The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary. (Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume") >> More Tom Robbins Quotations...
The problem starts at the secondary level, not with the originator or developer of the idea but with the people who are attracted to it, who adopt it, who cling to it until their last nail breaks, and who invariably lack the overview, flexibility, imagination, and, most importantly, sense of humor, to maintain it in the spirit in which it was hatched. Ideas are made by masters, dogma by disciples, and the Buddha is always killed on the road. (Tom Robbins, "Still Life with Woodpecker") >> More Tom Robbins Quotations...
Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I'm sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I'm gonna fall apart, probably before this chair. And you're gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you-they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn't prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart. (John Green, "Looking for Alaska") >> More John Green Quotations...
I never stopped studying Buddhism. In the past few years, in between movies, I do a retreat. (Jet Li) >> More Jet Li Quotations...
One may desire a spurious respect and precedence among one's fellow monks, and the veneration of outsiders. 'Both monks and laity should think it was my doing. They should accept my authority in all matters great or small.' This is a fool's way of thinking. His self-seeking and conceit just increase. One way leads to acquisition, the other leads to nirvana. Realizing this a monk, as a disciple of the Buddha, should take no pleasure in the respect of others, but should devote himself to solitude. (Guatama Buddha) >> More Guatama Buddha Quotations...
If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly. (Alan Watts) >> More Alan Watts Quotations...
That was my real education in the world - I learned politics, the social and cultural life of India, Hindu tradition and religion, and Buddhism. (Satish Kumar) >> More Satish Kumar Quotations...