Matthieu Ricard Quotes

55 quotes in 788 categories

• By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a…
• Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how…
• The basic root of happiness lies in our minds; outer circumstances are nothing more than adverse or favourable.
• Knowledge does not mean mastering a great quantity of different information, but understanding the nature of mind. This knowledge can penetrate each one of our…
• Happiness is the main object of our aspirations, whatever name we give to it: fulfilment, deep satisfaction, serenity, accomplishment, wisdom, fortune, joy or inner peace,…
• What counts is not the enormity of the task, but the size of the courage.
• Nothing goes right on the outside when nothing is going right on the inside.
• When the mind is full of memories and preoccupied by the future, it misses the freshness of the present moment. In this way, we fail…
• Envy and jealousy stem from the fundamental inability to rejoice at someone else's happiness or success
• Children, old people, vagabonds laugh easily and heartily: they have nothing to lose and hope for little. In renunciation lies a delicious taste of simplicity…
• By breaking down our sense of self-importance, all we lose is a parasite that has long infected our minds. What we gain in return is…
• Humility does not mean believing oneself to be inferior, but to be freed from self-importance. It is a state of natural simplicity which is in…
• Simplifying our lives does not mean sinking into idleness, but on the contrary, getting rid of the most subtle aspect of laziness: the one which…
• Happiness is a skill, emotional balance is a skill, compassion and altruism are skills, and like any skill they need to be developed. That's what…
• True freedom means freeing oneself from the dictates of the ego and its accompanying emotions.
• There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad- the harm in terms of…
• Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. You could go from love to hate.…
• Let us live simply in the freshness of the present moment, in the clarity of pure awakened mind.
• To grant forgiveness to someone who has truly changed is not a way of condoning or forgetting his or her past crimes, but of acknowledging…
• While it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.

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