It is related that Sakyamuni [the historical Buddha] once dismissed as of small consequence a feat of levitation on the part of a disciple, and cried out in pity for a yogin by the river who had spent twenty years of his human existence learning to walk on water, when the ferryman might have taken him across for a small coin. Peter Matthiessen
About This Quote

This is a quote by the Buddhist teacher, Sakyamuni. He was commenting on the foolishness of people who waste their time in minor things when they could be training in the higher states of yoga. There are no small things in life, and if we waste our time on useless practices, we may never achieve greatness in the spiritual path. What is greatness? It is simply knowing yourself.

Source: The Snow Leopard

Some Similar Quotes
  1. If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. - Mik Everett
  2. Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god.
 - Unknown
  3. She was a beautiful dreamer. The kind of girl, who kept her head in the clouds, loved above the stars and left regret beneath the earth she walked on. - Robert M. Drake
  4. Death is the easy part, the hard part is living and knowing you could be so much more then you’re willing to be. - Robert M. Drake
  5. Sometimes to self-discover you must self-destruct. - Robert M. Drake
More Quotes By Peter Matthiessen
  1. When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions -...
  2. It is related that Sakyamuni [the historical Buddha] once dismissed as of small consequence a feat of levitation on the part of a disciple, and cried out in pity for a yogin by the river who had spent twenty years of his human existence learning...
  3. There is a difference between right and wrong, always was and always will be, but each man's wrong and each man's right are different.
  4. The secret of the mountain is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no "meaning, " they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the...
  5. Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterpreted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same. This retreat from wonder, the backing away like lobsters into safe crannies, the...
Related Topics