Kelsang Gyatso > Quotes

“Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be acheived unless we first establish peace within our own minds. We can send so-called 'peacekeeping forces' into areas of conflict, but peace cannot be oppossed from the outside with guns. Only by creating peace within our own mind and helping others to do the same can we hope to achieve peace in this world.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Transform Your Life: A Blissful Journey

“Normally we divide the external world into that which we consider to be good or valuable, bad or worthless, or neither. Most of the time these discriminations are incorrect or have little meaning. For example, our habitual way of categorizing people as friends, enemies, and strangers depending on how they make us feel is both incorrect and a great obstacle to developing impartial love for all living beings. Rather than holding so tightly to our discriminations of the external world, it would be much more beneficial if we learned to discriminate between valuable and worthless states of mind.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Transform Your Life: A Blissful Journey

“If we want to be truly happy and free from suffering, we must learn how to control our mind.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“Happiness and suffering are states of mind and so their main causes are not to be found outside the mind.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“The path to enlightenment is really very simple - all we need to do is stop cherishing ourself and learn to cherish others. All other spiritual realisations will naturally follow from this.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Eight Steps to Happiness: The Buddhist Way of Loving Kindness

“It is very important to identify the actual cause of whatever unhappiness we feel. If we are forever blaming our difficulties on others, this is a sure sign that there are still many problems and faults within our own mind.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths

“Our problems do not exist outside our mind.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths

“If true fulfilment cannot be found in worldly pleasures, where can it be found? Happiness is a state of mind, therefore the real source of happiness lies in the mind, not in external circumstances. If our mind is pure and peaceful we shall be happy, regardless of our external conditions.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Meditation Handbook: Meditations to Make Our Life Happy and Meaningful

“Problems arise only if we respond to difficulties with a negative state of mind. Therefore, if we want to be free from problems, we must transform our mind.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths

“if we wish to protect ourself from suffering we can either try to change the whole world to make it conform to our wishes, or we can change our mind.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Eight Steps to Happiness: The Buddhist Way of Loving Kindness

“Buddha is sometimes called the ‘Awakened One’ because he has awakened from the ‘sleep’ of ignorance.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“Happiness is a state of mind, so the real source of happiness must lie within the mind, not in external conditions.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Eight Steps to Happiness: The Buddhist Way of Loving Kindness

“Problems arise only if we respond to difficult external situations with a negative state of mind. Therefore, if we really want to be free from problems we must learn to control our mind by controlling our desire.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, How to Understand the Mind: The Nature and Power of the Mind

“If we practise the patience of voluntarily accepting suffering, we can maintain a peaceful mind even when experiencing suffering and pain.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths

“we are continually chasing mirages, only to be disappointed when they do not give us the satisfaction for which we had hoped.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, How to Transform Your Life: A Blissful Journey

“Self-cherishing and self-grasping are different aspects of one mind. Self-grasping grasps at an inherently existent ‘I’, and self-cherishing believes that such an ‘I’ is precious and that its happiness and freedom are supremely important.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“Although we want to be happy all the time we do not know how to do this, and we are always destroying our own happiness by developing anger, negative views and negative intentions. We are always trying to escape from problems, even in our dreams, but we do not know how to liberate ourself from suffering and problems. Because we do not understand the real nature of things, we are always creating our own suffering and problems by performing inappropriate or non-virtuous actions.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“When our wishes are not fulfilled we usually experience unpleasant feelings, such as unhappiness or depression; this is our own problem because we are so attached to the fulfilment of our wishes.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“Being patient means to welcome wholeheartedly whatever arises,”
― Kelsang Gyatso, How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths

“I shall definitely die. There is no way to prevent my body from finally decaying. Day by day, moment by moment, my life is slipping away. I have no idea when I shall die; the time of death is completely uncertain. Many young people die before their parents, some die the moment they are born – there is no certainty in this world. Furthermore, there are so many causes of untimely death. The lives of many strong and healthy people are destroyed by accidents. There is no guarantee that I shall not die today.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“Because of mistakenly believing that outer problems are their own problems, most people seek ultimate refuge in the wrong objects. As a result, their suffering and problems never end.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“even though we do not want to suffer we create our own suffering by performing non-virtuous actions.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“Sometimes we may fulfil our desires for worldly attainments, such as reputation, a high position, relationships, wealth and so forth, but these attainments are deceptive; they continually give rise to many undesirable problems.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“… all the suffering there is in this world
Arises from wishing ourself to be happy.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“Nothing causes me greater harm than the demon of my self-cherishing. It is the source of all my negativity, misfortune, problems and suffering. Therefore I must abandon my self-cherishing.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“If we were to respond to difficult situations with a positive or peaceful mind they would not be problems for us; indeed, we may even come to regard them as challenges or opportunities for growth and development.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“aim. We should understand that our problems do not exist outside of ourself, but are part of our mind that experiences unpleasant feelings.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“(3) I am only one, whereas others are countless, so how can I be concerned for myself alone while I neglect others? My happiness and suffering are insignificant when compared with the happiness and suffering of countless other living beings.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“Buddha said: ‘You should know that all phenomena are like dreams.’ When we die, our gross waking minds dissolve into our very subtle mind and the world we experienced when we were alive simply disappears. The world as others perceive it will continue, but our personal world will disappear as completely and irrevocably as the world of last night’s dream. Buddha”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra

“I must give up cherishing myself and instead cherish all other living beings without exception.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra