Eastern Philosophy Quotes

“In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?”
― Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book

“As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it.”
― Lao Tzu

“(When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?”
― Lao tzu

“Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.”
― A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Bhagavad-gita

“when somebody plays music, you listen. you just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. the point can't be explained in words because music is not words, but after listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the music itself. in exactly the same way, you can listen to all experiences.”
― Alan Wilson Watts, Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation

“The man who wishes to know the "that" which is "thou" may set to work in any one of three ways. He may begin by looking inwards into his own particular thou and, by a process of "dying to self" --- self in reasoning, self in willing, self in feeling --- come at last to knowledge of the self, the kingdom of the self, the kingdom of God that is within. Or else he may begin with the thous existing outside himself, and may try to realize their essential unity with God and, through God, with one another and with his own being. Or, finally (and this is doubtless the best way), he may seek to approach the ultimate That both from within and from without, so that he comes to realize God experimentally as at once the principle of his own thou and of all other thous, animate and inanimate.”
― Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

“The Formless Way
We look at it, and do not see it; it is invisible.
We listen to it, and do not hear it; it is inaudible.
We touch it, and do not feel it; it is intangible.
These three elude our inquiries, and hence merge into one.

Not by its rising, is it bright,
nor by its sinking, is it dark.
Infinite and eternal, it cannot be defined.
It returns to nothingness.
This is the form of the formless, being in non-being.
It is nebulous and elusive.

Meet it, and you do not see its beginning.
Follow it, and you do not see its end.
Stay with the ancient Way
in order to master what is present.
Knowing the primeval beginning is the essence of the Way.”
― Tao Te Ching - Translated by S. Beck

“One of the strategies which atheists adopt is proving the non-existence of God by demonstrating that He is not divine. ‘There is so much bad happening in this world, if God is out there would he allow all of that?’ It is a fallacy. A true atheist doesn’t want to prove that God is evil. A true atheist should, instead, prove God doesn’t exist at all. It’s laughable. I mean, I can understand westerners using this strategy, for according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is considered divine. There is a clear difference between the agents of evil and the agents of good. But if you are someone who has the privilege of knowing eastern philosophy, and you still take this path, which is proving the non-existence of God by proving he is evil, it’s funny and laughable, and a sign of ignorance.”
― Abhaidev, The Gods Are Not Dead

“Compassion is not complete if it does not include oneself.”
― Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living

“Does a man who is acting on the stage in a female part forget that he is a man? Similarly, we too must play our parts on the stage of life, but we must not identify ourselves with those parts.”
― Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are

“In the West, ikigai is often used as a career-finding diagram. In Japan, ikigai is a way of life.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty

“We need to become ‘perfect imperfectionists’.”
― Roger Spitz, Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World

“Nothing is permanent but impermanence. At the same time, everything is
in constant change.”
― Roger Spitz, Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World

“The East and the West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the
soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.”
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“The teacher is a needle, the disciple is as thread. You must practice constantly.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, "The Book of Five Rings (Go Rin no Sho)" Military Strategy by Miyamoto Musashi w/ How to use "Read to Me" - The Way of the Samurai Warrior and Bushido ... (CLS 006) -

“anything truly revolutionary is created by a few who see what is true and are willing to live according to that truth; but to discover what is true demands freedom from tradition, which means freedom from all fears.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Think on These Things

“The matter of the Eastern philosophers is not the "matter" of the Western metaphysicians.”
― H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4

“V'è, in noi Orientali, un'inclinazione ad accettare i limiti, e le circostanze, della vita. Ci rassegniamo all'ombra così com'è, e senza repulsione. La luce è fievole? Lasciamo che le tenebre ci inghiottano, e scopriamo loro una beltà.”
― Tanizaki Jun’ichirô

“You can't pluck even my hairs until I am alive, once I am dead, gather them and keep it in your museum in the name of God”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“Our God and Lord taught us to Celebrate -Celebrate His Life in Us and live reminiscent of His Promise ,that we shall reign with Him forever. We live each day basking in that promise which is eternally everlasting to everlasting that whosoever believes in HIM ( Lord Jesus Christ, Yahshua Maschiach) shall never perish but gain eternal life.
That is the 'Power' and 'Promise' of our God. As One in Him,we owe each other the debt of love.”
― Henrietta Newton Martin - Legal Counsel & Author

“I am too mediocre to be now at Oxford (Apeejay House) and on going at India's best site in Publishing Interview of Authors.”
― Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri, Realization (Documents Based on Self-Scholarly Effects with Google Scholar Citations.): William Shakespeare, Rabindranath Tagore and John Keats: On Selected Works of the Legends.

“Let yourself fall apart into wakefulness. The strength comes from the fact that the seed is already there; with warmth and moisture it sprouts and becomes visible above the ground. You find yourself looking like a daffodil, or feeling like one, anyway. The practice is about softening or relaxing, but it's also about precision and seeing clearly. None of that implies searching. Searching for happiness prevents us from ever finding it.”
― Pema Chodron

“In learning how to heal Cyd (Pollywog) I learned to how to heal myself.”
― Sergio Lazaro

“The sensation of "I" as a lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful and commonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech and thought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experience selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe. I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time—a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only to vanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and even absurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in the whole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclear fields in my body. At this level of existence "I" am immeasurably old; my forms are infinite and their comings and goings are simply the pulses or vibrations of a single and eternal flow of energy.”
― Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

“We are not the individual wave, but we are the indivisible sea that eternally fluctuates to give rise to an endless variety of shapes.”
― Casey Fisher, The Subtle Cause

“This is what we used to think of as the human spirit, which, as we found, is really just one of the diverse ways in which the cosmic soul exercises its creative impulse.”
― Casey Fisher, The Subtle Cause

“The sun rises today just as it did thousands of years ago. Similarly, the Tao holds true for us just as it held true for the ancients. We can even say that the Tao works better now than it did long ago, because we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We can take advantage of the work that ancient sages have done to advance our understanding. We can see farther because we have the good fortune of standing on the shoulders of giants.”
― Derek Lin, Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained

“Zen people don't bother about logic; they live the ultimate paradox. They go on saying there is no teaching and truth cannot be taught, and still Zen Masters are there and Zen disciples are there. And people have raised questions, skeptical people have always raised questions that: "What is this? On the one hand you say truth cannot be taught, and on the other hand why you initiate, why you accept people?" And the Zen Masters have always laughed, because this paradox cannot be explained. If you want to know it really you have to become a disciple, you have to become a participant, you have to become part of the mystery; only then you will have the taste of it. It is a taste; no explanation can help.”
― Osho, I Am That

“Jains teach that your karma, meaning the deeds or actions that you perform in one birth, decides the level of birth in your next incarnation. For Jains, karma is a particulate substance, especially something produced by violence of any type. Some actions are so bad in karmic terms, like killing another jiva, that they are very substantial. Other actions are less violent, like violent thoughts, so the bad karmic matter they produce is subtler. [...] How can a person get rid of the karma that attaches to his or her jiva? The process of living in this world burns off some karma. People, animals, divinities, and other beings who burn off more karma than they produce through violence will move a little higher in the next life.”
― Michael H. Fisher, A History of India