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52 Buddha Quotes On Life, Meditation and Peace

March 14, 2015(2015­03­14T20:13:02+00:00) by Sunil Daman<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hindu2/author/sdaman/>

CC­BY Edward Dalmuder Flickr:https://www.flickr.com/photos/edwarddalmulder/4793748511/

Gautama the Buddha, the enlightened being who is known as the founder ofBuddhism has been a guiding light for spiritual seekers for over 2500 years. Here are52 memorable Gautama Buddha quotes on a variety of topics.

Buddha Quotes AppYou may also be interested in the Spiritual Quote of the Day AndroidApp<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.patheos.hindu2>,which includes quotes from Gautama Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi,Swami Vivekananda and many more great beings.

Buddha Quotes on the MindAll wrong­doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong­doingremain?

What we think, we become.

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing soobedient as a disciplined mind.

Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.

Buddha Quotes on Truth and SpiritualityTo conquer oneself is a greater task than conquering others.

You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walkthe path.

Purity or impurity depends on oneself. No one can purify another.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they doyou if you do not act on upon them?

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

Three things can not hide for long: the Moon, the Sun and the Truth.

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

Those who have failed to work toward the truth have missed the purpose of living.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all theway, and not starting.

In separateness lies the world’s greatest misery; in compassion lies the world’s truestrength.

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh atthe sky.

If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.

If you find no one to support you on the spiritual path, walk alone. There is nocompanionship with the immature.

Learn this from water: loud splashes the brook but the oceans depth are calm.

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

If you knew what I know about the power of giving you would not let a single meal passwithout sharing it in some way.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory isyours. It cannot be taken from you.

Look within, thou art the Buddha.

CC­BY­ND (http://www.flickr.com/photos/16230215@N08/8116798003)

Buddha Quotes on Life, Peace and LoveThe whole secret of existence is to have no fear.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying willdo you no good.

There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will notbe shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Buddha Quotes on WisdomEven death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, lovingand fearless.

You only lose what you cling to.

Pain is certain, suffering is optional.

As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of yourlife.

The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There’s only one moment for you tolive.

Even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind, so are the wise unshaken by praise or

blame.

Wear your ego like a loose fitting garment.

The trouble is, you think you have time.

A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is notconsidered a good man because he is a good talker.

People with opinions just go around bothering one another.

Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.

There isn’t enough darkness in all the world to snuff out the light of one little candle.

One moment can change a day, one day can change a life and one life can change theworld.

?Imagine that every person in the world is enlightened but you. They are all yourteachers, each doing just the right things to help you.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and beinfluenced by them for good or ill.

True love is born from understanding.

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This isan unalterable law.

More Buddha QuotesEvery morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.

Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.

Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.

If you are facing in the right direction, all you need to do is keep on walking.

Buddha Quotes App

Don’t forget: More Buddha quotes are available in the Spiritual Quote ofthe Day Android App<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.patheos.hindu2>.

Buddha Quotes | About Gautama BuddhaGautama Buddha the renowned founder of Buddhism, was born in a princelyKshatriya family of Kapilavastu in the Nepalese Tarai to the north of the Basti districtin Uttar Pradesh. His father’s name was Suddhodhana and his mother was Maya. Shedied in childbirth and her son who was given the name of Siddhartha was brought upby his aunt and step­mother, Prajapati Gautami. His family name was Gautama. Afterthe name of the Sakya tribe to which his father belonged he was also called Sakya­Sinha, or lion amongst the Sakyas, and later on, Sakya­Muni or sage amongst theSakyas. At the age of sixteen he was married to a lady named Yasodhara (also calledBhadda Kachchami, Subhadraka, Bimba or Gopa).

