Introducing Buddha Quotes

“The essence of Mahayana practice is developing compassion by training the mind to reverse ego’s normal logic of self-centredness”
― Borin Van Loon, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“The mind must be in a state of wisdom to understand wisdom.”
― Borin Van Loon, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“In Tibet to kill one’s teacher was seen as the worst crime one could commit.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“We have to make friends with ourselves and be kind to those aspects of ourselves we like least. Learning to be kind to ourselves brings the discovery that fundamentally we are quite soft. We become hard when we habitually deny our own woundedness and blame others for causing our pain. In admitting our own hurt, we become soft and vulnerable.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“We have to make friends with ourselves and be kind to those aspects of ourselves we like least. Learning to be kind to ourselves brings the discovery that fundamentally we are quite soft. We become hard when we habitually deny our own woundedness and blame others for causing our pain. In admitting our own hurt, we become soft and vulnerable.”
― Borin Van Loon, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Individual liberation was impossible if other people were suffering.”
― Borin Van Loon, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“We are preoccupied with the past, which has already happened, and we are pre-occupied about the future, which does not yet exist. We worry about what will happen and we think about various things that make us feel anxious, frustrated, passionate, angry, resentful, afraid. While we are so preoccupied, our awareness of the here-and-now slips by and we hardly notice its passing.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“The Sanskrit word for this circular chain is samsara. Samsaric existence is endless, so long as we live in ignorance.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Most of us live without awareness of the natural course of our lives. We were all born but don’t remember the pain or shock of the transition from being safe and enclosed to the shock of being pushed out into a new element. We treat illness with resentment as though it is a total betrayal, and our bodies become an enemy. Old age is seen as something that happens to other people, and death is treated like rumour that may or may not be true.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Suffering is an approximate translation of the Pali word dukkha. Dukkha implies impermanence, imperfection and unsatisfactoriness. The Buddha did not start teaching by talking of his enlightenment, of bliss or openness or clarity; he started by talking about the truth of suffering.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“He himself felt frightened and alarmed when he reflected on the inevitability of old age, sickness and death. He became silent and withdrawn.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“There is much misunderstanding about who or what the Buddha was. The word Buddha literally means “awakened one”.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Words are not the highest reality, nor’ what is expressed in words the highest reality. Why? Because the highest reality is an experience which cannot be entered into by means of statements’ regarding it. Poetry and visual symbols come much closer to reality. The mind must be in a state of wisdom to understand wisdom.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Enlightenment is the total sense of freedom that comes from letting go of the concept of being an individual “self”. It is a long journey towards being able to trust that such freedom is possible.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“We are preoccupied with the past, which has already happened, and we are pre-occupied about the future, which does not yet exist. We worry about what will happen and we think about various things that make us feel anxious, frustrated, passionate, angry, resentful, afraid. While we are so preoccupied, our awareness of the here-and-now slips by and we hardly notice its passing. We eat without tasting, we look without seeing and live without ever perceiving what is real. Meditation practice is not concerned with perfecting concentration, or getting rid of thoughts, or trying to be peaceful. The practice merely provides a space in which we can relate simply with our body, our breath and the environment. Thoughts simply occur within a larger space. In that simple situation, we bring our attention back again and again from fantasy to the simple reality of being in the present moment.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“We are constantly swimming towards what we think is the shore, what we think will be the answer to the problem, whether it be a new love affair, the cure for an illness, a way to stay young or the reward of heaven.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“We treat illness with resentment as though it is a total betrayal, and our bodies become an enemy. Old age is seen as something that happens to other people, and death is treated like rumour that may or may not be true.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“There is no dwelling in past, present or future and one is able to see the world without any pre-conceptions.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“The Buddha himself had strongly discouraged this inward tendency and had always encouraged his followers to go out into the world.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“We are preoccupied with the past, which has already happened, and we are pre-occupied about the future, which does not yet exist. We worry about what will happen and we think about various things that make us feel anxious, frustrated, passionate, angry, resentful, afraid. While we are so preoccupied, our awareness of the here-and-now slips by and we hardly notice its passing. We eat without tasting, we look without seeing and live without ever perceiving what is real.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Koan study is specifically designed to short-circuit the whole intellectual process and experience reality directly.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“True compassion is the result of experiencing sunyata. ‘Sunya’ means empty; and ‘ta’ means ‘ness’. The doctrine of emptiness is the essential teaching of Mahayana. It is the ultimate truth of non-ego.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Paradoxically, if we accept our own suffering and fully relate it with the suffering of others, we transform that pain into a means of liberation.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Meditation practice is not concerned with perfecting concentration, or getting rid of thoughts, or trying to be peaceful. The practice merely provides a space in which we can relate simply with our body, our breath and the environment. Thoughts simply occur within a larger space. In that simple situation, we bring our attention back again and again from fantasy to the simple reality of being in the present moment.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“In meditation practice, we learn to let go of the thoughts and fantasies that block the direct intuitive experience of who and what we really are. Our constant mental activity is what maintains the illusion of a separate self, and this effort makes us weary.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Enlightenment is the total sense of freedom that comes from letting go of the concept of being an individual “self”.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“The more we cling to the belief in a self, the more pain and alienation we feel.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“The peace and equanimity of the Buddha comes from an acceptance of the transitory nature of life.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“As human beings we all suffer from a fundamental anxiety that creeps into all our activities and makes lasting peace or joy impossible.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide

“Mara and his daughters are familiar to anyone who practises meditation; the revelation of dark repressed fears, barely remembered fragments of memory, doubts, erotic fantasy and foremost, the desire to get back to familiar ground.”
― Jane Hope, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide