“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

There’s nothing at all unBuddhist about this quote, or the sentiment it expresses, but as far as I’m aware “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” isn’t found in any Buddhist scriptures.

It sounds like someone has tried to distill the Buddha’s teaching (or eastern spiritual teachings generally) into a nice maxim, and hit on a saying that was already popular.

This probable Fake Buddha Quote seems to have been around for some time. According to Google Books, it’s found attributed …

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“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

This one struck me as suspicious, mainly because of the “no one can and no one may,” which doesn’t strike me as the kind of language the Buddha used. Actually, this turns out to be an example of a translation that is so liberal that the resemblance to the original becomes tenuous.

It’s part of a slightly longer verse passage recorded in an 1894 book, Karma: A Story of Buddhist Ethics, …

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“When someone goes wrong, it is right for his real friends to move him, even by force, to do the right thing.”

Name: Michael Stacey

Email: y………@me.com

Subject: Fake Buddha quote?

Message: This was tweeted by @QuietMindSystem “When someone goes wrong, it is right for his real friends to move him, even by force, to do the right thing.” Buddha. The force word sort of makes it suspect, or am I mistaken? I would appreciate your feedback

*****

My reply:

You’re right to be suspicious.

As it happens I was just looking into that one the other day. It’s a particularly interesting example because it brings into question exactly what makes a Buddha quote fake. It’s a paraphrase, or alternative translation of …

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“The kingdom of heaven is closer than the brow above the eye but mankind does not see it.”

Another ripe, juicy Fake Buddha Quote spotted on Twitter:

The language is purely Christian, and “Kingdom of heaven” is in no way a Buddhist concept. Fortunately this particular quote seems very rare, and Google shows only a handful of results for it, some of which are variants (e.g. “above your eye”).

“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.”

This one is a mutation of “No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today,” which is actually by Jack Kornfield. Jack’s Buddha’s Little Instruction Book is one of the major sources of Fake Buddha Quotes, presumably because people get confused by the title and think that it’s a book of actual quotations from the Buddha.

In its “hard” version it’s in at least two books, which leads me to wonder how many publishers require their authors …

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Just observe the quotes, and then let them go

We just received the following comment on Wildmind’s Facebook page, regarding Fake Buddha Quotes:

Does it really matter if they are real or fake. And honestly, who really knows ?????
Just observe the quotes. And then let them go. We don’t need to have a strong opinion one way or the other. The fact that others thinking about the Buddha’s teaching should be encouraging.

I’m interested in this idea that we should “just observe” quotes and then “let them go.” Although I note that this particular person was not able simply to observe a Facebook post and let it go …

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“The trouble is, you think you have time.”

I first spotted this one on Twitter:

This quote is another one from Jack Kornfield’s Buddha’s Little Instruction Book (1994), which isn’t a collection of Buddha quotes, as the title might suggest, but is Jack’s rather lovely interpretation of Buddhist teachings.

According to the publisher:

Just as the serene beauty of the lotus blossom grows out of muddy water, Buddha’s simple instructions have helped people to find wholeness and peace amid life’s crisis and distractions for more than 2,500 years. For this small handbook,

…

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“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins; not through strength, but through perseverance.”

I just spotted this one on Twitter:

The language is all wrong for the Buddha, and this sounds very 20th century, with a strong dose of self-help.

At first the earliest source I could find for these exact words was from 1993, from a book by John Mason called You’re Born an Original, Don’t Die a Copy!, except there the final word is “perseverance” rather than the “persistence” of the quote on …

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“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of harming another; you end up getting burned.”

I’ve seen this one a lot, and here’s an example from Twitter.

As far as I’m aware, this isn’t an actual quote from the Buddha, but a paraphrase of something said by Buddhaghosa, the 5th century commentator, in his great work, the Visuddhimagga. It’s perfectly in keeping with Buddhist teachings, but not canonical (again, as far as I know), and if Buddhaghosa had been quoting the Pāli canon I think he would …

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“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

Thanks to Viv for bringing this one to my attention in a comment on another Fake Buddha Quote.

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

It’s from page 112 of Jack Kornfield’s “Buddha’s Little Instruction Book,” in which Jack “distilled and adapted an ancient teaching for the needs of contemporary life.” This is a common pattern: if a book is called “The Teaching of Buddha” or “Buddha’s Little Instruction Book” then people jump to the conclusion that any quote from it is the teaching of the Buddha or one of the …

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