Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
Buddha

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
Buddha

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
Buddha

The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings.
Buddha

Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height.
Buddha

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
Buddha

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Dalai Lama

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?
Thich Nhat Hanh

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
Mohandas Gandhi

Be the change that you want to see in the world.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
Mohandas Gandhi

Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
Mohandas Gandhi

Peace as a goal is an ideal which will not be contested by any government or nation, not even the most belligerent.
Aung San Suu Kyi

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.
Aung San Suu Kyi

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
Leo Tolstoy

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful
Leo Tolstoy

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves
Leo Tolstoy

The most violent element in society is ignorance.
Emma Goldman

If I can't dance – I don't want to be part your revolution
Emma Goldman

Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
Gary Snyder

You don't become a saint until you lead a good life whether in Tibet or Italy or America.
Kenneth Rexroth

Interviewer: Is there a consistent position for anarchists to take these days?

Rexroth: What's the difference in that and being a Buddhist? A person who lives the Buddha life to the best of his ability does not need the state and does not need law. That's a different thing from being a political anarchist. This person certainly does not need politics. He[she] may engage in political actions when a Buddhist community is being persecuted as in South Vietnam. But that's a different matter. And also you can't expect every monk in South and East Asia to be a model of Shakyamuni. Buddhism really isn't even passive resistance, it's ignoring the state, in all of its ways. It's ignoring the social lie...
Kenneth Rexroth 1980

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.
Blaise Pascal

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
Albert Camus

Nothing is Hidden.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?
Walt Whitman, 'Leaves of Grass'

I sit inside the shell of the old me. I sit for world revolution.
Ginsberg

No one can find inner peace except by working, not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.
Peace Pilgrim

The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one's life.
Peace Pilgrim

A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose.
Peace Pilgrim

I don't eat junk foods and I don't think junk thoughts.
Peace Pilgrim

There is a criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace? If they have not, there is something wrong with them – so keep seeking! If what you do has brought you inner peace, stay with what you believe is right.
Peace Pilgrim

Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily.
Dorothy Day

The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?
Dorothy Day

A BUDDHA IN THE WOODPILE

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
If there had been only
one Buddhist in the woodpile
in Waco Texas
to teach us how to sit still
one saffron Buddhist in the back rooms
just one Tibetan lama
just one Taoist
just one Zen
just one Thomas Merton Trappist
just one saint in the wilderness
of Waco USA
If there had been only one
calm little Gandhi
in a white sheet or suit
one not-so-silent partner
who at the last moment shouted Wait
If there had been just one
majority of one
in the lotus position
in the inner sanctum
who bowed his shaved head to the
Chief of All Police
and raised his hands in a mudra
and chanted the Great Paramita Sutra
the Diamond Sutra
the Lotus Sutra
If there had somehow been
just one Gandhian spinner
with Brian Willson
at the gates of the White House
at the Gates of Eden
then it wouldn't have been
Vietnam once again
and its "One two three four
What're we waitin' for?"
If one single ray of the light
of the Dalai Lama
when he visited this land
had penetrated somehow
the Land of the Brave
where the lion never
lies down with the lamb--
But not a glimmer got through
The Security screened it out
screened out the Buddha
and his not-so-crazy wisdom
If only in the land of Sam Houston
if only in the land of the Alamo
if only in Wacoland USA
if only in Reno
if only on CNN CBS NBC
one had comprehended
one single syllable
of the Gautama Buddha
of the young Siddhartha
one single whisper of
Gandhi's spinning wheel
one lost syllable
of Martin Luther King
or of the Early Christians
or of Mother Teresa
or Thoreau or Whitman or Allen Ginsberg
or of the millions in America tuned to them
If the inner ears of the inner sanctums
had only been half open
to any vibrations except
those of the national security state
and had only been attuned
to the sound of one hand clapping
and not one hand punching
Then that sick cult and its children
might still be breathing
the free American air
of the First Amendment

Free and Easy - A Spontaneous Vajra Song
by Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche
Happiness cannot be found
through great effort and willpower,
but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.
Don't strain yourself,
there is nothing to do or undo.
Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind
Has no real importance at all,
has little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with, And become attached to it,
Passing Judgement upon it and ourselves?
Far better to simply
let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves
without changing or manipulating anything
and notice how everything vanishes and
reappears, magically, Again and again,
time without end.
Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It's like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,
or a dog chasing it's own tail.
Although peace and happiness do not exist
as an actual thing or place,
it is always available and accompanies you every instant.
Don't believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are today's ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.
Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping, infinite space is there - open, inviting and comfortable.
Make use of this spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.
Don't search any further
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.
Nothing to do or undo,
nothing to force,
nothing to want,
And nothing missing.
Emaho! Marvelous!
Everything happens by itself.