How To Think Like Buddha

Penser et se sentir éclairé comme Bouddha avec toutes les pièces puissantes de perspicacité

Buddha actually means "enlightened one", so it is no wonder that the following 17 Buddha quotes can enlighten and awaken anyone who they resonate with. Although some of these Buddha quotes may be familiar, they are all powerful pieces of insight. These quotes will apply to you no matter who you are, what religion you are, and what you believe right now.

Buddha once said

"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles."

Whether you are religious or not, this is one of the Buddha quotes that can help you to stand behind what you believe and make sure that you don't just learn who you want to be, but act on who you want to be. I know many people who do not practice what they preach. Unfortunately, despite their intentions to do good in the world, they do more harm than anything. They offend people. They frustrate people. And they set a poor example of who they believe themselves to be. It is important to act on what you believe and not just think it.

Who is Buddha?

Buddha as an ascetic (śramaṇa) and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the eastern part of ancient India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.

Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region. He later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala.

Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism. He is believed by Buddhists to be an enlightened teacher who attained full Buddhahood and shared his insights to help sentient beings end rebirth and suffering. Accounts of his life, discourses and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarised after his death and memorised by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.

In Vaishnava Hinduism, the historic Buddha is considered to be an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. Of the ten major avatars of Vishnu, Vaishnavites believe Gautama Buddha to be the ninth and most recent incarnation.

According to the early Buddhist texts, after realising that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama (Buddha) discovered what Buddhists know as being, the Middle Way —a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path, as described in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which is regarded as the first discourse of the Buddha. In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.

Following this incident, Gautama (Buddha) was famously seated under a pipal tree—now known as the Bodhi tree—in Bodh Gaya, India, when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth. Kaundinya and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, ceased to stay with him, and went to somewhere else. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained Enlightenment, and became known as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").