Mahayana Buddhism Quotes

“Because goodness has to mature; it doesn't just occur, it must be nourished, and it must grow.”
― Roger Weir

“The term fraud alludes to a saying of the Buddha which the Mahayanists were fond of quoting: "All conditioned things are worthless, unsubstantial, fraudulent, deceptive and unreliable, but only fools are deceived by them. Nirvana alone, the highest reality, is free from deception." Two classes of facts are here distinguished-the deceptive multiple things on one side, and the true reality of the Absolute on the other.”
― Edward Conze, Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra

“The Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet certainly does contain an unbroken oral tradition of teachings on the development of supernormal powers, which has passed from realized guru to disciple from the time of the Buddha himself down to the present ...”
― Thubten Yeshe, Becoming Your Own Therapist

“Many religions tend to have an otherworldly orientation; they tend to value the afterlife in heaven even more than this life on earth. Not so with Zen Buddhism. In fact, all schools of Mahayana Buddhism call for a return to this world. Even those Pure Land Buddhists who focus their attention on "going forth" (Jp. ōsō) to be reborn after death in the Pure Land understand the Pure Land to be a place where one can quickly and easily become a Buddha. And one becomes a Buddha not merely for one's own sake, but so that one can "return" (gensō) to work on behalf of liberating all sentient beings from suffering.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“While in Hīnayāna Buddhism the Buddha appears and disappears in the universe, in Mahāyāna thought the Buddha is the universe itself, eternal existence. This idea was probably influenced by the notion of Brahmā, Brahmanism's fundamental principle of the universe, and by Hinduism's concept of the gods Viṣṇu and Śiva.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“Mahāyāna Buddhism arose in India around the first century C.E. It can be classified into three periods: early, or dynamic (1st century C.E. to 4th century C.E.), middle, or scholastic (4th–mid-7th century), and late, or esoteric (mid-7th–early 13th century).”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“Sahā refers to the world in which we live, the stage for Śākyamuni's appearance and the object of his teaching. Sahā, "a place where suffering is endured," (and its variant Sabhā, "confused congregation") appears to derive from the Sanskrit word sabhaya, meaning "a land of fear." All these words describe the world as a realm of defilements, filled with suffering.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“Mahāyāna thought posits not just one buddha, but many buddhas throughout the universe. . . . They possess their own lands, apart from the Sahā world, in which they teach. These are called buddha-lands, buddha-realms, or pure lands. Best known are the Realm of Profound Joy or Akṣobhya Buddha, the Pure Lapis-lazuli World of Bhaiṣajya-guru Buddha, and the Pure Land of Sukhāvati of Amida (Amitābha/Amitāyus). Resembling buddha-lands, though not strictly identical, is the Tuṣita heaven, one of the six heavens of the realm of desire and the dwelling place of bodhisattvas prior to their appearance on earth as buddhas. Śākyamuni descended to Jambudvīpa from there, and at present Maitreya, the future buddha, lives there. Another place resembling buddha-lands is Mount Potalaka, said to be located in the sea south of India, where Avalokitśvara Bodhisattva dwells. The Sahā world might seem to be the buddha-land of Śākyamuni; it is not, however, a "pure land," but rather a defiled realm, and thus is quite distinct from the buddha-lands. Śākyamuni, moreover, is a historical person and other buddhas are mythological or metaphysical beings.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“If a person truly believes in Mahayana Buddhism, then whether they are monk, nun, or layperson, the whole of his or her life will be directed toward the ultimate objective expressed in the final verse of the bodhisattva vow: “The Way of the Buddha is unsurpassed; I vow to attain it.”
― Kōun Yamada, Zen: The Authentic Gate

“There has been a tendency to find Zen so radically different from other Buddhist schools, especially during the Zen boom in America, that a distinction was drawn between Zen and Buddhism in general. It goes without saying that this sort of distinction is nonsense. Zen in its entirety belongs to Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. It counts as one of the classical Buddhist schools in China, each of which can claim a certain autonomy. Zen itself professes to be that particular lineage of immediate transmission which, bound to no holy scriptures, hands down to progeny the original way to Buddha-enlightenment. It is, in brief, the meditation school of Mahayana Buddhism.”
― Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Enlightenment: Origins And Meaning