SuttaCentral
I was thinking we could compile a list of really good quotes by teachers / students / all Buddhists, from a Buddhist perspective. Kind of like the “Could be Buddhist (but isn’t)" thread, but this time, they are Buddhist. (Please also post a citation or source of the quote, and a reference or link to which talk / video / book etc, it is from).
I heard a quote the other day in a dhamma talk by Ajahn Sona. It goes:
“Don’t worry, everything is out of control”
Much mettā to all 
Good idea! My all time favourite quote is from Ajahn Dune Atulo on Four Noble Truths:
“The mind sent outside…is the origination of suffering.
The result of the mind sent outside…is suffering.
The mind seeing the mind…is the path.”
The result of the mind seeing the mind…is the cessation of suffering.”
From “Gifts He Left Behind”
This investigation of time, I think, is a very important reflection because we are a time-bound society; we really believe in the reality of it. We believe our age, the sense of history and the continuity of time. And we believe we have been born; we have this sense of going through the years and yet in some way remaining the same. We just assume that we are the same person throughout this span which we call ‘our lifetime’.
In awareness, however, we realize there is no such thing as time, and that all we do is project onto the experience of now. That is what we call ‘time’. In reality there is only right now, only the here and now. This is where consciousness operates. Breathing is happening right now; feeling through the body and the senses is now; the thinking process is now. We can remember what we were thinking yesterday, but even that is a thought, a memory in the present.
Breaking down the assumptions about oneself and the cultural habits one has in regard to time I found very helpful in learning to trust in awareness and recognizing that liberation is now, freedom is now, nibbana is now ― rather than having this perception of practising now in order to attain liberation in the future.
Ajhan Sunedho
Oh yes I subscribed via RSS a while ago. Thank you for making this! It’s truly wonderful and I love getting these quotes everyday. (Also, I can’t fork this as I don’t know how to code unfortunately, but that is a really good idea for the future).
“Can’t beat the hindrances with the hindrances.”
May I suggest that each post include the citation/source for the quote?
Otherwise, we won"t know what’s an actual quote and what’s been made up. Also, a reader may wish to read the sutta or book from which the quote was taken.
There’s one post here for which there is no citation and which doesn’t quite sound “official.”
Thank you Jasudho, that is a great suggestion.
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely you will have complete peace.
Mine was in a YouTube Dhamma talk sometime between 2019 and 2024. I listened to several last night at 2x speed and skipping 20 second chunks but realized that even at that rate it was impractical to search 6 years—great to see so many quality videos are available. Anyway, I’ve deleted mine so there’s no question of authenticity. No problem; plenty of other leaves in the forest.
Idiosyncrasy—or the individual idiot’s singular craziness.
*
A fool-proof system would surely be system of proofs for fools.
Nanamoli Thera
What I hope to find, when I come to read the book, is that you have formed a single, articulated, consistent, whole; a whole such that no one part can be modified without affecting the rest. It is not so important that it should be correct[a]—that can only come later—, but unless one’s thinking is all-of-a-piece there is, properly speaking, no thinking at all. A person who simply makes a collection—however vast—of ideas, and does not perceive that they are at variance with one another, has actually no ideas of his own; and if one attempts to instruct him (which is to say, to alter him) one merely finds that one is adding to the junk-heap of assorted notions without having any other effect whatsoever. As Kierkegaard has said, ‘Only the truth that edifies is truth for you.’ (CUP, p. 226) Nothing that one can say to these collectors of ideas is truth for them. What is wanted is a man who will argue a single point, and go on arguing it until the matter is clear to him, because he sees that everything else depends upon it. With such a person communication (i.e., of truth that edifies) can take place.
Nanavira Thera
“Every sensation is an indication of change.” - S.N. Goenka
In reference to the purpose of practicing the path:
“Awakening the natural wisdom that is inside everyone.” - Ajahn Brahmali
The observer does not appear in his observed field in any way at all, which ‘lacks nothing’, which is why he is symbolized by ‘o.’ While he is everywhere, while he is absolutely essential, he ‘does not count’ at all. Whether he is one or many it is impossible to tell except from the field or fields that are being observed. But this anticipates. Consequently, while his singularity or plurality may be a matter for consideration in an inquiry into his nature, in an inquiry into the nature of the observed he can be disregarded (so long as I remember that there I learn nothing about him). I shall therefore, for the moment at least, put him in brackets (‘o’) and forget him (remembering, of course, that I have forgotten him).
This is what all Objective Science claims to do (and often forgets to do) and for which admiration is commonly expected.
(The results of this I shall call ‘Solalterism’ or the ‘Science of the Subject leaving himself out of his calculations’). Since He counts for zero in the observed, which is not observed without him, he can easily be reintroduced. It is, of course, the converse of the opposite procedure, where results are usually condemned without trial as detestable and are commonly called solipsism’ or that of the 'madman who has shut himself up in, an impenetrable ‘blockhouse.’
Nanamoli Thera
It is curious, is it not, that whereas, since Freud, the most extravagant fancies in the realm of love are considered to be perfectly normal (a person without them is regarded as a case for treatment), in the realm of death (the other great pole of human life) any strange fancies are still classed as ‘morbid’. The Suttas reverse the situation: sensual thoughts are the thoughts of a sick man (sick with ignorance and craving), and the way to health is through thoughts of foulness and the diseases of the body, and of its death and decomposition. And not in an abstract scientific fashion either—one sees or imagines a rotting corpse, for example, and then pictures one’s very own body in such a state.
Our contemporaries are more squeamish. A few years ago a practising Harley Street psychiatrist, who was dabbling in Buddhism, came to see me. I opened the conversation by saying ‘At some time in his life, every intelligent man questions himself about the purpose of his existence.’ Immediately, and with the most manifest disapproval, the psychiatrist replied ‘Anybody who thinks such thoughts is mentally diseased.’ Thus with a single gesture, he swept half-a-dozen major philosophers (some of whom have held chairs in universities—which guarantees their respectability if not their philosophy) into the lunatic asylum—the criminal lunatic asylum, to judge from his tone. I have never seen a man in such a funk.
Nanavira Thera
As this thread is “Buddhist Quotes”, please post only short phrases or quotes that are based on the Dhamma.
Longer excerpts or essays are not appropriate for this thread.
With thanks,
The Moderators
The terrifying part in meditation is when the ego is being threatened. At first there might be a lot of interest in ‘solving my problems so that I can attain nibbana, be free from suffering and be free from all the problems of my life’, but I found that as all that began to resolve itself, there was quite a lot of myself, my ego, that I really liked. And the thought of not being anything, of extinction, of cessation of the ego ― the ego that is based on becoming something, on reinforcing itself ― was very threatening.
Ajhan Sumedho
This quote has been my north star throughout my practice:
“The best thing you can do for the world is sit on your bottom.” - Ajahn Brahmali
Whatever is will be was.
Nanamoli Thera
