Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Initially the student, in some traditions, is given a mantra, a particular word of power to focus on. While thoughts are cascading through your mind during meditation, you should be absorbed in the repetition of a mantra.
I show people the techniques for gaining knowledge, and this inspires them in their search for truth, freedom and happiness. I also try to show people that truth exists as much in this world as it does in any other world.
The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments.
Each of the seven chakras references different dimensional planes. It is a turnstile that leads us into different dimensions. As the kundalini rises, the knowledge and powers of those dimensions will begin to come to you.
If you want to succeed always associate with winners, people who have understood something. You will notice that they all share something in common, tremendous attention to detail in their personal lives and associations.
As we go within the self, we discover that all the voices of our past lives are still there. As we peel ourselves, which is a process very much like peeling an onion, we discover that there are many selves within the self.
The thousand petal lotus of light, the crown center, really does not become operative until one is on the verge of enlightenment itself. Then you really don't have to meditate on it. The thousand petals gradually light up.
The perfect view of existence comes from an unclouded, uncluttered life and mind whereby the radiance of perfect attention of the mind of the universe floods us at every moment. This is Buddhism. This is being on the path.
When you develop your psychic vision after some meditation, you will be able to see the subtle physical of others, or perhaps yourself. At first you will see it as an aura; eventually you can see the whole subtle physical.
The Buddhist tenet, "Non-killing is supreme virtue", is very good, but in trying to enforce it upon all by legislation without paying any heed to the capacities of the people at large, Buddhism has brought ruin upon India.
Every country that meets Buddhism molds it into their own indigenous religion, as America will. A very clear example of this is Japan, which threw out almost all the dharma, and just kept that essence, which spoke to them.
Clothing has a great deal to do with the attitudes and energy that others direct towards you. I favor the chic, and tend to avoid the trendy. I think that it's good to be chic when possible because it is more inaccessible.
The world is a grain of sand on the beach of Eternity. Eternity is a grain of sand on the beach of Infinity. The ocean of Nirvana connects both Eternity and Infinity without connecting them. Know this and you will be free.
If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia.
If you meditate, then the real miracle is the transformation of your awareness field beyond the body. Beyond the body there are oceans of light, continents of light, universes of light. Meditation frees you from this world.
There are endless planes of attention, endless realities and endless mind states. They're like collections of atoms and protons and neutrons, nuclei. They just go on forever. They're plasma, they're fluid ... they're alive.
Part of what we seek in Buddhism is the sense of quiet observation. We don't get so involved in a state of mind that we forget that it's just another transient state of mind, no matter how much ecstasy or agony is involved.
You've gained some powers by your entrance into other dimensions and you use them to attack others or to make others miserable, then power reverses on you and it pulls you apart because it's not supposed to be used that way.
The future is certain for those who follow dharma. Those who don't follow dharma are pushed back again and again into the net of rebirth. They are drawn back to the same planes of attention, or lower. It could happen to you!
Protection, as we use the word in Buddhism, is actually wisdom, it's insight. Protection is seeing and knowing deeply that all things in our experience arise due to causes, due to conditions coming together in a certain way.
Students of popular science... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it.
Winning is an approach to life. The place it starts is not on the playing field or in the business organization; nor is it competitive. We are trying to do our best to bring perfection into whatever we turn our attention to.
I've worked in the prison system, on death row and maximum security. I did that work for six years. I've worked with some of the most difficult people in our society. Buddhism was accessible and helpful for these individuals.
As the prana current, kundalini and different energies begin to move through you, you will feel yourself moving and rocking. Keep the body still, otherwise that energy will be lost as it expresses itself through the physical.
Most of the teaching I do is not verbal. It's in every movement of my body. It's in my dance. It's in the way I lift a glass of water. It's in my voice tone. It's in every aspect of my life - because it isn't my life anymore.
When I sit with my students and meditate with them, I channel the kundalini directly into them. I bring them to plane after plane of consciousness. What they would do in 100 years of meditation, I can do in an hour with them.
