Tibetan Quotes & Sayings

It's much easier for me to say that, the kind of music I didn't listen to was pretty much that. I mean everything, from jazz to classical to popular. And Tibetan horns were a great part of it in 1966, '67. — David Bowie

All of the religions - with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven - teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common. — Barbara Walters

It just seemed like Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism - because that's mainly what I've been exposed to - was a real solid organization of teachings to point someone in the right direction. Some real well thought out stuff. But I don't know, like, every last detail about Buddhism. — Adam Yauch

At home I have a Tibetan terrier. I'm still not sure if he's a genius or very thick. It's a fine line. — Hugh Bonneville

As for restaurants, one of our favorites is the Silk Road next door to the Tibetan Choijin Lama Museum. It's a very exotic setting. The western food there is pretty good. We also liked the Hazara Restaurant for its Indian food, and the Mongolian Barbecue restaurant. All are downtown. — Ruth Lor Malloy

In the interests of everyone the artist had a responsibility to use his medium well. In the Tibetan culture, most of the paintings are of deities or Buddhas, and they try to send a message of the value of the spiritual. — Dalai Lama

Because my main concern is the Tibetan Buddhist culture, not just political independence, I cannot seek self-rule for central Tibet and exclude the 4 million Tibetans in our two eastern provinces of Amdo and Kham. — Dalai Lama

This was typical of Topgyay. Unlike most Tibetan officials, he was interested in these Khambas, the fiercest and most populous of all the Tibetan peoples, as individuals and not as mere tools to serve his purpose. They loved him for it, as much as they respected him for his fighting record. — George Patterson

But karma is not in fact a material accumulation, and does not depend on externals; rather its power to condition us depends on the obstacles that impede our knowledge. If we compare our karma and the ignorance that creates it to a dark room, knowledge of the primordial state would be like a lamp, which, when lit in the room, at once causes the darkness to disappear, enlightening everything. In the same way, if one has the presence of the primordial state, one can overcome all hindrances in an instant. — Namkhai Norbu

One of my favorite Tibetan sayings is Even if you're going to die tomorrow, you can learn something tonight. — Sakyong Mipham

Only a few hardy Westerners learn to speak Thai and even fewer learn to read it. At first glance it seems impossible and on second glance one would much rather not. The alphabet has forty-six wiggly consonants and thirty-one vowels, some of which are not visible to Western eyes. The language is a mixture of Pali, Sanskrit, Cambodian, and is of the Sino-Tibetan family and it seems to embrace the rules of all even when they conflict. King Rama Khamheng devised the alphabet in the thirteenth century and the writing shows the effect of having been born full-blown of kingly whim. — Carol Hollinger

We just have to remind ourselves that the source of any happiness is mind itself. — Ole Nydahl

The world-traveler must, on the one hand, be ready (and actually seek) to visit a tribe in the Solomon Islands or stay with Tibetan nomads; on the other hand, he has to be prepared, when it is required, to wear his suit to attend a classical music concert in a big metropolis. Just as an important part of exploring Brazil is to visit its shantytowns, it is an indispensable part of understanding the French culture to eat at a gourmet restaurant in Paris. — Nicos Hadjicostis

Rest as the awareness that is aware without using thought. — Loch Kelly

Achala, worrying and scheming about your next life, before you have even completed this one, is not a good practice. Rinpoche — Daniel Prokop

I think that's what's great about being an actress is you get to learn so many different things like that, like learning a little bit of Tibetan here, learning a Southern accent there. — Jaime King

Without discursive thought it is just dharma practice. Hope together with aim obscures. One does not cut through pride by meditatively cultivating the desire for happiness. If there is hope, even the hope for buddhas, it is a negative force. If there is apprehension, even apprehension about hells, it is a negative force. — Machik Labdron

Dripping charnel
grounds of light -
I examine hope &
fear -
blue-black body
monster of
enlightenment -
call me Youthful
Lightning Bolt -
tired I slump -
desire's already
here - I don't
care -
my wrathful
rosary coiled
snake
on my cushion -
I close my tired
eyes -
sleep has been
troubled but
my mother's
cancer hasn't
spread -
still I
am the Cemetary
King — Marc Olmsted

There is a saying in Tibetan that "at the door of the miserable rich man sleeps the contented beggar". The point of this saying is not that poverty is a virtue, but that happiness does not come with wealth, but from setting limits to one's desires, and living within those limits with satisfaction. — Dalai Lama

Tibetans must take full authority and responsibility for developing industry, looking from all different perspectives, taking care of the environment, conserving resources for long-term economic health, and safeguarding the interests of Tibetan workers, nomads, and farmers. — Dalai Lama

A famous Tibetan meditator once said, "I have only one task at hand: to stand guard at the entrance of my mind. When the afflictions are at the ready, I remain at the ready; when they stand easy, I stand easy." Once — Dalai Lama XIV

The Tibetan monks make mandalas out of dyed sand laid out into big, beautiful designs.
And when they're done, after days or weeks of work, they wipe it all away. They let it all go,
no pain, no regrets. That is happiness. That is bliss. The euphoria of Nirvana. We live for
that. Just for the experience. We paint a picture and we erase it. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

In Tibetan, we say people who have good windhorse have the sense they can accomplish what they want to do. — Sakyong Mipham

In what is now known as Bodh Gaya ... a Buddhist temple stands beside an ancient pipal, descended from that bodhi tree, or "enlightenment tree," and I watched the rising of the morning star and came away no wiser than before. But later I wondered if the Tibetan monks were aware that the Bodhi tree was murmuring with gusts of birds, while another large pipal, so close by that it touched the holy tree with many branches, was without life. I make no claim for the event: I simply declare what I saw at Bodh Gaya. — Peter Matthiessen

