I became the Dalai Lama not on a volunteer basis.
Silence is sometimes the best answer.
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.
Follow the three R’s: – Respect for self. – Respect for others. – Responsibility for all your actions.
A heart full of love and compassion is the main source of inner strength, willpower, happiness, and mental tranquility.
The world will be saved by the western woman.
Hard times build determination and inner strength. Through them we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger.
You use force, you create fear. Fear destroys trust. Trust is the basis of harmony. The hardliner believes harmony and unity can be brought by force. That’s totally unscientific, totally wrong.
People once considered that religions were obsolete and that material science would solve all human problems. Then they have become disillusioned with materialism and machinery and have realized that spiritual sciences are also indispensable for human welfare.
I always emphasize that it is much safer and better to keep one’s own religious faith. The other major religions are thousands of years old and have long traditions.
In pluralistic, democratic societies, there is the freedom to adopt the religion of your choice. This is good. This lets curious people like you run around on the loose!
If you resort to violent methods because the other side has destroyed your monastery, for example, you then have lost not only your monastery, but also your special Buddhist practices of detachment, love, and compassion.
No single Tibetan dreaming return of previous sort of backwardness, therefore as far as economy development is concerned, Tibet remain within the People’s Republic of China, we will get greater benefit.
As far as mental development is concerned, we should never be complacent. We can develop our minds infinitely – there is no limitation.
I think, that in the twenty-second century, there will be more female reincarnations at female institutions. Then there’ll be competition between male lama institutions and female lama institutions. It’ll be a positive sort of competition.
In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.
When a person is in a miserable situation, then, yes, it is difficult to develop genuine compassion toward others. That’s why I find it difficult to say to poor people, “Please have compassion toward millionaires.” That’s not easy.
When a certain community is destroyed, in reality it destroys a part of all of us. So there should be a clear recognition that the entire humanity is just one family. Any conflict within humanity should be considered as a family conflict. We must find a solution within this atmosphere.
I think when religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism – as well as Christianity and Judaism – were founded, at that time societies were generally male-dominated. So, therefore this social notion also influenced religion.
Spiritually, yes, now many people knows Tibetans in spiritual field are very, very advanced but in material field is very, very backward.