SuttaCentral
Hi @knigarian and @Sasha_A ! Thanks for your input!! This is a thread where we can post qoutes from non-buddhist sourses that “sound” buddhist, or evoke buddhist concerns, but are emphatically NOT buddhist in origin.
The hope is to widen our horizons and appreciate other traditions, as well as our own, more.
It’s not really neccesary to critique how the qoutes aren’t orthodox, they are unorthodox by definition.
Thanks, I understand what you want to say, no point to look for faults in such topic. But topic itself is formulated in ambiguous terms, or perhaps ambiguity is inherent in language itself. Because who defines “what is Buddhist what isn’t”? For example Lama Nydhal is recognised as a Buddhist and yet his approach to sexuality is rather unorthodox.
On the other side Nisargadatta Maharaj is recognised as “Advaita Vedanta philosopher”. I don’t know much about Advaita, but I don’t think any statement of this Teacher neseccerily falls into the category of “unorthodox statements”.
So when we have certain standards provided by the Suttas, as I see it, either quote is up to the level of Dhamma, or not.
Nisargadatta Maharaj:
To be is to suffer. The narrower the circle of my self-identification, the more acute the suffering caused by desire and fear.
I fail to understand why such quote should be classified as “unorthodox”, since it is the essence of Dhamma, expressed in one sentence.
Now, I don’t want to argue, just to illustrate my line of thinking 
And yet you do 
and not only that you seem to argue with yourself!
But
And then yet
(Which is exactly what i asked for, a buddhist sounding qoute from a non buddhist)
Which you still say is
But to quibble, doesnt your qoute imply that the wider ones circle of identification, the less acute ones suffering?
That sounds
Or not?
I enjoy Dhamma discussion, and most evidently we are in the middle of such discussion.
But even in order to make such statement as: “I don’t agree with you because I understand your ideas, and you don’t agree with me, because you don’t understand my ideas”, can’t be made here, because I don’t understand very clearly most of your answer, so cannot agree or disagree, neither make any reasonsble comment on it.
It may be entirely my fault, or it is perhaps caused by too great difference in our aporoch to Dhamma.
So the following comment may likely be recognised as irrelevant to our exchange, and it may really be irrelevant, but I feel, it is good to make it.
I don’t operate such terms: Buddhist or not-Buddhist as far as understanding of Dhamma goes. Either someone is ariyan, and association with him should be fruitful and helpful to one’s understanding, or not.
So (privately) I don’t classifiy Nisargadatta Maharaj as not-Buddhist or Advaita philosopher, since I operate in terms of suffering and cessation of suffering. And my definition of such cesattion is “cessation of conceit I am”. And as far as I understand Dhamma, such definition isn’t available to anyone apart from Tathagata, his disciples and others who learned it from them.
So when someone is teaching:
Maharaj: The present ‘I am’ is as false as the ‘I was’ and ‘I shall be’. It is merely an idea in the mind, an impression left by memory, and the separate identity it creates is false. This habit of referring to a false centre must be done away with, the notion ‘I see’, ‘I feel’, ‘I think’, ‘I do’, must disappear from the field of consciousness; what remains when the false is no more, is real.
I classifiy him as ariyan. I don’t say I must be definitely right in such classification, but have no slightest idea how puthujjana would be able to teach things on this level …
Not sure whether it will clarify your ideas about my ideas I feel that perhaps the best thing for me would be to turn on silent mode. When silent mode is on, there is no such thing as disagreement
The source of my quote is stated in the post, and it is obviously NOT buddhist in origin. And the reason I posted the quote is precisely because, in my opinion, there is a lot in it that, if just phrased a little differently, could sound like something straight out of suttas.
I have said nothing about the origin of other quotes in this thread, nor have I criticised them in any way, nor have I criticised the topic itself.
I’m sorry, I think there’s just a misunderstanding here.
I’m going down in a blaze of glory
— Jon Bon Jovi
Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world’s supreme good. I should dearly like to see the Italian book, of which I know only the title, worth many books in itself, Dell’opinione regina del mondo. Without knowing the book, I support its views, apart from any evil it may contain.
Such, more or less, are the effects of this deceptive faculty, apparently given to us for the specific purpose of leading us inevitably into error. We have plenty of other principles of error.
Longstanding impressions are not the only ones that can mislead us; the charms of novelty have the same power. Hence all the debate among men, who accuse each other either of following the false impressions of childhood or of rashly pursuing new ones. If anyone has found the golden mean, let him appear and prove it. Any principle, however natural it may be, even implanted in childhood, may be treated as a false impression either of education or of the senses.
‘Because,’ they say, ‘you have believed since you were a child that a box was empty when you could not see anything in it, you believed that a vacuum could exist. This is just an illusion of your senses, strengthened by habit, and it must be corrected by science.’ Others say: ‘When you were taught at school that there is no such thing as a vacuum, your common sense was corrupted; it was quite clear about it before being given the wrong impression, and now it must be corrected by reverting to your original state.’ Who then is the deceiver, the senses or education?
We have another principle of error in illnesses, which impair our judgement and sense. If serious illnesses do considerable harm, I have no doubt that the less serious ones have a proportionate effect.