This is a world that defines everything backwards, a world in which good is called bad, brightness is called darkness, up is called down, enlightenment is called abnormal behavior and abnormal behavior is applauded as reason.
There is a certain degree of pain to be experienced in the search for self-knowledge, as there is a certain amount of joy. You just do it because you find yourself doing it. There just doesn't seem to be much else worthwhile.
All of us have to ensure that our future generations lead a life of peace, dignity and mutual respect. We need to sow the seeds of a conflict-free world, and in this endeavour, Buddhism and Hinduism have a great contribution.
I draw a lot from Buddhism, which focuses on compassion and kindness, loving kindness, as they call it, but rejects empathy because it's a poor moral guide. And I think there's a lot of evidence suggesting that they're right.
When your consciousness expands you are in a world, literally, of light. You live in a world of light where nothing is solid. You don't have to be enlightened to have this experience. You just have to start the inner journey.
How can you possibly overcome your fears, doubts, worries and other problems? You can't. You simply don't have the capacity. Fortunately, the infinite can do all of these things for you. How? Because it is lacking in nothing.
To meditate, you need to feel, and feeling is a lost art. You need to feel the stillness of existence and also the sound of existence. You need to feel that which lies beyond your awareness field, and that which is within it.
To go to the very center of the mind of God, to be that, to become aware of our infiniteness, is the goal of Buddhism and along the way, to be as kind to others as possible without thinking that we are particularly wonderful.
A categorization implies a hierarchical way of seeing things. Life is really relational, not hierarchical. Hierarchical is a human way of looking at things. Relational is much more the way things are. Everything is connected.
Everyone meditates in their own way. Some people sit and practice formal mediation techniques for many hours a day while others spontaneously meditate while watching a sunset, listening to music, or participating in athletics.
Buddhism does not accept a theory of God, or a creator. According to Buddhism, one's own actions are the creator, ultimately. Some people say that, from a certain angle, Buddhism is not a religion but rather a science of mind.
The spirit of the West, of America, is different than the East. The cultural conditioning is very different. It seems to be harder for people to work in teams, more difficult for people here to live in harmony, in a monastery.
There are places where there is more power. Just as there is more power in the chakras, there is more power in certain places. We call them places of power. If you spend time in these places, it increases your vibratory power.
Well, I'm Buddhist, Ray, and so part of my Buddhism has allowed me to look a little more deeply at people and the events in my life that created me. And I think a lot of that Buddhism comes out in the world view in this novel.
The most important thing is sensitivity. Many people have sex and don't feel anything, and that seems kind of sad to me. The answer is not necessarily the avoidance of sex, but learning to be sensitive and to love and to care.
Most people are fragile. They're fragile in the sense that they're afraid of the unknown, so they cling to each other. They cling to families, traditions, ways of seeing life that protect them from the immensity of the unknown
We live in the dark ages. If an intelligent society can destroy itself in large numbers and places the largest amount of revenues in instruments of destruction, it is certainly not an evolved society or an intelligent society.
Focus on the heart center and feel love. There is a flower there, but it's like a rose folded up. As you meditate, feel that the flower is opening. Each time you open a set of petals you're going deeper into eternal awareness.
I consider those persons to be my students who come and meditate with me on a regular basis, who, in spite of the hardships and difficulties on the path of knowledge, still continue to try, and who respect me as I respect them.
In Buddhism you study how to release the kundalini to the levels that would certainly afford career success. If we move it further, into the planes of knowledge and wisdom, it enables the practitioner to do just about anything.
When you meditate you feel joy, harmony, peace, stillness, ecstasy, laughter, certainty, courage, strength, awareness and immortality. In the beginning you will feel these things vaguely, a distant knocking at your castle door.
The spirit of Buddhism is, more than anything, about valuing harmony and unity, in which others are respected and embraced rather than denounced. This has been the way of Buddhism since the beginning, and this is true Buddhism.
Transmission does not have to take place physically. The student doesn't have to be sitting across from you. But it's easier if they are because the vibration of the teacher is strongest in the physical proximity of the teacher.
Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.