For the next thirteen years Siddhartha lived a luxurious life in his father’s palace till atlast the vision of old age, disease and death made him realise the hollowness of worldlypleasures and its attractions so intensely that the very night on which a son was bornto him he felt the fetters of earthly life growing stronger than before and left hisfather’s comfortable home, his beloved young and beautiful wife as well as his newbornson and assumed the life of a wandering monk determined to find out a way of escapefi·om the sufferings of disease, old age and death to which all persons were prey. At thetime of this Great Renunciation Gautama was only twenty­nine years of age. For oneyear he studied Indian philosophy, but it gave him no solution.

Then for the next five years he practised severe austerities hoping thereby to find theway to salvation. His yogic practices may have included hathayoga<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hindu2/2015/01/a­few­hatha­yoga­articles/>, yogasanas,kriya yoga and other processes to raise the kundalini. He is known to have spent timewith many yogic teachers. The samana tradition is an ancient yogic tradition that alsoincluded Mahavir Jain, the founder of Jainism. But all proved futile. Then one day ashe sat immersed in deep meditation under the famous Bodhi tree of modern BodhGaya on the bank of the Niranjana, enlightenment came to him and he realised thetruth. Henceforth he came to be known as the Buddha or the Enlightened and decidedto spend the rest of his life in preaching the truth as he saw it. He delivered his firstsermon at the Deer Park at Sarnath near Benaras where five disciples joined him.

From that time for the next forty­five years Buddha moved about the Gangetic valley inUttar Pradesh and Bihar preaching and teaching, visiting and converting princes aswell as peasants, irrespective of caste, organising his disciples in the great BuddhistSangha or Order, endowing it with rules and discipline and converting hundreds andthousands to his death which came to be known as Buddhism (q.v.). He died at the ageof eighty at Kusinagara which has been identified by many archaeologists with Kasia inthe Gorakhpur district. The date of his Parinirvana or decease, like the date of hisbirth, has not yet been decided with accuracy, though it is admitted by all that he wascontemporary with kings Bimbisara and Ajatasatru of Magadha and died in the reignof the latter. According to a Cantonese tradition Buddha passed away in 486 B.C. Hewas, then, born eighty years earlier, in 566 B.c.

Gautama Buddha is a unique figure amongst the founders of religions. First, he isdefinitely a historical person. Secondly, he claimed no divinity for himself anddiscouraged any idea of being worshiped. He only claimed that he had attained‘knowledge’ which again he held could be attained by any other person provided hemade the necessary effort. Thirdly, he was the first founder of a religion who organiseda brotherhood of monks and started evangelization in an organised manner bypeaceful means alone carrying the message of equality, peace, mercy. Lastly, he putreason above everything and exhorted his followers to accept nothing as true unless itstood the test of reasoning. He not only preached the brotherhood of man but alsopractised it all through his life as a religious teacher accepting as his disciples all whocared to listen to him without any consideration of caste and race and thus founding areligion which eventually passed beyond the limits of India and became one of theworld’s greatest religions.

Buddha Quotes About BuddhismBuddhism is commonly mistaken with tantra yoga and kundaliniyoga<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hindu2/2015/02/the­truth­about­tantra­yoga/>, thanksto the Tibetan Buddhism versions. These are the versions that are associated with theDalai Lama, mandalas and other such types. But these misunderstandings (tantra yogaitself has nothing to do with sexuality) are only recent. Buddhism the religion foundedby Gautama Buddha in the latter half of the sixth century BC. It started with the basic

principles of rebirth and karma which were then accepted by Indian philosophers astruths which required no proof. The karma doctrine means that the merits anddemerits of a being in his past existences determine his condition in the present life.The doctrine of rebirth implies that at death the body perishes, but the soul which isimmortal, takes new births until it attains salvation. But according to the Buddhistview the connecting link between a firmer existence and a later one is not to be foundin the soul, the existence and immortality of which are assumed by Hindu philosophersbut denied by Buddhism. On the death of a person the only thing that survives is notthe soul, as the Hindus hold, but the result of his action, speech and thought, that is tosay, his karma (doings) which docs not die with the body.

