Quotes by Tibetan Authors - Page 2

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 see that there are many ways in which we actively contribute to our own experience of mental unrest and suffering. Although, in general, mental and emotional afflictions themselves can come naturally, often it is our own reinforcement of those negative emotions that makes them so much worse. For instance when we have anger or hatred towards a person, there is less likelihood of its developing to a very intense degree if we leave it unattended.However, if we think about the projected injustices done to us, the ways in which we have been unfairly treated, and we keep on thinking about them over and over, then that feeds the hatred. It makes the hatred very powerful and intense. Of course, the same can apply to when we have an attachment towards a particular person; we can feed that by thinking about how beautiful he or she is, and as we keep thinking about the projected qualities that we see in the person, the attachment becomes more and more intense. But this shows how through constant familiarity and thinking, we ourselves can make our emotions more intense and powerful.

Dalai Lama XIV

Like a lamp, dispelling the darkness of ignorance

Dalai Lama XIV

There is no miserable place waiting for you, no hell realm, sitting and waiting like Alaska—waiting to turn you into ice cream. But whatever you call it—hell or the suffering realms—it is something that you enter by creating a world of neurotic fantasy and believing it to be real. It sounds simple, but that's exactly what happens.

Lama Thubten Yeshe

We cannot learn real patience and tolerance from a guru or a friend. They can be practiced only when we come in contact with someone who creates unpleasant experiences.

Dalai Lama XIV

The enemy is the necessary condition for practicing patience.

Dalai Lama XIV

When I doubt that I exist, I pinch myself.

Dalai Lama XIV

We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected.

Dalai Lama XIV

Never sit under a tree waiting for the apple to fall. Climb the tree, grab that apple!When it comes, never be inert and take your time, TIME TO MOVE!

Tsem Tulku Rinpoche

The secret to my own happiness, my own good future, is within my own hands. I must not miss that opportunity!

Dalai Lama XIV

Without discursive thought it is just dharma practice. Hope together with aim obscures. One does not cut through pride by meditatively cultivating the desire for happiness. If there is hope, even the hope for buddhas, it is a negative force. If there is apprehension, even apprehension about hells, it is a negative force.

Machik Labdrön

True compassion is undirected & holds no conceptual focus. That kind of genuine, true compassion is only possible after realizing emptiness.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

The purpose of our lives is to be happy-Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama XIV

The world knows caterpillar becomes butterfly but they don’t care that it also becomes a moth. One is diurnal another nocturnal.Human once awakened can change the view to change self from Angulimala to a Buddha

Milarepa

Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.

Dalai Lama XIV

Those who have little interest in spirituality shouldn’t think that human inner values don’t apply to you. The inner peace of an alert and calm mind are the source of real happiness and good health. Our human intelligence tells us which of our emotions are positive and helpful and which are damaging and to be restrained or avoided. - 12/7/2012 on his Facebook page

Dalai Lama XIV

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:'Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

Dalai Lama XIV

TO CUT THROUGH problems, we need problems.

Yongey Mingyur

Can there be a completely different set of laws of physics in a different universe, or do the laws of physics as we understand them hold true in all possible universes? If the answer is that a different set of laws can operate in a different universe system, this would suggest (from a Buddhist perspective) that even the laws of physics are entangled with the karma of the sentient beings that will arise in that universe.

Dalai Lama XIV

When you eat with awareness, you find that there is more space, more beauty. You begin to watch yourself, to see yourself, and you notice how clumsy you are or how accurate you are…When you practice awareness, everything becomes majestic and good. You begin to see that you have been leading a different kind of life in the past. You had the essence of mindfulness already, but you hadn’t discovered it.

Chögyam Trungpa

But karma is not in fact a material accumulation, and does not depend on externals; rather its power to condition us depends on the obstacles that impede our knowledge. If we compare our karma and the ignorance that creates it to a dark room, knowledge of the primordial state would be like a lamp, which, when lit in the room, at once causes the darkness to disappear, enlightening everything. In the same way, if one has the presence of the primordial state, one can overcome all hindrances in an instant.

Namkhai Norbu

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 more honest you are, the more open, the less fear you will have, because there's no anxiety about being exposed or revealed to others.

Dalai Lama XIV

When we find ourselves in a situation in which our buttons are being pushed, we can choose to repress or act out, or we can choose to practice. If we can start to do the exchange, breathing in with the intention of keeping our hearts open to the embarrassment or fear or anger that we feel, then to our surprise we find that we are also open to what the other person is feeling. Open heart is open heart.

Chögyam Trungpa

Use your good common sense. Is anger useful? If you get angry at someone, the result is good neither for you nor for the other person. Nothing helpful comes of it. In the end, anger does not harm others; it hurts yourself.

Dalai Lama XIV

In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.

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

Through recognizing and realizing the empty essence, instead of being selfish and self-centered, one feels very open and free

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Too often, people think that solving the world's problems is based on conquering the Earth, rather than touching the Earth, touching ground.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

We must recognize that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity.

Dalai Lama XIV

...[A]ccording to Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition, a being that achieves Buddhahood, although freed from Samsara,the 'wheel of suffering', as the phenomenon of existence is known, will continue to return to work for the benefit of all other sentient beings until such time as each one is similarly liberated.

