14th Dalai Lama

Blessings don’t come from outside, but from within. Whatever blessings we receive are the result of our own efforts and positive actions.

14th Dalai Lama

Both these people illustrate the essential point that happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events.

14th Dalai Lama

Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom.

14th Dalai Lama

Buddha urged people to investigate things – he didn’t just command them to believe.

14th Dalai Lama

Buddha was speaking about reality. Reality may be one, in its deepest essence, but Buddha also stated that all propositions about reality are only contingent.

14th Dalai Lama

Buddhahood is a state free of all obstructions to knowledge and disturbing emotions. It is the state in which the mind is fully evolved.

14th Dalai Lama

Buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent being as the origin of all things.

14th Dalai Lama

But for all its benefits in offering moral guidance and meaning in life, in today’s secular world religion alone is no longer adequate as a basis for ethics.

14th Dalai Lama

By being inattentive to the needs of others, inevitably we end up harming them.

14th Dalai Lama

By developing a sense of respect for others and a concern for their welfare, we reduce our own selfishness, which is the source of all problems, and enhance our sense of kindness, which is a natural source of goodness.

14th Dalai Lama