Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I do think that someone who decides to devote themselves entirely to the spiritual life, that that is more meritorious.
We only think about the difficult people and the horrible things that happen. That's what gets all the media attention.
To want not to want, you'll tie yourself in knots. So this is why the Tibetans always say, just relax the mind and open.
Western Tibetan Buddhists are always looking out there at the distant snow peaks and they lose the flowers along the path.
There are certain people who people think are enlightened. The problem with the word enlightenment is what you mean by it.
People get very deep experiences and they think they're enlightened. That's not enlightenment, that's just some realization.
My mother's love was really not based on attachment. Her love was genuine love. To make me happy, not how I will make her happy.
The world is full of incredible people who are embodiments of compassion. Some of them have a spiritual path; some of them don't.
The problem is that our inherent ignorance keeps us in samsara and unable to benefit ourselves and others on a really deep level.
Some males are intelligent, some are dumb. Some females are intelligent, some are dumb. We're all human beings, no one is superior.
Buddhism helps us to overcome our endless ego grasping mind to open up to something so much more spacious and genuinely meaningful.
Joining the Sangha and renouncing worldly life is necessary in order to devote your whole life and all your energies toward the Dharma.
Just entering into the dharma and taking refuge and bodhisattva vows is a tremendous amount of merit, but we need more and more and more.
Learn not to be too ambitious; not to expect if you have a 9-to-5 job and three kids, that you're likely to get buddhahood in one lifetime.
If you've made a lot of negative seeds, and not a lot of positive seeds, even though you meet with the dharma, you're going to have problems.
We don't always need to be sitting at the foot of the teacher, but from time to time we need someone who can overview us and give us direction.
Look at your own potential. Don't overestimate your capabilities and push too hard, or underestimate them and use that as an excuse to be lazy.
There are wars, there's pestilence, there are plagues, there is corruption in religious circles, corruption in the government, when was it not?
Obviously the dharma is every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we speak, if we do it with awareness and an open, caring heart.
I don't think I've changed anything, but I hope that by my talks I have encouraged people in their practice. That's as much as any of us can do.
If you take the time to study how to be a doctor and how to use your scalpel and your medicine, then there are endless beings out there to help.
We have met with the dharma. Many of us have met with teachers. We do have some idea of what to do and how to practice. And we should not be lazy.
We've been human countless times and done everything you can imagine. So we've been planting all these negative seeds, and they're going to come up.
With sincerity from the depths of your heart to do the best you can, just keep going and don't worry too much that you're not Milarepa or Rechungpa.
The purpose of dharma is to help your mind to expand, to grow, to clarify. It should uphold us and create an inner sense of peace, joy, and clarity.
As a human being, we have everything we need. It's enough suffering to give us incentive to go on, but not so much that we don't know where to turn.
When I heard that our bodies change when we get a bit older, I thought, oh good, now I'll go back to being a boy again. But it didn't happen like that.
The Tibetans are good at learning many skillful ways to show that everything we do becomes dharma practice, depending on which kind of approach we use.
I don't know why I got reborn as a female. Maybe in my past life I had some sympathy or something for women, but I certainly wasn't a female last time.
It's only when all the dust is completely gone from the mirror, and there is only mirror, no dust, that we're really enlightened. So that's a lot of work.
Many people are benefiting beings, but from a dharma point of view, if you are a dharma practitioner, then the first priority is to get yourself together.
Forget about realizing shunyata and going on the different bhumis and all this. Just stay in the moment, stay aware, be kind and try to improve your mind.
A lot of people with the purest motivation end up getting completely burned out. And that's because they lack the wisdom and the skill and the inner space.
A realized being would not be making any fresh karma because karma is very much connected to the ego but would still be receiving the results of past karma.
The very best players, when they are practicing, put everything they've got into it. But then they leave it for a while. And it's the same in dharma practice.
There is a basic problem that a lot of Western monks and nuns become ordained without really understanding or appreciating what the monastic life is all about.
At one time I thought that if I could really understand renunciation and bodhichitta from the depths of my heart, then, for this lifetime that would be enough.
If you lose interest in the dharma, then you might be reborn in a place where you are unlikely to meet with the dharma. And then you're completely off the path.
Since I was a small child, I'd believed we were inherently perfect, and that we had to keep coming back again and again until we recognized our innate perfection.
Why are we sitting? Why are we practicing? Why are we doing anything? It's not so I can be happy. It's so I can embody the dharma in order to benefit other beings.
I've always loved the Sangha. I have the deepest, deepest respect for them. I'm very sorry that in the West people don't appreciate what the monastic order is about.
All of us are playing roles, and there's nothing wrong with playing roles because we have to live in this world - the problem is only when we believe in those roles.
You think you're enlightened. But as my lama said, when you realize the intrinsic nature of the mind, then you start to meditate. It's not the end, it's the beginning.
It's interesting that in those countries like Taiwan or Korea, where nuns are given equal opportunities for study and practice, they also develop great social awareness.
If you become a monk because it's an easy life, because you're going to be fed, and sheltered and people will respect you, then that is not a very meritorious motivation.
We don't want to go to heaven. We want to be reborn so that we can keep going and realize the dharma so we can benefit other beings, endlessly. It's a very different thing.
You see people swimming, and you think, oh, how wonderful to swim. But most people stand on the edge swaying back and forth, afraid to jump. They don't think they can swim.
From the point of view of emptiness, there is neither being nor non-being, but we're not on the point of view of emptiness, we're on the point of view of our relative being.
For so many centuries women have been suppressed and regarded as inferior. And that of course is not right at all, that we all have buddha-nature - so what's the difference?
We're not making up merit scores for ourselves. We're making up merit scores so that we can be reborn in a situation where we can really live to benefit ourselves and others.