Dalai Lama XIV

Cultivate the understanding that the self is not really an independently existing entity, and begin to view self instead in terms of it's dependent relation to others. Although it is difficult to say that merely reflecting on this will produce a profound spiritual realization, it will at least have some effect. Your mind will be more open. Something will begin to change within you. Therefore, even in the immediate term there is definitely a positive and beneficial effect in reversing these two attitudes and moving from self-centeredness to other-centeredness, from belief in self existence to belief in dependent origination.

Dalai Lama XIV

afflictions are classed as peripheral mental factors and are not themselves any of the six main minds [eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mental consciousnesses]. however, when any of the afflicting mental factors becomes manifest, a main mind [a mental consciousness] comes under its influence, goes wherever the affliction leads it, and 'accumulates' a bad action.there are a great many different kinds of afflictions, but the chief of them are desire, hatred, pride, wrong view and so forth. of these, desire and hatred are chief. because of an initial attachment to oneself, hatred arises when something undesirable occurs. further, through being attached to oneself the pride that holds one to be superior arises, and similarly when one has no knowledge of something, a wrong view that holds the object of this knowledge to be non-existent arises.how do self-attachment and so forth arise in such great force? because of beginningless conditioning, the mind tightly holds to 'i, i' even in dreams, and through the power of this conception, self-attachment and so forth occur. this false conception of 'i' arises because of one's lack of knowledge concerning the mode of existence of things. the fact that all objects are empty of inherent existence is obscured and one conceives things to exist inherently; the strong conception of 'i' derives from this. therefore, the conception that phenomena inherently exist is the afflicting ignorance that is the ultimate root of all afflictions.

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

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

Dalai Lama XIV

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. And be kinder than is necessary.

Dalai Lama XIV

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

Dalai Lama XIV

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

Dalai Lama XIV

The various features and aspects of human life, such as longevity, good health, success, happiness, and so forth, which we consider desirable, are all dependent on kindness and a good heart.

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

I always try to share with others the idea that in order to become compassionate it is not necessary to become religious.

Dalai Lama XIV

He told me that while he was in a Chinese Communist gulag for almost eighteen years, he faced danger on a few occasions. I thought he was referencing a threat to his own life. But when I asked, "What danger?" he answered, "Losing compassion toward the Chinese.

Dalai Lama XIV

Once we are able to combine a feeling of empathy for others with a profound understanding of the suffering they experience, we become able to generate genuine compassion for them. We must work at this continually.

Dalai Lama XIV

Don't always use PAIN that you receive as an excuse to GIVE PAIN...

Tsem Tulku Rinpoche

If ye realize the Emptiness of All Things, Compassion will raise within your heart;If ye lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit to serve others ye will be;And when in serving others ye shall win success, then shall ye meet with me;And finding me, ye shall attain to Buddhahood.

Milarepa

Contemplating this suffering which is unbearable to us, and is unbearable to others, too, can produce awake mind, which arises from the compassion that wishes to free all living beings from suffering.

Dalai Lama XIV

Great compassion is the root of altruistic action, the object of amazement to the world;there is no greater source of help and happiness.

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

If the Internal enemy of hatred is not tamed, when one tries to tame external enemies, they increase. Therefore, it is a practice of the wise to tame themselves by means of the forces of love and compassion.

Bodhisattva Tokmay Sangpo

As for my own religious practice, I try to live my life pursuing what I call the Bodhisattva ideal. According to Buddhist thought, a Bodhisattva is someone on the path to Buddhahood wo dedicates themselves entirely to helping all other sentient beings towards release from suffering. The word Bodhisattva can best be understood by translating the Bodhi and Sattva separately: Bodhi means the understanding or wisdom of the ultimate nature of reality, and a Sattva is someone who is motivated by universal compassion. The Bodhissatva ideal is thus the aspiration to practise infinite compassion with infinite wisdom. releasing sentient beings from suffering.

Dalai Lama XIV

I asked the Dalai Lama what it was like to wake up with joy, and he shared his experience each morning. 'I think if you are an intensely religious believer, as soon as you wake up, you thank God for another day. And you try to do God’s will. For a nontheist like myself, but who is a Buddhist, as soon as I wake up, I remember Buddha’s teaching: the importance of kindness and compassion, wishing something good for others, or at least to reduce their suffering. Then I remember that everything is interrelated, the teaching of interdependence. So then I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day.

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

Ultimately humanity is one, and this small planet is our only home. If we're to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to experience a vivid sense of universal altruism and compassion.

Dalai Lama XIV

Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity.

Dalai Lama XIV

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.

Dalai Lama XIV

Compassion is the radicalism of our time.

Dalai Lama XIV

A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.

Dalai Lama XIV

The flowers in Tibet were always taller, more fragrant and vivid. Her descriptions, imprecise but unchanging from year to year lead me to an inevitable acceptance that her past was unequaled by our present lives. She would tell me of knee-deep fields of purple, red and white- plants never named or pointed out to during our years in India and Nepal- that over time served to create an idea of her fatherland, phayul, as a riotous garden. I pictured her wilderness paradise by comparing them not to the marigolds, daises or bluebells I crushed with my fingers, but to the shape of household artefacts around me: lollipop, broom, bottle. Disparate objects that surrendered to and influenced the idea, space and hope of a more abundant and happy place.

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Live a life that transcends your own!

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

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