Quotes by Tibetan Authors - Page 3

The ultimate source of comfort and peace is within ourselves.

Many people today agree that we need to reduce violence in oursociety. If we are truly serious about this, we must deal with theroots of violence, particularly those that exist within each of us. Weneed to embrace 'inner disarmament,' reducing our own emotions ofsuspicion, hatred and hostility toward our brothers and sisters.

Dalai Lama XIV

If you are honest, truthful, and transparent, people trust you. If people trust you, you have no grounds for fear, suspicion or jealousy.

Dalai Lama XIV

The foundational Vajrakilaya is the sun shining in the sky behind the clouds. The path Vajrakilaya is the removal of the clouds from the sky through the force of wind and rain, or whatever; it is the path of method and wisdom, combined. And the resultant Vajrakilaya is the nature of your mind, the nature of your rigpa, which is the same mind as the mind of the primordial buddha, Kuntuzangpo. The path Vajrakilaya is the removal of the adventitious veil of obscuration that covers rigpa. Applying the method by practicing generation stage (kyerim) and completion stage (dzogrim), accumulating merit and purifying negative karma, removing that veil, is the path. The result is realizing that ones own self nature is buddha. So the result is the same as the foundation. In the beginning you are buddha, and in the end you are buddha.

Gyatrul Rinpoche

Beginners will first meditate upon equanimity. Once that is established, they will then meditate upon the remaining three [immeasurable qualities of love, compassion, and joy]....First, toward all those who are relatives, attachment is to be abandoned as though they were neutral. Then abandon aversion for enemies as though they were neutral and remain without partiality. In order to be free from delusion even toward the neutral, have the intention to dispel the passions of beings all at once. Meditate like this without cli

Longchen Rabjam

We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all receivedwisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion....This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith. In this sense, there is no needfor temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for complicatedphilosophy, doctrine or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple.The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights anddignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need.So long as we practice these in our daily lives, then no matter if we arelearned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God, or follow someother religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others andconduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there isno doubt we will be happy.

Dalai Lama XIV

If you meditate in perfect peace and then flash someone an irritable look because they make noise or their child cries, you are entirely missing the point.

Khandro Rinpoche

The life-tree of practice is single-minded application.

Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye

By mental cultivation I mean a disciplined application of mind that involves deepening our familiarity with a chosen object or theme. Here I am thinking of the Sanskrit term bhavana, which connotes "cultivation," and whose Tibetan equivalent, gom, has the connotation of "familiarization." These two terms, often translated into English as meditation, refer to a whole range of mental practices and not just, as many suppose, to simple methods of relaxation. The original terms imply a process of cultivating familiarity with something, whether it is a habit, a way of seeing, or a way of being.

Dalai Lama XIV

If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.

Sakyong Mipham

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals the secret of some hidden treasure.

Dalai Lama XIV

Those questions which are unexpected and complicated are the ones I appreciate most. They can help me a great deal. as I am compelled to take an interest in something that might not otherwise have occurred to me.

Dalai Lama XIV

What is a great spiritual practitioner? A person who lives always in the presence of his or her own true self, someone who has found and who uses continually the springs and sources of profound inspiration. As the modern English writer Lewis Thompson wrote: 'Christ, supreme poet, lived truth so passionately that every gesture of his, at once pure Act and perfect Symbol, embodies the transcendent.'To embody the transcendent is why we are here.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Someone who begins to develop an interest in the teachings can tend to distance themselves from the reality of material things, as if the teachings were something completely apart from daily life. Often, at the bottom of all this, there is an attitude of giving up and running away from one's own problems, with the illusion that one will be able to find something that will miraculously help one to transcend all that. But the teachings are based on the principle of our actual human condition. We have a physical body with all its various limits: each day we have to eat, work, rest, and so on. This is our reality, and we can't ignore it.

Namkhai Norbu

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Dalai Lama XIV

Be kind to UNKIND people.They need it the most.

Dalai Lama XIV

If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.

Dalai Lama XIV

You must not hate those who do harmful things. The compassionate thing is to do what you can to stop them--for they are harming themselves as well as those who suffer from their actions.

Dalai Lama XIV

To produce a primary [karmic] cause which is potentially capable of having an effect, three things are necessary: intention, the actual action, and then satisfaction.

Namkhai Norbu

Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

Dalai Lama XIV

If a person shows anger to you, and you show anger in return, the result is disaster. If you nurse hatred, you will never be happy, even in the lap of luxury. By contrast, if you control your anger and show its opposite - love, compassion, tolerance, and patience - then not only do you remain in peace, but gradually the anger of others also will diminish.

Dalai Lama XIV

In the end, the innate desire of all people for truth, justice, and human understanding must triumph over ignorance and despair.

Dalai Lama XIV

The topic of compassion is not at all religious business; it is important to know it is human business, it is a question of human survival.

Dalai Lama XIV

Your emotional understanding about the preciousness of your human birth comes through conscious, repetitive mind training.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Live a life that transcends your own!

Dalai Lama XIV

The more time you spend thinking about yourself, the more suffering you will experience.

Dalai Lama XIV

Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Meanwhile, spring came, and with it the outpourings of Nature. The hills were soon splashed with wild flowers; the grass became an altogether new and richer shade of green; and the air became scented with fresh and surprising smells -- of jasmine, honeysuckle, and lavender.

