Fake Buddha Quotes
They’re everywhere you look: Twitter, Facebook, blogs, quotes sites — even in books by well-known Buddhists. Fake Buddha Quotes abound.
To those who are familiar with the Buddhist scriptures, these Hallmark-style quotes attributed to the Buddha ring false, but it seems many people are preferentially attracted to the fake variety.
It’s hard sometimes to pinpoint why they sound fake. Usually it’s the language, which may be too flowery and poetic. Sometimes it’s the subject matter, which sounds too contemporary. The thing is, that although the Buddhist scriptures are vast (way larger than the Bible) they’re often not very quotable, or at least they tend not to have the immediate appeal that some of the fake variety has.
One question that arises though is whether there’s such a thing as a Genuine Buddha Quote. And in a sense there’s not. The earliest scriptures we have were passed down for hundreds of years before being committed to writing. What was passed down was no doubt simplified, edited, and made easier to memorize through chanting by being made repetitious. Hence the mind-numbing boringness of much of the Pāli canon. Some of what was passed down as the Buddha’s words probably wasn’t even his words to start with. After a few generations, who would be able to tell if a particular saying was just a popular piece of folk-wisdom, or something the …show more content…
Some people get very upset over this question. If their favorite Buddha Quote — about kittens and puppies, perhaps — is pointed out as not being traceable to the Buddha and perhaps attributable to some contemporary or historical writer, they tend to get annoyed. It’s as if you’re invalidating the inherent goodness of kittens and puppies. But that’s not my point here. Pointing out that something was not said by the Buddha doesn’t invalidate the quote. It just removes false attribution. Kittens and puppies are fine, but let’s be clear about the attribution of our quotes, where we
To those who are familiar with the Buddhist scriptures, these Hallmark-style quotes attributed to the Buddha ring false, but it seems many people are preferentially attracted to the fake variety.
It’s hard sometimes to pinpoint why they sound fake. Usually it’s the language, which may be too flowery and poetic. Sometimes it’s the subject matter, which sounds too contemporary. The thing is, that although the Buddhist scriptures are vast (way larger than the Bible) they’re often not very quotable, or at least they tend not to have the immediate appeal that some of the fake variety has.
One question that arises though is whether there’s such a thing as a Genuine Buddha Quote. And in a sense there’s not. The earliest scriptures we have were passed down for hundreds of years before being committed to writing. What was passed down was no doubt simplified, edited, and made easier to memorize through chanting by being made repetitious. Hence the mind-numbing boringness of much of the Pāli canon. Some of what was passed down as the Buddha’s words probably wasn’t even his words to start with. After a few generations, who would be able to tell if a particular saying was just a popular piece of folk-wisdom, or something the …show more content…
Some people get very upset over this question. If their favorite Buddha Quote — about kittens and puppies, perhaps — is pointed out as not being traceable to the Buddha and perhaps attributable to some contemporary or historical writer, they tend to get annoyed. It’s as if you’re invalidating the inherent goodness of kittens and puppies. But that’s not my point here. Pointing out that something was not said by the Buddha doesn’t invalidate the quote. It just removes false attribution. Kittens and puppies are fine, but let’s be clear about the attribution of our quotes, where we