Little Buddha Quotes
Lama Norbu comes to Seattle in search of the reincarnation of his dead teacher, Lama Dorje. His search leads him to young Jesse Conrad, Raju, a waif from Kathmandu, and an upper class ... See full summary »
Lama Norbu: [Narrating] One day Siddhartha heard an old musician on a passing boat speaking to his people.
Old Musician: If you tighten the string too much it will snap and if you leave it too slack, it won't play.
Lama Norbu: [continues narrating] Suddenly, Siddhartha realized that these simple words held the great truth, and that in all these years he had been following the wrong path.
Old Musician: If you tighten the string too much it will snap and if you leave it too slack, it won't play.
Lama Norbu: [continues narrating] Suddenly, Siddhartha realized that these simple words held the great truth, and that in all these years he had been following the wrong path.
Jesse Conrad: Were you sleeping lama?
Lama Norbu: No, I was meditating.
Jesse Conrad: What's meditating?
Lama Norbu: It is being totally quiet and relaxed, separating yourself from everything around you, setting your mind free like a bird, and you can then see your thoughts as if they were passing clouds
[looks out the window of a flying plane]
Lama Norbu: No, I was meditating.
Jesse Conrad: What's meditating?
Lama Norbu: It is being totally quiet and relaxed, separating yourself from everything around you, setting your mind free like a bird, and you can then see your thoughts as if they were passing clouds
[looks out the window of a flying plane]
Lama Norbu: I was just telling Jesse the story of Siddhartha.
Dean Conrad: That's a beautiful story. A beautiful... myth.
Lama Norbu: It is one way of telling the truth, and children seem to love it.
Dean Conrad: Lama Norbu, I have great respect for your culture and your... religion. And I know about the invasion of Tibet, and the tragedies that happened. But I don't believe in reincarnation, and neither does my wife.
Lama Norbu: [laughing softly] Why should you?
Lama Norbu: [Goes over and pours some tea into a porcelain cup] In Tibet, we think of the mind and the body as the contents and the container.
Lama Norbu: [Breaks the cup against the edge of the table; all the tea spills out] Now, the cup is no longer a cup, but what is the tea?
Dean Conrad: Still tea.
Lama Norbu: Exactly! In the cup, on the table, or on the floor, it moves from one container to another, but it's still tea. Like the mind after death: it moves from one body to another, but it is still mind!
Dean Conrad: That's a beautiful story. A beautiful... myth.
Lama Norbu: It is one way of telling the truth, and children seem to love it.
Dean Conrad: Lama Norbu, I have great respect for your culture and your... religion. And I know about the invasion of Tibet, and the tragedies that happened. But I don't believe in reincarnation, and neither does my wife.
Lama Norbu: [laughing softly] Why should you?
Lama Norbu: [Goes over and pours some tea into a porcelain cup] In Tibet, we think of the mind and the body as the contents and the container.
Lama Norbu: [Breaks the cup against the edge of the table; all the tea spills out] Now, the cup is no longer a cup, but what is the tea?
Dean Conrad: Still tea.
Lama Norbu: Exactly! In the cup, on the table, or on the floor, it moves from one container to another, but it's still tea. Like the mind after death: it moves from one body to another, but it is still mind!
Champa: [as they observe Lama Norbu, who is old and ailing, in a state of deep meditation] Someone like Lama Norbu can remain like this for ten days. Or even more. He can sit like a mountain, serene and unmovable. And he can meditate deep and vast as ocean. And then smoothly, while doing meditation, he can enter into the state of death, with his own will.
Dean Conrad: He's dying.
Champa: We are all of us dying every minute. Death is a big part of life. Every breath that we breathe, we die.
Dean Conrad: What about his passion for life? What about the people he's leaving behind?
Champa: He will come back.
Dean Conrad: I don't know if I believe it, but I'd like to.
Dean Conrad: He's dying.
Champa: We are all of us dying every minute. Death is a big part of life. Every breath that we breathe, we die.
Dean Conrad: What about his passion for life? What about the people he's leaving behind?
Champa: He will come back.
Dean Conrad: I don't know if I believe it, but I'd like to.
[first lines]
Lama Norbu: Once upon a time, in a village in ancient India, there was a little goat and a priest. The priest wanted to sacrifice the goat to the gods. He raised him arm to cut the goat's throat, when suddenly the goat began to laugh. The priest stopped, amazed, and asked the goat, "why do you laugh? Don't you know I'm about to cut your throat?" "Oh yes," said the goat. "After 499 times dying and being reborn as a goat, I will be reborn as a human being." Then the little goat began to cry. The high priest said, "why now are you crying?" And the goat replied, "for you, poor priest. Five hundred lives ago I too was a high priest, and sacrificed goats to the gods." The priest dropped to his knees, saying, "forgive me, I beg. From now on I will be the guardian and protector of every goat in the land."