Our own interest is another wonderful instrument for blinding us agreeably. The fairest man in the world is not allowed to be judge in his own cause. I know of men who, to avoid the danger of partiality in their own favour, have leaned over to the opposite extreme of injustice. The surest way to lose a perfectly just case was to get close relatives to commend it to them. Justice and truths are two points so fine that our instruments are too blunt to touch them exactly. If they do make contact, they blunt the point and press all round on the false rather than the true.
Man, then, is so happily constituted that he has no exact principle of truth, and several excellent ones of falsehood. Let us now see how many.
But the most absurd cause of his errors is the war between the senses and the reason.
*
[45] Man is nothing but a subject full of natural error that cannot be eradicated except through grace. Nothing shows him the truth, everything deceives him. The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and, just as they trick the soul, they are tricked by it in their turn: it takes its revenge. The senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions. They both compete in lies and deception.
But, apart from such accidents, error arising from the failure of these heterogeneous faculties to reach understanding …
Pascal
The other day a friend told me that the Buddha said “All things are perfect the way they are” and we had a discussion about how that statement is diametrically opposed to what the Buddha taught. I just looked it up on fakebuddhaquotes and read the interesting dialogue in the comments.
https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/all-things-are-perfect-exactly-as-they-are/
That is kind of close to an idea I hear on social media from later schools of Buddhism, that we are already enlightened, already Buddhas, we just have to get in touch with that.
I get hate on reddit when someone posts a thread asking people what they think of ____ type of Buddhism and I answer that if it isn’t based on The Four Noble Truths it isn’t Buddhism in my opinion.
Ten
Carrying body and soul and embracing the one,
Can you avoid separation?
Attending fully and becoming supple,
Can you be as a newborn babe?
Washing and cleansing the primal vision,
Can you be without stain?
Loving all men and ruling the country,
Can you be without cleverness?
Opening and closing the gates of heaven,
Can you play the role of woman?
Understanding and being open to all things,
Are you able to do nothing?
Giving birth and nourishing,
Bearing yet not possessing,
Working yet not taking credit,
Leading yet not dominating,
This is the Primal Virtue.
Eleven
Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore benefit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
Twelve
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.
He lets go of that and chooses this.
Tao Te Ching, Jane English and Gia Fu Geng edition.
The world’s pretty things stay just as they are
– The Buddha
I know that you are responding to another comment, but if possible, can you include a qoute that isn’t buddhist as well, just so we don’t get off topic?
I apologize, I misread your closing paragraph to be a critique of the other qoutes.
love this one, Pascal is one of my favourites.
Everything’s cyclical. Our lives are cyclical. The seasons, trees, everything. And, so, it’s okay to have a beginning, middle, and end, and then let it go.
– Bryan Cranston
We are not launched into existence like a shot from a gun, with its trajectory absolutely predetermined. The destiny under which we fall when we come into this world – it is always this world, the actual one – consists in the exact contrary. Instead of imposing on us one trajectory, it imposes several, and consequently forces us to choose. Surprising condition, this, of our existence! To live is to feel ourselves fatally obliged to exercise our liberty, to decide what we are going to be in this world. Not for a single moment is our activity of decision allowed to rest. Even when in desperation we abandon ourselves to whatever may happen, we have decided not to decide.
It is, then, false to say that in life “circumstances decide”. On the contrary, circumstances are the dilemma, constantly renewed, in presence of which we have to make our decision; what actually decides is our character.* All this is equally valid for collective life.
Ortega y Gasset
*A man of no principles is also, as a rule, a man of no character, for had he been born with character, he would have felt the need of forming principles.
Chamfort
The small 1903 self-help book “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen was once described to me as the most Buddhist non-Buddhist book ever written. The whole thing is basically one giant: “Could be Buddhist… but isn’t” quote.
The book is available for free here: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen | Project Gutenberg
The opening lines of the book:
Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:—
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.
James Allen was certainly aware of Buddhist teachings. His second book is The Way of Peace, which is kind of an amalgamation of ideas about meditation from various religions and mystics and his own thoughts.
But the man we are now analyzing accustoms himself not to appeal from his own to any authority outside him. He is satisfied with himself exactly as he is.
Ingenuously, without any need of being vain, as the most natural thing in the world, he will tend to consider and affirm as good everything he finds within himself: opinions, appetites, preferences, tastes. Why not, if, as we have seen, nothing and nobody force him to realize that he is a second-class man, subject to many limitations, incapable of creating or conserving that very organization which gives his life the fullness and contentedness on which he bases this assertion of his personality? The mass-man would never have accepted authority external to himself had not his surroundings violently forced him to do so. As today, his surroundings do not so force him, the everlasting mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to other authority and feels himself lord of his own existence. On the contrary the select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose service he freely accepts. Let us recall that at the start we distinguished the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself, but contents himself with what he is, and is delighted with himself.
Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savor for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline-the noble life.
Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us – by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. “To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law” (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favors; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and anyone were to dispute them.
Private rights or privileges are not, then, passive possession and mere enjoyment, but they represent the standard attained by personal effort.
Ortega y Gasset
Pascal:
Our minds and feelings are trained by the company we keep, and perverted by the company we keep. Thus good or bad company trains or perverts respectively. It is therefore very important to be able to make the right choice so that we train rather than pervert. And we cannot make this choice unless it is already trained, and not perverted. This is thus a vicious circle from which anyone is lucky to escape.