
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by Wesley1982 »

"Sun faced Buddha, Moon faced Buddha" . .
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Re: Your favorite quotes.

Post by muni »

You may possess the power and might of a world ruler, but unless you gain mastery over your own mind, when the time of death arrives you still haven’t attained the power of freedom. So gain mastery over your mind!

Guru Rinpoche.
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