quote from the buddha

[nimmo]

hi, i want to get this quote from the first Buddha tattooed down the side of my body, "The mind is everything. What you think, you become." can someone translate this for me? i was going to use chinese-tattoos-designs.com but i don't know if they are good or not. the english on that website has a lot of errors on it, thanks.

[skylee]

Consider 相由心生.

[chrix]

if it's from the first Buddha, getting it in Sanskrit or Pali will probably be more authentic...

[nimmo]

what about 萬法唯心

[Hofmann]

If it's a quote, I think it's very likely that there are translations already available.

[Moving_away]

I also definitely second the idea of finding the actual quote in the scriptures (Pali, tibetan or chinese). Otherwise you might end up with a misquote instead of a quote.

Besides, who do you consider the first Buddha? According to Southern Buddhist beliefs there have been innummerable Buddha's of which 28 generally are known from the texts. The Northern (incl. China) tradition has more, plus a lot of almost fully enlightened beings called Bodhisattva's (Guanyin/Avalokitesvara and Wenshu/Manjushri are examples) which are also sometimes misnomed Buddha. Probably with first Buddha you mean the historical Buddha, Buddha Gautama. So that might be a good starting point for the real search.

Sorry for the lecture on Buddhism, but besides a tattoo, in this way you might also acquire some background knowledge

[nimmo]

yes, siddhartha guatama is who i am referring to. i understand that it is written in ancient indian but since i am chinese i would like the closest translation in chinese, which i got from one of those pay websites and confirmed it with my aunties. :-) thanks for the help everyone, i am going with what i posted.