Buddhist quotes to inspire your wedding ceremony and marriage vows

 

Love and forgiveness. True compassion toward self and others. Patience. Non-attachment. A quiet mind. An open heart. The joy of the present moment. 

 

These spiritual principles are essential parts of Buddhist practice, and the building blocks to a lasting and joyful marriage. 

For an in-depth look at how to plan a Buddhist wedding ceremony, head here: 

How to perform a Buddhist wedding & what guests can expect

 

 

Below, we’ve gathered some of our favorite quotes on these principles – taken from ancient texts to today’s TikToks – expertly illuminated by Buddhist teachers that are wise, thoughtful, and often funny. 

 

You’ll find wisdom from the revered Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘spiritually sassy’ Sah D’Simone, Ram Dass, Pema Chodron, Sharon Salzberg, Roshi Joan Halifax, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and Norman Fisher, as well as words from The Buddha, and the Upaḍḍhasutta, Dhammapada, and the Na Tumhaka Sutta. 

 

Include these Buddhist readings in your wedding ceremony script, your personal written wedding vows, your wedding invitations, or as part of your wedding decor. 

 

Related: A Simple Buddhist Wedding Ceremony Script

 

 

 

 

30 Buddhist readings for your wedding ceremony

 

Wise words on love, friendship, forgiveness, detachment, happiness, relationships, and compassion.

 

 

On love 

 

1. "When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

2. “By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy & equanimity as our home.”

Sharon Salzberg

 

3. “You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success – none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.”

Ram Dass

 

4. “If I go into the place in myself that is love, and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That’s the entrance to Oneness.”

Ram Dass

 

5. "In true love, there is no pride.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

6. "The roots of a lasting relationship are mindfulness, deep listening, and loving speech, and a strong community to support you.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

7. “Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.”

Ram Dass

 

8. "In true love, you attain freedom.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

9. "Love has no meaning without understanding.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

10. "If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh

11. "If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

12. “Radiate boundless love towards the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.”

Attributed to The Buddha

 

13. “The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability.”

Ram Dass

 

 

 

 

On true friendship 

 

14. "A true partner or friend is one who encourages you to look deep inside yourself for the beauty and love you’ve been seeking." 

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

15. “Good friends, companions, and associates are the whole of the spiritual life.”

From the Upaḍḍhasutta

 

16. “Regard one who sees your faults as a guide to a hidden treasure. Stay close to one so wise and astute who corrects you when you need it.”

From the Dhammapada

 

 

On forgiveness and non-attachment

 

17. “We ask for forgiveness for the intentional and unintentional ways we caused pain to others, and we forgive others for the pain they caused us, and we then forgive ourselves for the ways we neglected ourselves and the pain we caused ourselves. This is an active practice, and not a one time deal, each time you open your heart to forgive, you are unshackling yourself from the past. And choosing to move in a direction of peace, and happiness.”

Sah D’Simone

 

18. “We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.”

Pema Chodron

 

19. “...Whatever is not yours, abandon it. When you have abandoned it, that will lead to your welfare and happiness.”

From the Na Tumhaka Sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya

 

20. “Let your own experience serve as your guide and inspiration. Let yourself enjoy the view as you travel along the path. The view is your own mind, and because your mind is already enlightened, if you take the opportunity to rest awhile along the journey, eventually you’ll realize that the place you want to reach is the place you already are.”

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

21. “One should train in deeds of merit—generosity, a balanced life, developing a loving mind—that yield long-lasting happiness.”

Attributed to The Buddha

 

 

 

 

On happiness and relationships

 

22. “Many people think excitement is happiness...But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

23. “When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.”
Pema Chodron

 

24. “When I used to perform weddings, the image I always had was the image of a triangle, in which there are two partners and then there is this third force, this third being, that emerges out of the interaction of these two. The third one is the one that is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them.”
Ram Dass

 

25. "The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

26. “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe, and may I live with ease.”
Sah D’Simone

 

27. “In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”
Ram Dass

 

28. “If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows them like a never-departing shadow.”
Attributed to The Buddha

 

 

On compassion

 

29. “Compassion may be defined as the capacity to be attentive to the experience of others, to wish the best for others, and to sense what will truly serve others.”
Roshi Joan Halifax

30. “Real altruism isn’t self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, a guilt-driven sense that we should be good, we should be nice, we should be kind.  It is the profound recognition that self and other are not fundamentally different, only apparently different… We now see that the only way that we could love ourselves is by loving others, and the only way that we could truly love others is to love ourselves. The difference between self-love and love of others is very small, once we really understand. Taking this truth into our hearts and actions is truly life changing.”
Norman Fisher

 

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You might also like: 

 

• 12 Love Poems for Your Wedding Ceremony
   
• The Cure’s Best Love Song Lyrics for Your Wedding Vows or Ceremony Script
   

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Help from the pros! 

 

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