Dharma Quotes

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.”
― Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold: Technical Notes & Queries to Fellow Dharma Revolutionaries

“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.”
― Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind

“The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Now I know what success is: living your truth, sharing it.”
― Kamal Ravikant, Live Your Truth

“This is what the path of Dharma is like. It's not that you have to do all the practices. It is sufficient to take just one of them, whichever one you really have an affinity with, and through practicing that one alone, for the rest of your life, you will achieve enlightenment. Whichever practice you choose doesn't matter; they are all valid methods for achieving enlightenment—if you practice. The key is to practice with diligence for the rest of your life.”
― Dhomang Yangthang, The Union of Dzogchen and Mahamudra

“This stuff of a past not worthily lived is also medicine.”
― Joan Halifax, The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom

“Don’t worry, eventually everything falls into its rightful place.”
― Fakeer Ishavardas

“Each man has to follow truth as he sees it.”
― K.M.Munshi

“Although I too am within Amida's grasp,
Passions obstruct my eyes and I cannot see him;
Nevertheless, great compassion is untiring and illumines me always.”
― Shinran Shonin

“Naturally occurring timeless awareness—utterly lucid awakened mind—
is something marvelous and superb, primordially and spontaneously present.
It is the treasury from which comes the universe of appearances and possibilities, whether of samsara or nirvana.
Homage to the unwavering state, free of elaborations.”
― Longchen Rabjam

“Buddhism is a religion of the heart. Only this. One who practices to develop the heart is one who practices Buddhism [...] Use your heart to listen to the Teachings, not your ears.”
― Ajahn Chah, Reflections

“All phenomena are embraced within a single self-knowing awareness.
Even though they arise as the totality of samsara and nirvana,
the phenomena of the world of appearances and possibilities—
limitless, boundless—arise from basic space.
Therefore, they are subsumed within basic space from which the first arise.”
― Longchen Rabjam

“The Buddhist teachings move along a graduated path: first the stages of calm abiding and then the stages of deep insight. Through such gradual practices, lamas of the past gave birth to realization in their mental continuum and discovered primordial wisdom. All the qualities that the great masters found, we can attain as well. It all depends on our own efforts, our diligence, our deeper knowing, and our correct motivation. – 17th Karmapa”
― Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Music in the Sky: The Life, Art, and Teachings of the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje

“Please explain to me," Yudhishthira asked him, "why the wicked prosper, while such as I, who strive to follow virtue, have to suffer?"
Lomasha said, "If you take the long view the wicked do not flourish. They are like plants with showy flowers but weak and shallow roots. The virtuous are well grounded in dharma and, through devoted discipline, they weather bad times and good, seeing them as the same. Like the demons before them, wicked people lose direction, and fall prey to discord. Given to restless searching after pleasure, true and lasting happiness eludes them.”
― Carole Satyamurti, Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling

“With upraised arms I cry, but no one listens. From Dharma comes wealth, power, and the sensuous pleasure of life. Why don't people practice virtue?”
― Vyasa, Mahabharata

“People with four kids will eventually inherit the wealth of those with one—no preparation can save you if you're not having children; it's just a matter of time.

Along with the wealth you're trying so hard to accumulate, you'll lose your history, civilization, culture, philosophies, identity, faith, and everything that defines you.

You will exist as if you never existed.”
― Anupam S. Shlok

“There is no way to attain enlightenment on one's own. Such a thing has never happened in infinite aeons. Shravakas and pratyekabuddhas who appear when a buddha is not manifest in this world can realize the twelve branches of interdependent origination and attain arhatship. They aren't, however, able to attain complete enlightenment and cannot benefit beings in a vast way; they can only liberate themselves from the sufferings of cyclic existence, and their realization is far from complete enlightenment.

