Buddhist Monk Quotes

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be in a group, or I wanted to work for Greenpeace, or I wanted to be a Buddhist monk. Those were the only three things I really wanted to do. I was doing some sort of soul searching in life.

For me, a male image that I'm really moved by is somewhere between of Oscar Wilde type of a male: the fop, the long hair, the suits, too witty for his own good, incredibly smart, scathingly funny - all that. But then my other ideal is more like the Buddhist monk - the shaved head, actually someone who sublimates their sexuality.

I was initiated as a Buddhist monk at the age of 19, but I think that initiation is simply a starting point.

I am a simple Buddhist monk.

One day I saw a picture of the Buddha on a Buddhist magazine and he was sitting on the grass, and he was sitting on the grass, very peaceful, smiling, and I was impressed. Around me people were not like that, so I had the desire to be someone like him. I nourished that kind of desire until the age of sixteen, when I had the permission from my parents to go and ordain as a Buddhist monk.

It's probably even the case that if you stoked up some Buddhist monks with tons of testosterone, they'd become wildly competitive as to who can do the most acts of random kindness.

One of the books that has guided me in the last ten years of my life to help me to be that leader is the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace. He's a Vietnamese monk. He was nominated for a Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King.

Buddhist monks have known for centuries that meditation can change the mind. Now we are inspired by His Holiness to examine with our technology the precise brain changes that occur with practice... The unique collaboration on meditation is just beginning.

As Buddhist monks, our task is to bring ourselves resolutely more and more into light, to forgive and forget, to forget those who create problems for us because to remember them is only to keep problems is mind.

Many people, including Buddhist monks, spend thousands of hours sitting in what they call meditation. In reality, what they're doing is thinking and ruminating upon their problems.

From my own personal encounters and studies with both Tantric and Zen Buddhist monks, I have found them to be humorous, warm, charming, and compassionate.

Some consider me as a living Buddha. That's nonsense. That's silly. That's wrong. If they consider me a simple Buddhist monk, however, that's probably okay.

I certainly haven't lived the life of a Buddhist monk.

I'm nothing special, just an ordinary human being. That's why I always describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

Firstly, as a Buddhist monk, I hold that violence is not good. Secondly, I am a firm believer in the Gandian ethic of passive resistance. And thirdly, in reality, violence is not our strength.

Being a Buddhist monk means never losing one's optimism in spite of all difficulties. It also means being harder on yourself than any of your teachers ever were.

A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that's to find the truth each day in every part of their life.

You haven't partied until you've partied at dawn in complete silence with Buddhist monks.

The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

I describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. No more, no less.

I make a distinction between Buddhism with a Capital 'B' and buddhism with a small 'b'. Sri Lanka has the former, in which the state uses Buddhism as an instrument of power, so there are even Buddhists monks who say the Tamils should be eliminated. Thai Buddhists are not perfect either. Some Thai Buddhist monks have compromised with the kind and possess cars and other luxuries. In many Buddhist countries, the emphasis is on being goody-goody, which is not good enough. I am for buddhism with a small 'b' which is non-violent, practical and aims to eliminate the cause of suffering.

Just studying Buddhism, then meditating and going to Buddhist monasteries, talking to Buddhist monks, combined with the Thai people themselves, changed the way I look at the world.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

I can't tell how moving it is to open my email and see a picture of 1,500 Buddhist monks and nuns in the Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh forming a human 350 against the backdrop of the melting glaciers. This is not their fault, and yet they're stepping up to be part of the solution.

Originally, I was interested in athletic pursuits like snowboarding, martial arts and surfing. When I went to the Himalayas and met a number of Buddhist monks I was introduced to a new way of looking at life.

I just want to live as a simple Buddhist monk, but during the last thirty years I have made many friends around the world and I want to have close contact with these people. I want to contribute to harmony and peace of mind, for less conflict. Wherever the possibililty is, I'm ready. This is my life's goal.

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.

Celibacy is one of the most unnatural things. It has destroyed so many human beings - millions - Catholic monks, Hindu monks, Buddhist monks, Jaina monks, nuns. For centuries they have been teaching celibacy; and the most amazing thing is, even in the twentieth century, not a single medical expert, physiologist, has stood up and said that celibacy is impossible, that in the very nature of things, it cannot happen.

......the interesting thing was that the Roman Catholic monks and the Buddhist monks had no trouble understanding each other. Each of them was seeking the same experience and knew that the experience was incommunicable. The communication is only an effort to bring the hearer to the edge of the abyss; it is a signpost, not the thing itself. But the secular clergy reads the communication and gets stuck with the letter, and that's where you have the conflict.

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.