Buddhism thus came to be based on what was claimed to be the four Noble Truths: (I)There is suffering in lite. (2) This suffering has a cause. (3) Suffering must be caused tocease. (4) Suffering can cease if one knows the right way. Buddhism holds that thesuffering inseparably connected with existence is mainly due to desire, to a cravingthirst for satisfying the senses. Therefore the extinction of desire will lead to thecessation of existence by rebirth and of consequent suffering. Desire can beextinguished if one followed the Noble Eightfold Path which consists of the following: (l) right views or beliefs meaning simply a knowledge of the Four Noble Truths and ofthe doctrine of rebirth and karma implied in them. (2) Right aims implying thedetermination to renounce pleasures, to bear no malice and do no harm. (3) Rightspeech implying abstention from falsehood, slandering, harsh words and foolish talk.(4) Right conduct or action involving abstention from taking life, from stealing andfrom immorality. (5) Right means of livelihood implying occupations which do nothurt or endanger any living being. (6) Right endeavour involving active benevolenceand love towards all beings as well as efforts to prevent the growth of evil thoughts inthe mind. (7) Right mindfulness meaning complete self­mastery by means of self­knowledge. (8) Right meditation which is to be practised in a quiet place sitting withbody erect and intelligence alert and thought concentrated on the Four Noble Truths.

This Noble Eightfold Path is also called the Middle Path, for it avoided extremes ofluxury as well as of austerity. By the pursuit of it persons will attain Nirvana which isthe highest goal of a Buddhist. Buddhism repudiates the authority of the Vedas, deniesthe spiritual efficacy of Vedic rites and sacrifices, denies the efficacy of prayers andpractically ignores the existence of a Supreme Being or God. It holds that theacceptance of the Four Noble Truths and the pursuit of the Noble Eightfold Path whichis open to all, irrespective of caste and sex, laymen as well as monks and nuns, will leadto the extinction of desire and this will lead to Nirvana which it is possible to attaineven in this life and will free a person from the curse of re­birth. It holds that it iseasier for a monk living a secluded life to attain Nirvana but it is also open to layBuddhists to attain the same. The Buddhist monks are not priests and they can prayneither for themselves nor for others who may wish to employ them. They arc anintellectual aristocracy like the Brahmans and are to be maintained by piousBuddhists. Buddhism requires no church or temple, but it recognises congregationaldiscourses where the teachings of Gautama Buddha are recited and explained. Thefounder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha, himself is to be recognised as a supremelywise person who has known the truth, but not as God to whom prayers can beaddressed.

It was spread by Gautama Buddha during his lifetime in the Gangetic valley of UttarPradesh and of Bihar. About 250 years after the decease of Gautama Buddha EmperorAsoka embraced the religion, sent Buddhist missionaries throughout India as well asto many countries outside India and thus started Buddhism on its victorious careerwhich gradually turned it into a world religion. But it eventually disappeared from theland of its birth for a variety of causes. The wealth of the monasteries and the easy lifethere which soon attracted many undesirable and unworthy inmates, the

preponderance of the monks over the laity, the gradual replacement of the earlierethical idealism of Buddhism by the ritualism of the Mahayana , the support that laterBuddhism gave to Tantricism which was marked by various vicious and immoralpractices, the reorganisation and re­vitalization of Hinduism by Sankara and Kumarilaand finally the Muhammadan invasions of India­all combined to bring about thedecline and fall of Buddhism in India, though it still counts one­third of the world’spopulation as its followers.