In the Sutrayana, one studies and analyzes the teachings and texts, but no matter how extensive the teachings are, they are all based on the essential nature. The Buddha provided many different levels of teaching, which can be categorized into provisional and definitive meaning. These teachings can be studied, analyzed, and examined, but they're not so easy to understand. For instance, when great scholars, such as khenpos, give detailed Sutrayana teachings, the students listen, reflect on, and analyze the teachings and debate on them. They rely on the texts that they have been taught.”
― Penor Rinpoche, An Ocean of Blessings: Heart Teachings of Drubwang Penor Rinpoche

“In Tibet, there were innumerable great scholars and bodhisattvas, but unless a scholar was told by his root guru to compose a commentary on a specific text or received a prediction from his yidam deity, he would not write one. Even when great scholars or bodhisattvas did write something, they would first check themselves to make sure that their intention was not merely to win respect, prove themselves to be a great scholar, gain material wealth, or acquire a good reputation. As every Dharma text is meant to benefit being and guide them on the spiritual path, they would only write if they had a pure, unselfish motivation.

Even in the context of the Sutrayana path, though the past great scholars and realized beings wrote many commentaries on the Buddha's teachings, these writings would first be examined by other great scholars to determine whether the text was in exact accord with the Buddha's teachings. If the text did agree with the Buddha's teachings, it would be presented to the Dharma king and discussed with him. If they all agreed that the text was qualified, the writer would be invited to discuss the text and answer questions from the Dharma king and the scholars. If it was perfect and qualified as a text that could benefit beings, the author would be recognized as a good scholar and the text would be respected. If the author claimed to be a scholar but wrote a commentary that the others found not to be in accordance with the Buddha's teachings and therefore not beneficial, they would proclaim that the text had no value. It would be tied to a dog's tail, and after the dog had run around with it for a while, the text would be thrown into a fire. This was because a commentary would be read by many people, and if it was not in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha, readers could develop wrong views, create negative karma, and fall into the lower realms in their next life.”
― Penor Rinpoche, An Ocean of Blessings: Heart Teachings of Drubwang Penor Rinpoche

“All we know is that everything is alive otherwise it wouldn't be here—The rest is speculation, mental judgments of the reality of the feeling of a good or bad, this or that, nobody knows the holy white truth because it is invisible—

All the saints have gone to the grave with the same pout as the murderer and the hater, the dirt doesn't discriminate, it’ll eat all lips no matter what they did and that’s because nothing matters and we all know it—

But what we gonna do?”
― Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels

“Why else should we live but to discuss (at least) the horror and the terror of all this life, God how old we get and some of us go mad and everything changes viciously—it’s that vicious change that hurts, as soon as something is cool and complete it fall apart and burns—”
― Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels

“Praise Lord, if you can’t have fun turn to religion.”
― Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels

“Ved, Koran ya Bible ratta maarnese koi pak ya pavitra nahi banjaata, there’s no greater granth than chetna.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Love is at the core of all true dharma. The enactment of our vocation in the world stands in the stream of love that flows from the divine Self to the individual soul.”
― Stephen Cope, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self

“The great Theravadan monk Ajahn Chah used to teach that the whole world is teaching the dharma (the truth) to us all the time. . . . In order to hear the teaching, we must slow down, cultivate awareness, and tune in. Most of all, we have to drop our hopes and dreams and preconceived notions of how it should be. We must look at how it is. We must look with a mind that lets go. Then we will see.”
― Stephen Cope, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self

“The Dharma can't be lost, nothing can be lost, on a well-worn path.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“Service of humanity is supreme shahada,
to defend the persecuted is cosmic khalsa,
to treat neighbor as god is real dharma,
quiet kindness is the real karma.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Service of humanity is supreme shahada,
to defend the persecuted is cosmic khalsa,
to treat neighbor as god is real dharma,
quiet kindness is the real karma.

Ana al-haqq, ana al-hub -
aham bindu, aham brahmanda.
I shed dogma like dead skin,
el cosmos es mi casa.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“The intrigues will only succeed once; Dharma will endure.”
― Katheliyer