Gautam Buddha is a quantum leap. He does not teach you any theology, he simply wants you to be, neither doing, nor non-doing, but just being. He has no God to preach to you, no rituals to be followed; he is the first man in the world to make freedom of being the ultimate right of every living creature.
Zen: The Quantum Leap From Mind to No-Mind
Buddha says: Be a light unto yourself. Don't believe in persons, don't believe in ideologies. And when you don't believe in any ideology, and you don't believe in any person, a great trust explodes, a trust in existence itself -- in the trees, in the rocks, in the people, in the stars, rivers, mountains, in all that is. Of course, the buddhas are part of it, but you don't believe in the Buddha particularly. You simply believe in existence.
The Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha Vol 4
Drop conscience and create consciousness, and then you will be living an authentic life. And to be authentic is to be divine. To be authentic is to know what God is all about. To be authentic is to be true to Tao, the ultimate nature. AIS DHAMMO SANANTANO, Buddha says: This is the ultimate law. Be conscious, be a light unto yourself.
Guida Spirituale
And Buddha says: You may be a human being, you may be born with all senses perfect, but if you are not born in the time of a Buddha you will miss the contact with the unknown. You may see the trees, you may see the flowers, you may see the stars, but these are nothing compared to a man of enlightenment -- because he represents the unknown in the world of the known. He brings a ray of God into the darkness of the earth. He's the real flowering of consciousness.
The Discipline of Transcendence Vol 4
Watch, witness that every day, inch by inch, the distinction, the distance between the circumference of your life and the center is becoming less and less and less. And the day is not far away when suddenly your circumference will melt into the center. That moment is the moment of enlightenment. That moment, the buddha is come to his ultimate flowering.
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond
Who is a Buddha? Or what is buddhahood? The word 'buddha' means pure awareness, a state of absolute awareness. A Buddha is not a person but a state -- the ultimate state, the ultimate flowering.
The Discipline of Transcendence Vol 2
The discovery of the original man is the discovery of the eternal element in you. And once you have discovered it and allowed it spontaneously to go anywhere it wants to go -- without bothering about your parents, your well-wishers, your teachers, your preachers -- you may find that your original being in its ultimate fulfillment, flowering, is the buddha. The buddha is nobody else.
The Original Man
This bliss, this silence,
these roses blossoming within you,
they are your birthright. One can remain ignorant,
but one cannot be anything else than a buddha ...
awakened, enlightened,
that is our very destiny.
Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment
This is the peace of Buddha, the total silence -- because there is nothing to achieve, no one to achieve, nowhere to go, no one to go. Everything empty. Suddenly the whole striving disappears. You are not going anywhere. You start laughing, you start enjoying this emptiness. Then there is no barrier to your enjoyment, then the bliss goes on falling on you.
Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing
Everybody goes into deep silence.
Close your eyes and become just a frozen stone statue of Buddha.
Deeper and deeper ...
It is your own being, there is no question of fear.
Be drowned into the silence, the peace, the bliss.
That is your being's very fragrance.
Zen: The Solitary Bird, Cuckoo of the Forest
Somebody would come to Buddha and say, "There must be great bliss in enlightenment." Buddha would say, "What enlightenment? What bliss? Only nothingness remains. There is no bliss and there is no enlightenment, because as long as one is able to experience bliss, the misery will also remain. It has to be there, because it is only the contrasts one becomes aware of."
Finger Pointing to the Moon
You have to learn to function in bodhichitta, in buddha-consciousness, in all kinds of situations -- in the marketplace, in the monastery; with people in the crowd or alone in a cave; with friends or with enemies; with family, familiar people, and with strangers; with men and with animals. In all kinds of situations, in all kinds of challenges, you have to learn to function in compassion, in meditation -- because all these experiences of different situations will make your bodhichitta more and more ripe.
The Book of Wisdom
There must be a certain purpose, a certain destiny that existence is seeking through you to reach, a certain height of consciousness, a certain height of love, a certain height of compassion, understanding, wisdom, enlightenment. Existence is trying in every possible way to create a buddha in your very innermost being. The moment you are a buddha, there is dignity without any superiority.
I Celebrate Myself: God is No Where, Life is Now, Here
Gautam Buddha is one of the landmarks in the evolution of consciousness; his contribution is great, immeasurable. And in his contribution, the idea of compassion is the most essential. But you have to remember that by being compassionate you don't become higher; otherwise you spoil the whole thing. It becomes an ego trip. Remember not to humiliate the other person by being compassionate; otherwise you are not being compassionate, behind the words you are enjoying their humiliation.
The New Dawn
