Quotes about Dharma

"Authority means influence and power.  So where does spiritual authority come from?  Can a teacher give spiritual authority to their successors?  Not on your life.  You can spiritually empower a successor, but you can't give them spiritual authority.  There is only one person who can grant spiritual authority to the teacher, new or old, and that is the student.  Most students, when they begin to study with a teacher, don't realize that they're granting spiritual authority.  But it is critically important to know when you are extending such authority.  Otherwise you can unknowingly get seduced into giving away your power.  Real teachers won't accept your power.  This Dharma is about your empowerment, not about giving your power away.  In Zen, we have teachers who can point the way.  They don't tell you how to live your life.  That choice only you can make."

In transmitting the dharma, there is neither explanation nor teaching; there is neighter hearing nor attainment. Since explanations never really explains, nor are they able to teach, why talk about it? Since listening isn't really hearing or attaining anything, then why listen? But say, since it cannot be explained or heard, how can you enter the Way?

But down the bagagge, take of the blinders, and see for yourself that this very place is the valley of the endless spring, this very body is the body of the universe. At such a time, who is it who can accompany this?

Be it known that
Men of dull faculties and slight wisdom,
They who cling proudly to signs,
Cannot believe in this Dharma.  
Now I, joyfully and fearlessly,
In the midst of the bodhisattvas
Frankly casting aside my expedient devices,
Merely preach the Unexcelled Path. 

The Dharma must never be to our Spirit, a burden, nor a suffering, nor a sacrifice.

Desire less, dream less, declare less, and do more for man... with the Divine devouring every deed. 

The extraordinary qualities of great beings who hide their nature escapes ordinary people like us, despite our best efforts in examining them. On the other hand, even ordinary charlatans are expert at deceiving others by behaving like saints.
-Patrul Rinpoche

Samsaric pleasures are like salt water, the more we indulge, the more we crave

"The charnel ground is that great graveyard in which the complexities of samsara and nirvana lie buried."

After 48 years, I have said nothing.

The four catagories of existance, non-existance, both existance and non-existance, and neither existance nor non-existance, are spiderwebs among spiderwebs which can never take hold of the enormous bird of reality

Take karma, make dharma.  

see karma, make dharma

As you learn to leave alone the activity of unconsciously trying to be the mindbody that you think that you are - the mindbody that this "you" is currently flowing through - and you learn to move as this one that you truly are - this "you" of you; the very heart of existence - steadily, consciously and momentarily, the continuity of the ever deepening of this innermost as it keeps on entering its manifestation, through this mindbody that you find yourself flowing through, allows you to simply bubble in the sheer joy, pleasure, peace, delightfulness and stillness that this "you" of you is.

Our power over matter has become rather godlike, indeed. If our understanding of reality and ourselves does not correspond, we will surely make this world a hell. It is too cowardly to blame it on God, Buddha, Brahma, the Tao, the Random Universe, or whatever else. And it is a poor gamble to bank on nothingness - "what does it matter? - in hope of automatic anaesthesia beyond individual or planetary death. However difficult it may seem, we must each take responsibility, for our own absolute, examine what we think it is, how we came to that perspective, if it withstands critical analysis, and how it affects our actions. So we are vitally concerned to undertake the struggle for this Everest peak of this essence of True Eloquence.

Although the path is long, it is on the path that we learn that the teachings are everywhere, in everything and at all times.

With the wish to free all beings
until we reach full awakening
I will always go for refuge
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha

Today, in the presence of the enlightened ones
Inspired by Wisdom, Compassion and Joyous Effort
I generate the mind aspiring to full buddhahood
For the Well-being of all Sentient beings.

For as long as space endures
and as long as sentient beings remain
until then, may I too, abide
to dispel the misery of the world.

As a blind man feels when he finds a pearl in a dustbin, so am I amazed by the miracles of awakening rising in my consciousness. It is the nectar of immortality that delivers us from death, the treasure that lifts us from death, the treasure that lifts us above poverty into the wealth of giving to life, the tree that gives shade to us when we roam about scorched by life, the bridge that takes us across the stormy river of life, the cool moon of compassion that calms our mind when it is agitated, the fun that dispels darkness, the butter made from the milk of kindness by churning it with the dharma. It is a feast of joy to which all are invited.

Avoid all evil, practice all good, and purify your mind from impurities. This is the teaching of all Buddhas.

The Dharma Path is to keep walking forward.
But the true Dharma has no going forward,
no going backward, and no standing still.

Man only progresses by slowly elaborating from age to age the essence and the totality of a universe deposited within him.

God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of him. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it. But if I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to the thought of Him that I was meant to embody, I shall be full of his actuality and find him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere.

The Dharma life is a daily reawakening to explore and map the Mystery. Turning our lives into an epic adventure, we blaze our own trails, even if it means defying social mores or breaking taboos that attempt to suppress and control our impulses. This revolution will not be won or lost in a meditation retreat, a city street, a living room, or a monastery alone. It will happen on the front lines of the human heart - that stormy region where good and evil, genius and madness, peace and war, battle for dominion over conscience, freedom, and love. When compromise, doubt, or hesitation no longer hold appeal, it is my belief that you will inevitably encounter a glimpse of the holy unexpected. You will begin listening to your instinct for freedom - what you really love - and leave the rest behind.

Though through all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he yet understands not the Dharma, as the spoon, the flavor of soup.

When Shakyamuni Buddha was at Mount Grdhrakuta, he held up a flower to his listeners. Everyone was silent. Only Mahakashyapa broke into a broad smile. The Buddha said, "I have the True Dharma Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True Form of the Formless, and the Subtle Dharma Gate, independent of words and transmitted beyond doctrine. This I have entrusted to Mahakashyapa."