A time comes when it isn't enough to read about Buddha, we wish to have that happen to ourselves. That's when we move from the exoteric to the esoteric, from religion to mysticism.
If we do not control our minds with our Buddha nature, do not practice seriously, are not honest to ourselves and do not examine our behaviors strictly, we will definitely be possessed by Maya. Being possessed does not necessary mean that we become delirious or our faces become horribly distorted. When we do not walk on the right path, we will be walking on Maya's path.
If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he taught Dhamma - the way to liberation - which is universal.
Wish I am free from barriers when I die, and Buddha will welcome me from far away.
Shape I may take, converse I may, but neither god nor Buddha am I, rather an insensate being whose heart thus differs from that of man.
If you start thinking about who's going to read it [you're writing], or what grade will you get, or is it going to win that award, or are you going to get into this graduate program, you're blocking the light, and the light is that guidance and love we get when we open up our hearts and are guided by our higher selves, or God, or the Buddha Lupe [Buddha and the Virgin of Guadalupe fused together, as they are in the tattoo on Sandra's right arm], or whatever you believe in, or love.
A life of both sadness and blissfulness is multi-dimensional; it moves in all dimensions together. Watch the statue of Buddha or sometimes look into my eyes and you will find both together - a blissfulness, a peace, a sadness also.
I think the greatest truths, the ones that you find in every culture that has any sort of history of reflection of writing, the greatest truth is that there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. That's the way Shakespeare put it. But you get basically the same idea from Buddha, from the Bhagavad Gita in India, and from the Stoics in ancient Greece and Rome.
It is said that “there is a self,” but “non-self” too is taught. The buddhas also teach there is nothing which is “neither self nor non-self. ” Everything is real, not real; both real and not real; neither not real nor real: this is the teaching of the Buddha.
Whenever anyone, Buddhist or not, sees a Temple or an image of Buddha they receive blessings.
Truth is the same always. Whoever ponders it will get the same answer. Buddha got it. Patanjali got it. Jesus got it. Mohammed got it. The answer is the same, but the method of working it out may vary this way or that. (115)
To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.
Who do you think was smarter, Jesus or Buddha? I mean, just in terms of not letting themselves get crucified.
I am moonlighting for the Buddha.
In my head I am in one of those Buddhist caves where you see a thousand Buddha faces on the wall. In my head I am on my seventeen-year-old acid trip, when I saw my personas fall one minute after another, as if I was dying every moment.
The mind, the Buddha, living creatures - these are not three different things.
The Buddha said that samsara by its nature is painful. He didn't say it was a joyride.
The Zen expression “Kill the Buddha!” means to kill any concept of the Buddha as something apart from oneself.
That is the essence and mission of 'rebel buddha': to free us from the illusions we create by ourselves, about ourselves, and from those that masquerade as reality in our cultural and religious institutions.