Buddhist Councils were held four times. The First Council met at Rajagriha (modernRajgir) in Bihar soon after the death of Gautama Buddha. It was attended by theBuddhist elders (Theras) and was presided over by one of Buddha’s prominentBrahman disciples, named Mahakassapa. As Buddha had left none of his teachings inwriting so at this Council three of his disciples, Kasyapa, the most learned, Upali, theoldest and Ananda, the most favoured of Buddha’s disciples, recited his teachingswhich were at first learnt orally and transmitted by teachers to disciples and weremuch later on put down in writing. A century later a Second Council of the Buddhistelders met at Vaisali to settle a dispute that had arisen by that time amongst theBuddhist monks on certain questions of discipline. The Council decided in favour ofrigid discipline and revised the Buddhist scriptures which were still unwritten. A ThirdCouncil met, according to tradition, 236 years after the death of Buddha, under thepatronage of King Asoka Maurya. It was presided over by monk Tissa Moggaliputta,the author of the Kathavattu, a sacred Buddhist text. This Council is believed to havedrawn up the Buddhist canon in the final form of the Tripitaka or the Three Baskets,and gave its decisions on all disputed points. If the Sarnath Pillar Edict of Asoka iscorrectly believed to have been issued after the session of this Third Council it can berightly held that its decisions were not accepted by so many Buddhist monks and nunsthat King Asoka found it necessary to threaten the schismatics with dire punishment.The Fourth and last Council of the Buddhist elders met during the reign of Kanishka,the Kushana king (c. A.D. 120­144). It drew up authentic commentaries on the canonand these were engraved on copper­plates which were encased in a stone­coffer andkept for safety in the Kundalavana monastery. These have not yet been found.

Buddhist scriptures­have all grown after the death of Gautama Buddha who leftnothing in writing. The scriptures known as the Tripitaka are believed to have beenfirst recited by Ananda, Upali and Kasyapa, three close disciples of Gautama Buddha,at the session of the First Council of the Buddhist elders which met at Rajagriha soonafter Buddha’s death. For many centuries these were learnt orally, being transmittedby teachers to their disciples and it was not till 80 B.C. that these were put down inwriting in Ceylon in the reign of king Vattagamani. The Tripitaka consists of the Sutta,the Vinaya and the Abkidhamma. The Sutta contains stories and parables related byBuddha during his preaching tours; the Vitzaya lays down the laws and rules ofdiscipline and the Abkidhamma contains the doctrines and metaphysical views ofBuddhism. The Sutta is subdivided into five Nikayas of varying length, one of whichcontains the Dhammapada, Thera and Tkerigathas and the]atakas; the Vinaya hasthree sub­divisions, while the Abhidhamma has seven sub­divisions of which thecelebrated Dhammasangini is the first. There are now four versions of the Tripitaka,namely the Pali version which is followed in Ceylon, Burma and Siam; the Sanskritversion which is current in Nepal and among the Buddhists in Central Asia; theChinese version which is a rendering in Chinese of the Sanskrit version and theTibetan version which is a translation made between the ninth and the eleventhcenturies of the Christian era. The whole forms a massive body of literature. Thejapanese version of it runs into one hundred bound volumes of one thousand pageseach. Besides the Tripitaka, the Milindapanka by Nagasena (c. 140 B.c.) and theVisuddkimagga by Buddhaghosha are also important as religious literature of theBuddhists.

Buddhist sects arose as a result of the circumstance that none of the teachings ofGautama Buddha was written down during his lifetime. Differences on questions ofdiscipline for the monks and nuns as well as on the significance of what he had taughtarose amongst his followers soon after his death and within a century of theParinirvana the Buddhists became split up into several sects of which the two mostimportant came eventually to be known as the Hinayanists (i.e., followers of the LowerVehicle) and the Mahayanists (i.e., the followers of the Higher Vehicle). The scripturesof the Hinayana are written in Pali while those of the Mahayana in Sanskrit.

