Quotes & Sayings About Meditation Dalai Lama

We inherited the reactivity of this part of our brain, and particularly the sensitive amygdala, from our skittish fight-or-flight ancestors. Yet so much of the inner journey means freeing ourselves from this evolutionary response so that we do not flip our lid or lose our higher reasoning when facing stressful situations. The real secret of freedom may simply be extending this brief space between stimulus and response. Meditation seems to elongate this pause and help expand our ability to choose our response. — Dalai Lama XIV

Now you are on the Buddhist way. Keep up your meditation, as there is no instant illumination. The mind moves slowly into this. Do not become attached to your method. When, in the course of your meditation, your consciousness will have expanded and been transformed, you will then recognize that all the ways are valid ways. — Dalai Lama

The way to develop inner peace through meditation begins with the recognition that the destroyer of inner peace is not some external foe, but is within us. Therefore, the solution is within us too. However, that inner change does not take place immediately in the way that we switch on a light, but takes weeks, months and years. — Dalai Lama

Meditation is valuable for all of humanity because it involves looking inward. People don't have to be religious to look inside themselves more carefully. It is constructive and worthwhile to analyze our emotions, including compassion and our sense of caring, so that we can become more calm and happy. — Dalai Lama

In the Buddha's life story we see the three stages of practice: Morality comes first, then concentrated meditation, and then wisdom. And we see that the path takes time. — Dalai Lama

To foster inner awareness, introspection, and reasoning is more efficient than meditation and prayer. — Dalai Lama

The Buddhist understanding of mind is primarily derived from empirical observations grounded in the phenomenology of experience, which includes the contemplative techniques of meditation. — Dalai Lama XIV

The very purpose of meditation is to discipline the mind and reduce afflictive emotions. — Dalai Lama

Aryadeva tells us: "In the beginning, we must abandon all negative actions; in the middle, all attachment to ego; and in the end, all extremes, opinions or concepts."3 To obtain such a realization, we must unite wisdom with inner accomplishment. Theoretical knowledge and intellectual conviction are not enough. We ourselves must reflect, in life circumstances that are a teaching, in order to validate the doctrine by means of personal experience and authentic familiarization. Meditation is the gradual process that acclimates us to a new vision. — Dalai Lama XIV

Whatever forms of meditation you practice, the most important point is to apply mindfulness continuously, and make a sustained effort. It is unrealistic to expect results from meditation within a short period of time. What is required is continuous sustained effort. — Dalai Lama

So now," the Dalai Lama concluded, "in quantum physics, they also have a similar view. Any objective thing does not really exist. There is nothing ultimately we can find. This is similar to analytical meditation." The — Dalai Lama XIV

If every 8 year old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation — Dalai Lama

All human beings have an innate desire to overcome suffering, to find happiness. Training the mind to think differently, through meditation, is one important way to avoid suffering and be happy. — Dalai Lama

What acts as a far more effective circumstance for generating compassion and what, in fact, rouses us from our comfortable meditation seat is actually seeing or hearing others - encountering others directly, not just conceptually in our imagination. — Dalai Lama

Just as compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering, loving-kindness is the wish that all may enjoy happiness. As with compassion, when cultivating loving-kindness it is important to start by taking a specific individual as a focus of our meditation, and we then extend the scope of our concern further and further, to eventually encompass and embrace all sentient beings. Again, we begin by taking a neutral person, a person who inspires no strong feelings in us, as our object of meditation. We then extend this meditation to individual friends and family members and, ultimately, our particular enemies.
We must use a real individual as the focus of our meditation, and then enhance our compassion and loving-kindness toward that person so that we can really experience compassion and loving-kindness toward others. We work on one person at a time. — Dalai Lama XIV

Change only takes place through action, not through meditation and prayer. — Dalai Lama

I meditate, and when I do, Prince Harry appears in my subconscious and meditates with me. It's a little strange but I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Sometimes he's not the only one; the other day it was me, Prince Harry, the Dalai Lama, Mr. Rogers, Coco the gorilla, and George Clooney. We were all floating above the earth looking down at the continents as they passed. George Clooney suggested I visit Providence, Rhode Island. The Dalai Lama sighed deeply and said he'd like to visit Tibet.
Poor Dalai Lama. — Kristin Cashore

If we want to save the world, we must have a plan. But no plan will work unless we meditate. — Dalai Lama

By mental cultivation I mean a disciplined application of mind that involves deepening our familiarity with a chosen object or theme. Here I am thinking of the Sanskrit term bhavana, which connotes "cultivation," and whose Tibetan equivalent, gom, has the connotation of "familiarization." These two terms, often translated into English as meditation, refer to a whole range of mental practices and not just, as many suppose, to simple methods of relaxation. The original terms imply a process of cultivating familiarity with something, whether it is a habit, a way of seeing, or a way of being. — Dalai Lama XIV

Meditation may also be thought of as a technique by which we diminish the force of old thought habits and develop new ones. — Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama would say that meditation is something that can help everyone. But he's aware that it can be misused or things can go wrong. — Pico Iyer

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection. — Dalai Lama

Life can be pleasant or miserable. To lead a fruitful life, and to make it positive, practice analytical meditation. — Dalai Lama

Perceptions, our ways of thinking, and our behavior. It is a question of bringing about a complete reversal of mental habits by reducing emotions in a gradual process of study, reflection, and meditation - in other words, familiarization. That is how we refine the mind and purify it through a training that actualizes its potential. We learn to master the stream of our consciousness, to control the emotional obscurations, without letting ourselves be dominated by them. That is the path toward realization of the absolute nature. Our practice integrates all the aspects and all the various levels of the Buddha's teaching. — Dalai Lama XIV

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. And, of course, there are Christian monks and nuns who already use Buddhist methods in order to develop their devotion, compassion, and ability to forgive. — Dalai Lama

Sleep is the best meditation. — Dalai Lama XIV

In order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge. — Dalai Lama

If one's life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation. — Dalai Lama XIV