Line 30 of T.S.Eliot's poem "The Wasteland" reads II will show you
fear in a handful of dust."  I have reason to believe that this line
alludes to some words of Buddha's.  What makes me believe this is a
quote on page 35 off Aldous Huxley's book "Island" which reads, "'I
show you sorrow,' said the Buddha realistically."  Of course this idea
is supported by the manifold Buddhist references elsewhere in the
poem.  Could anyone find the text of Buddha's in which he states that
he will show us sorrow?

Thanks for an interesting question, and one that was fun (and a
challenge) to research.


So what did the Buddha say about sorrow, exactly?  Who knows! (No, he
didn't say "who knows"...I mean Who Knows?)  As The Buddha Page
informs us:

http://www.easternreligions.com/text/buddhadoc-t.html


"There is no certain textual record of Buddha's words. The document
containing the oldest accessible traditions is the compendious Pali
canon, above all the Digha Nikaya . The scholars tell us about the
available texts, the various trends of the Buddhist tradition in the
north and south, and the earliest definitely historical reality: Asoka
and his Buddhist teaching two hundred years after Buddha's death. The
scholars also show us the great transformations in Buddhism. They try
to arrive at the reality of Buddha by a critical excision of obviously
legendary material and facts demonstrably of a later period. But there
is no conclusive evidence by which to determine how far the excision
should go. With these excisions anyone who is looking only for
absolute certainties will arrive at a point where nothing is left.
A satisfactory picture of Buddha can only be based on a profound
emotion springing from all those passages in the texts which can
convincingly (though never with certainty) be traced back to Buddha."


That said, there are occasional references to the "I show you sorrow"
line, such as this line from the SINGAPORE STRAITS TIMES of September
14, 1997 (from a non-internet source) regarding the death of Princess
Diana:

"I show you sorrow," said the Buddha, "and the ending of sorrow". 

So the quote is out there, and definitely attributed to Buddha, as
Aldous and Laura Huxley both used in their writings.  But did the
Buddha actually utter these words??  Again, impossible to say.  It's
clear though that he did have a lot of comment to offer on the subject
of sorrow itself, as one of the Three Characteristics of Existence:
Transiency (anicca), Sorrow (dukkha) and Selflessness (anatta), as
noted in:

http://home.earthlink.net/~srama/index.html#FH
ESSENTIALS OF BUDDHISM

As for quotes about sorrow attributed to Buddha in various texts, here
are a few from the Gospel of Buddha at:

reluctant-messenger.com/gospel_buddha/index.htm: 


"Birth is suffering; old age is suffering; disease is suffering; death
is  suffering; sorrow and misery are suffering; affliction and despair
are suffering ..."

"... ego is to be reborn in any of the three worlds, be it in hell,
upon earth, or be it in heaven, we shall meet again and again the same
inevitable doom of sorrow ..."

"... inflammable things upon which it can feed, so long will it burn,
and there will be birth and death, decay, grief, lamentation,
suffering, despair, and sorrow. ..."

reluctant-messenger.com/gospel_buddha/chapter_19.htm - 20k - Cached -
Similar pages


And this from:
http://www.easternreligions.com/text/buddhadoc-t.html

"The Expressed Doctrine"
"On ignorance depends karma; on karma depends consciousness; on
consciousness depend name and form; on name and form depend the five
organs of sense; on the five organs of sense depends contact; on
contact depends sensation; on sensation depends desire; on desire
depends clutching; on clutching depends existence; on existence
depends birth; on birth depend old age and death, sorrow, lamentation,
misery, grief, and despair."

Hope that is what you were looking for, but if not, let me know.  

Dave

The answer to this and quite a number of other questions that could
and should arise from a reading of "The Wasteland" is going to take
more than finding an echo of the words through a web search.  What the
Buddha said about sorrow (and whether he actually uttered the words is
immaterial) is part of the core teaching of Buddhism--the Four Noble
Truths--and has been the subject of much learned and also much
intuitive and mystical and deliberately nonintellectual, nonscholary
discourse (and nondiscourse!) for centuries.  One or two citations
will not do.  This is not the fault of the researcher nor yet of the
questioner.  It is only that Eliot touched on something much bigger
than a few words that correspond to a few other words.

One good source on the Buddha's teaching of the Four Noble Truths is
the short but revealing "What the Buddha Said," by Walpola Rahula. 
There is also the Dhammapada itself.  Ultimately the meaning of these
teachings is a matter of personal realization.

There is a comparable mother lode of meaning behind what the thunder
said.  Don't consider this one too easily solved either just because
the source of the quote is found.

Hehe,  I like the "regular expression as a question" thing. Makes
searching kind of like "GREP"