HOME BUDDHIST BASICS MEDITATION PUJAS GALLERY QUOTATIONS
Quotations
help you find the best way to proceed - now and in the future.
- The
Future is Now: Timely Advice for Creating a Better World (Hay House, 2009).
The 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje
Some roots in the
earliest Buddhist texts:
Those who, either now or after I am dead, shall be lamps
unto themselves, relying upon themselves only and not relying upon any external
help, but holding fast to the truth as their lamp, and seeking their salvation
in the truth alone, and shall not look for assistance to any one besides
themselves, it is they, Ananda, among my bhikkhus, who shall reach the very
topmost height! But they must be anxious to learn.
Mahaparinibbana Sutta
Nanamoli ref
The Blessed One was once wandering by stages in the Kosala country with a large
number of bhikkhus. He arrived at a town belonging to the Kalamans called
Kesaputta. When the Kesaputtians heard that the Blessed One had arrived, they
went to him and they asked him: "Lord, some monks and brahmans come to
Kesaputta, and they expound only their own tenets while they abuse and rend and
censure and rail at the tenets of others. And other monks and brahmans come to
Kesaputta, and they too expound only their own tenets while they abuse and rend
and censure and rail at the tenets of others. We are puzzled and in doubt about
them, Lord. Which of these reverend monks has spoken truly and which falsely?"
"You may well be puzzled, Kalamans. You may well be in doubt. For your doubt has
arisen precisely about what ought to be doubted. Come, Kalamans, do not be
satisfied with hearsay or with tradition, or with legendary lore, or with what
has come down in your scriptures, or with conjecture, or with logical inference,
or with weighing evidence, or with liking for a view after pondering over it, or
with someone else's ability, or with the thought 'The monk is our teacher.' When
you know in yourselves: 'These ideas are unwholesome, liable to censure,
condemned by the wise, being adopted and put into effect they lead to harm and
suffering,' then you should abandon them.
(Anguttara Nikaya 3.65, translated in Ñanamoli The Life of the Buddha (1992), pp. 176-7).
Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so too, this Dhamma and Discipline has one taste, the taste of freedom.
(Anguttara Nikaya 8.20, translated in Ñanamoli The Life of the Buddha (1992), p. 162).
born, brought to being, made, formed. But since there is an unborn, an un-brought-to-being, an unmade, an unformed. An escape is therefore
described for one who is born, brought to being, made, formed.
(Udana 8:1-3, translated in Ñanamoli The Life of the Buddha (1992), p. 223).
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. If a person speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows them as their own shadow.
Dhammapada, v. 2. (Translation by Juan Mascaró, Penguin Classics, 1973, p. 35).
Now when a noble disciple is in this way free from covetousness, free from ill will, and undeluded, they abide with a heart endued with loving-kindness[…] They think ‘If there is another world and there is fruit and ripening of actions well done and ill done, then it is possible that on dissolution of the body, after death, I might be reborn in a heavenly world[…]But if there is no other world and there is no fruit and ripening of actions well done and ill done, then here and now in this life I shall be free from hostility, affliction and anxiety, and I shall live happily’. (Anguttara Nikaya 3.65, translated in Ñanamoli The Life of the Buddha (1992), pp. 176-7).