Consequently the Hinayana is often known as the Pali school and the Mahayana as theSanskrit school of Buddhism. Again, the Hinayana prevails mainly in Sri Lanka andBurma and is consequently often called the Southern Buddhism while the Mahayanawhich mainly prevails in Nepal, China, Tibet, Mongolia, Korea and Japan is called theNorthern Buddhism. As all Buddhist canonical literature wherever it might haveextended, arose in northern India and the two schools possess traces of mutualinfluence so the division of the Buddhist Church into Northern and Southern Schoolsis more or less unjustified. As the two schools represent only different aspects of thesame religious system so the use of terms lower and higher is not also justifiable.Indeed many prefer to call the Hinayana as Theravada, that is to say, the opinion of theTheras or older monks. When exactly this division of the Buddhist Church took place,is not definitely known. Mahayanism was not a sudden development; it developedslowly and gradually in the course of some centuries. The origin of the Mahayanathought has been traced by some to the Mahasamghika and Sarvastivadin sects ofBuddhism which existed as far hack as 350 B.c.

The inscriptions of Asoka (c. 273­231 B.c.) practically show no sign of Mahayanismwhich also did not have the controlling voice even at the fourth and last BuddhistCouncil which met in the reign of Kanishka (ace. c. A.D. 120), though Nagarjuna whowas a contemporary and protege of Kanishka exposed in his Karika the hollowness ofthe Hinayana thought. When, however, Fa­Hien came to India in the fourth centuryA.D. he found Mahayanist monasteries existing side by side with those of theHinayanists in all the places that he visited in India. It was, therefore, between thesecond and the fourth centuries of the Christian era that Mahayanism fully developedin India. It was also during this period that many non­Indians were converted toBuddhism.

This circumstance has led to the theory that Mahayanism was developed in order tomeet their requirements. There are, however, reasons for holding that Mahayanismgrew up in order to meet the religious and philosophical needs of the Indian Buddhiststhemselves though in later times it grew more popular outside India. The differencesbetween the two schools are wide. According to the Hinayana Gautama is the Buddha,the sole Buddha, who now reposes in Nirvana, the absence of desire and striving,having left to mankind a simple rule by which the? also may attain a like bliss, either inthis existence or at a later. This creed knows no prayers, invocations or offerings andworships no images, for Buddha is not God, but a man who has attained perfection andthrown off the karma which dooms mankind to successive existences in the world ofpain and sorrow. Each is to work for himself and attain Nirvana by overcoming allthirst or attachment by living a good life as indicated by the Noble Eightfold Path.According to the Mahayana, Gautama is merely one re­incarnation in a vast series ofBuddhas stretching from an illimitable past into an equally infinite future. Not only inthis world but in other worlds numerous as the sands of the Ganges, Buddhas havelived and preached at intervals separated by myriads of years from a time past humancalculation. This world is but a speck in space and an instant in time; il will pass awayand Maitreya will be the Buddha of the next period.

Past Buddhas and Buddhas to come are gods of transcendant power, hearkening to the

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prayers of mankind, responding to invocations and delighting in offerings and incense.Ultimately in China Amida or Amitabha Buddha, a personage unknown to earlyBuddhist scriptures, became the object of almost exclusive devotion and his pureparadise, called the Western Heaven, the goal to which the pious should aspire.Nirvana and Gautama Buddha were almost forgotten. The Mahayana holds that theultimate aim of the life of a Buddhist is not the attainment of individual liberation. Aperson who acquires enlightenment should not remain satisfied with his own Nirvana,but should work for the good of his fellowmen. Such a person is called Bodhisattva(wisdom being). Thus Buddhas and Bodhisattvas came to be worshiped and theirimages were made and installed in temples where these were worshiped with variousrituals and incantations. Every incident of Buddha’s life as well as of his previousbirths familiarised by the Jataka stories and by later biographical sketches like theLalitavistara came to be depicted in Buddhist sculptures. Using Sanskrit in its ritualsand scriptures and worshiping images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas Mahayanismtended to shorten the breach that separated Buddhism from Hinduism within the widefolds of which it was ultimately assimilated. In spite of the differences that existbetween the Hinayana and the Mahayana there are not two Buddhisms. They are reallyone and the spirit of the founder of Buddhism prevails in both. Each has developed inits own way, according to the differences in environments in which each has blossomedand grown.

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