Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Mind precedes all phenomena, mind matters most, everything is mind-made. If with an impure mind, you speak or act, then suffering follows you as the cartwheel follows the foot of the draft animal. If with a pure mind, you speak or act, then happiness follows you as a shadow that never departs
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our thoughts shape our reality, and the purity of our mind determines our happiness or suffering.
This quote by Gautama Buddha emphasizes the power of the mind in influencing our experiences. It suggests that the state of our mind can lead to either positive or negative outcomes; a pure mind leads to happiness, while an impure mind leads to suffering. The imagery of a shadow illustrates how closely happiness follows when one acts from a place of purity and clarity.
Themes
MindHappinessSufferingPureImpure
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth and mindfulness.
More from Gautama Buddha
All quotes →A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit.
Gautama BuddhaRead
There are having flowers in Spring, breezes in Summer, moon in Autumn, snows in Winter. If there is nothing worrying over you, it will be the best seasons at all times.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.
Gautama BuddhaRead
When a wise man is advised of his errors, he will reflect on and improve his conduct. When his misconduct is pointed out, a foolish man will not only disregard the advice but rather repeat the same error.
Gautama BuddhaRead
The tongue like a sharp knife ... Kills without drawing blood.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Similar quotes
If you need me or my help I will help you, whatever path you may follow. For me there is no difference. All paths lead to the same goal, that is, to realize the Divine.
Mother MeeraRead
A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity him.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn't accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else's insistence or someone else's whim or convenience.
Maya AngelouRead
And so was Luria, whose words now came back to me: ‘A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibility, moral being ... It is here ... you may touch him, and see a profound change.’ Memory, mental activity, mind alone, could not hold him; but moral attention and action could hold him completely.
Oliver SacksRead
Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded.
Pope FrancisRead
How is it possible not to feel that there is communication between our solitude as a dreamer and the solitudes of childhood? And it is no accident that, in a tranquil reverie, we often follow the slope which returns us to our childhood solitudes.
Gaston BachelardRead