[children laughing]
Lama Norbu: Now, what does this ancient tale teach us?
Children: [in unison] That no living creature must ever be sacrificed.
Boy: What happened to the goat?
Lama Norbu: Ah, yes. The goat - hmm - had many many lives as a human being. Until one day he turned into someone very strange indeed. Champa, show us something of your previous life...
Champa: B-a-a-a-a-a
[children all laughing]
Champa: B-a-a-a-a-a
Lama Norbu: Once upon a time, in a village in ancient India, there was a little goat and a priest. The priest wanted to sacrifice the goat to the gods. He raised him arm to cut the goat's throat, when suddenly the goat began to laugh. The priest stopped, amazed, and asked the goat, "why do you laugh? Don't you know I'm about to cut your throat?" "Oh yes," said the goat. "After 499 times dying and being reborn as a goat, I will be reborn as a human being." Then the little goat began to cry. The high priest said, "why now are you crying?" And the goat replied, "for you, poor priest. Five hundred lives ago I too was a high priest, and sacrificed goats to the gods." The priest dropped to his knees, saying, "forgive me, I beg. From now on I will be the guardian and protector of every goat in the land."
[children laughing]
Lama Norbu: Now, what does this ancient tale teach us?
Children: [in unison] That no living creature must ever be sacrificed.
Boy: What happened to the goat?
Lama Norbu: Ah, yes. The goat - hmm - had many many lives as a human being. Until one day he turned into someone very strange indeed. Champa, show us something of your previous life...
Champa: B-a-a-a-a-a
[children all laughing]
Champa: B-a-a-a-a-a
Narrator: [as Siddhartha lounges around one of his luxurious palaces] The King had given Siddhartha three palaces: one for winter, one for the rainy season, and one for summer. In this way he hoped to shield his son from all knowledge of pain or worry. But then, one day, Siddhartha heard a mysterious song of haunting beauty. At first he couldn't understand where it was coming from. The song was in a language he had never heard before. What was it saying? What did it mean?
Siddhartha: [Siddhartha goes to investigate, whereupon he discovers an unfamiliar woman singing this hauntingly beautiful song] What is this song?
Yasodhara: It is from a faraway land, my Lord. It evokes the beauties of the country she knew as a child. The mountains, and the lakes that she can never forget.
Siddhartha: How strange. Do such places exist? Places as beautiful as here?
Yasodhara: I've heard that only suffering lies beyond these walls.
Siddhartha: What do you mean, "suffering"?
Yasodhara: Your father loves you very much. He has given us everything we could want. There is no need to go anywhere else when you have such beauty around you.
Siddhartha: It is true. We have everything, and everything is perfect. So... what is this feeling I have? If the world is so beautiful, why have I never seen it? I've not even seen my own city! I must see the world, Yasodhara!... with my own eyes.
Siddhartha: [Siddhartha goes to investigate, whereupon he discovers an unfamiliar woman singing this hauntingly beautiful song] What is this song?
Yasodhara: It is from a faraway land, my Lord. It evokes the beauties of the country she knew as a child. The mountains, and the lakes that she can never forget.
Siddhartha: How strange. Do such places exist? Places as beautiful as here?
Yasodhara: I've heard that only suffering lies beyond these walls.
Siddhartha: What do you mean, "suffering"?
Yasodhara: Your father loves you very much. He has given us everything we could want. There is no need to go anywhere else when you have such beauty around you.
Siddhartha: It is true. We have everything, and everything is perfect. So... what is this feeling I have? If the world is so beautiful, why have I never seen it? I've not even seen my own city! I must see the world, Yasodhara!... with my own eyes.
Lama Norbu: You see, my teacher, Lama Dorje, who was even a teacher of the Dalai Lama, towards the end of his life he felt he was needed in the West, to teach the Dharma, the 'Path Buddha'... so, he came to America, to Seattle, where he passed away nine years ago. We have been searching his reincarnation in many places. But now we think he might have been reborn, right here, as your son.
Lisa Conrad: [Somewhat startled] As Jesse?
Lama Norbu: Yes.
Kenpo Tenzin: Lama Dorje had a great sense of humor.
[laughs]
Lisa Conrad: [Somewhat startled] As Jesse?
Lama Norbu: Yes.
Kenpo Tenzin: Lama Dorje had a great sense of humor.
[laughs]