Dalai Lama XIV

To be kind, honest and have positive thoughts; to forgive those who harm us and treat everyone as a friend; to help those who are suffering and never to consider ourselves superior to anyone else: even if this advice seems rather simplistic, make the effort of seeing whether by following it you can find greater happiness.

Dalai Lama XIV

Whenever ego suffers from fear of death & your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

My earnest request is that you practice love and kindness whether you believe in a religion or not.

Dalai Lama XIV

Are the great spiritual teachings really advocating that we fight evil because we are on the side of light, the side of peace? Are they telling us to fight against that other 'undesirable' side, the bad and the black. That is a big question. If there is wisdom in the sacred teachings, there should not be any war. As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.

Chögyam Trungpa

when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.

Sogyal Rinpoche

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.

Dalai Lama XIV

If you want others to be happy practice compassion. If you want to be happy practice compassion.

The Dalai Lama

The highest happiness is when one reaches the stage of Liberation, at which there is no more suffering. That’s genuine, lasting happiness. True happiness relates more to the mind and heart. Happiness that depends mainly on physical pleasure is unstable; one day it’s there, the next day it may not be.

Dalai Lama XIV

You must not hate those who do wrong or harmful things; but with compassion, you must do what you can to stop them — for they are harming themselves, as well as those who suffer from their actions.

Dalai Lama XIV

I don't think there is anything like the awareness of space to process emotion. That space is such an incredible processor. There is no analysis equal to the processing capacity of open awareness. When you are trying to analyze something, you don't realize that the analyzer itself is part of the problem. Both the problem and the analyzer are constructions of the mind. But direct, open, naked awareness is not a construction of the mind but the nature of the mind itself, and therefore the greatest processor ever.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.

Dalai Lama XIV

To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up.

Dalai Lama XIV

My mother showed her gratitude for her life in exile by alluding to India’s modernity: the expansive railway network; the Bollywood movies she came to love for their tumultuous stories which ultimately conceded to the cardinal guidelines she held in her own life- love, family and duty. Still, it was Tibet’s antiquity that anchored her in exile. It was phayul she longed for when her skin was scorched by the summer heat of India’s plains. When she drank milk she compared it to the milk of her childhood for such sweetness and creaminess was not easily forgotten, and when she felt nauseous riding the buses that weaved their way around curvaceous mountain roads she spoke of the horses she had loved to ride.

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Don't you notice that there are particular moments when you are naturally inspired to introspection? Work with them gently, for these are the moments when you can go through a powerful experience, and your whole worldview can change quickly.

Sogyal Rinpoche

TO CUT THROUGH problems, we need problems.

Yongey Mingyur

We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don´t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Compassion is the radicalism of our time.

Dalai Lama XIV

Love is the absence of judgment.

Dalai Lama XIV

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.

Dalai Lama XIV

Now there are many, many people in the world, but relatively few with whom we interact, and even fewer who cause us problems. So when you come across such a chance for practicing patience and tolerance, you should treat it with gratitude. It is rare. Just as having unexpectedly found a treasure in your own house, you should be happy and grateful toward your enemy for providing you that precious opportunity. Because if you are ever to be successful in your practice of patience and tolerance, which are critical factors in counteracting negative emotions, it is due to your own efforts and also the opportunity provided by your enemy.

Dalai Lama XIV

Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature.

Sogyal Rinpoche

I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I’m not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I’m not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.

Dalai Lama XIV

Our lives are in constant flux, which generates many predicaments. But when these are faced with a calm and clear mind supported by spiritual practice, they can all be successfully resolved. When our minds are clouded by hatred, selfishness, jealousy, and anger, we lose not only control but also our judgment. At those wild moments, anything can happen, including war. Although the practice of compassion and wisdom is useful to us all, it is especially valuable for those responsible for running national affairs, in whose hands lie the power and opportunity to create a framework for world peace.

Dalai Lama

From the Buddhist point of view, all living beings -- that is, beings with feelings, experiences, and sensations -- are considered equal. Human beings can live without eating meat. As human beings, I think that deep down our nature tends towards vegetarianism and leads us to do everything in our power to prevent harming other species.

Dalai Lama XIV

Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.

Dalai Lama XIV

One of the parrots was very friendly with...Master of the Robes. He used to feed it nuts. As it nibbled from his fingers, he used to stroke its head, at which the bird appeared to enter a state of ecstasy. I very much wanted this kind of friendliness and several times tried to get a similar response, but to no avail. So I took a stick to punish it. Of course, thereafter it fled at the sight of me. This was a very good lesson in how to make friends: not by force but by compassion.

Dalai Lama XIV

Open your arms to CHANGEbut don’t let go of your VALUES.

Dalai Lama XIV

What makes an action positive or negative? Not how it looks, not whether it is big or small, but it is the positive or negative motivation that is behind it. No matter how many teachings that you have heard, to be motivated by ordinary concerns, such as a desire for greatness, fame or whatever, is not the way of the true Dharma.

Patrul Rinpoche

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

Dalai Lama XIV

As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.

Chögyam Trungpa

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.-Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama XIV

Many of us are slaves to our minds. Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus, and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night. We try to be good to the people we love, but then we forget them and put ourselves first. And when we want to change our life, we dive into spiritual practice and expect quick results, only to lose focus after the honeymoon has worn off. We return to our state of bewilderment. We're left feeling helpless and discouraged. It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our minds?

Sakyong Mipham

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