The whole Hollywood conception of Tibet as this peace-loving country denies the complex humanity of the Tibetan people. Their ideas exist in a high degree of tension with impulses toward corruption, toward violence, toward all sorts of things. The Dalai Lama himself would say that he has to fight these impulses himself on a daily basis. — Pankaj Mishra

I have lived my life defined as a refugee in Nepal and India, a resident alien and immigrant in the United States. At last, I am a Tibetan in Tibet, a Khampa in Kham, albeit as a tourist in my occupied and tethered country. — Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

A lot of the powerful religious leaders, from Jesus to Buddha to Tibetan monks, they're really talking about the same things: love and acceptable, and the value of friendship, and respecting yourself so you can respect others. — Jena Malone

The things that can restore us have to get in, too. This is what the wisdom of an open heart is all about. All the spiritual traditions speak of this but I love the Tibetan tradition: "A spiritual warrior always has a crack in his heart because that is how the mysteries can get in." — Mark Nepo

Resist nothing. Like the Tibetan monk who once told me that he found peace by saying yes to all that happened. I met him again years later and reminded him of what he'd said. He laughed. "Perhaps," he said. "It does fit with my life philosophy." He had a lightness to him that is rare. His laugh, genuine. I almost expected him to levitate. If you think about it, how much time do we spend in our heads wishing things were another way, beating ourselves up, beating others up, crafting a different past, wishing for a different future? All of that is resistance. All of that is pain. Peace is letting it be. Letting life flow, letting emotions flow through you. If you don't fight them, they pass through quickly and you feel better. — Kamal Ravikant

I make small mistakes every day. But major mistakes? It doesn't seem so. I've examined my service to the Tibetan people and to humanity, and I've done as much as I can in my life. — Dalai Lama

As a dialectical teacher, I have had many lives where I have taught Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism. I teach in many different modalites. But the theme that unites them - is love. — Frederick Lenz

The Tibetan people will need to determine who the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is. — Dalai Lama

Tibetans are not famed for their perseverance. Full of enthusiasm at the start, and ready for anything new, their interest flags before long. For this reason I kept losing pupils and replacing them, which was not very satisfactory for me. The children of good families whom I taught were without exception intelligent and wide awake, and were not inferior to our children in comprehension. In the Indian schools the Tibetan pupils are ranked for intelligence with Europeans. One must remember that they have to learn the language of their teachers. In spite of that handicap, they are often at the head of the class. There was a boy from Lhasa at St. Joseph's College, at Darjeeling, who was not only the best scholar in the school, but also champion in all the games and sports. — Heinrich Harrer

These two features - luminosity, or clarity, and knowing, or cognizance - have come to characterize "the mental" in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought. Clarity here refers to the ability of mental states to reveal or reflect. Knowing, by contrast, refers to mental states' faculty to perceive or apprehend what appears. — Dalai Lama XIV

It was inevitable that Red China would invade Tibet, and then there would be no place for us two friends of Tibetan independence. — Heinrich Harrer

...The words Dalai Lama mean different things to different people, that for me they refer only to the office I hold. Actually, Dalai is a Mongolian word meaning 'ocean' and Lama is a Tibetan term corresponding to the Indian word guru, which denotes a teacher. From Freedom in Exile, the Autobiography of the Dalai Lama — Tenzin Gyatso

In twenty years' time I'll be eighty-three, just an old man with a stick moving like a sloth bear. While I'm alive, I am fully committed to autonomy, and I am the person who can persuade the Tibetan people to accept it. — Dalai Lama

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness.
Let go. Let Be. See through everything and be free, complete, luminous, at home
at ease. — Lama Surya Das

Philosophically speaking, from the Buddhist point of view, both human beings and animals possess what in Tibetan is called shepa, which can be roughly translated as "consciousness," albeit to different degrees of complexity. — Dalai Lama XIV

Drawing from the costumed and goth-infused death metal found in the icy Netherlands, doom metal down-tuned all the guitars, drew inspiration from the drones of Tibetan monks and Hindu ragas, and created a new mythology of metal, one that embraced decay and darkness as an essential part of the human condition. — Peter Bebergal

Gonpo Tso was born a princess. As a young woman, she dressed in fur-trimmed robes with fat ropes of coral beads strung around her neck. She lived in an adobe castle on the edge of the Tibetan plateau with a reception room large enough to accommodate the thousand Buddhist monks who once paid tribute to her father. — Barbara Demick

People think of animals as if they were vegetables, and that is not right. We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn't cause suffering. — Dalai Lama XIV

(1) When a situation has become too frustrating, a quandary too persistently insolvable; when dealing with the issue is generating chronic discontent, infringing on freedom, and inhibiting growth, it may be time to quit beating one's head against the wall, reach for a big fat stick of metaphoric dynamite, light the fuse, and blast the whole unhappy business nine miles past oblivion. (2) After making an extreme effort, after pulling out all the stops, one is still unable to score Tibetan peach pie, take it as a signal to relax, grin, pick up a fork, and go for a slice of the apple. — Tom Robbins

There is no miserable place waiting for you, no hell realm, sitting and waiting like Alaska - waiting to turn you into ice cream. But whatever you call it - hell or the suffering realms - it is something that you enter by creating a world of neurotic fantasy and believing it to be real. It sounds simple, but that's exactly what happens. — Lama Thubten Yeshe

Often, after extinguishing the oil lamp in our house on stilts, we would lie on our beds and smoke in the dark. Book titles poured from our lips, the mysterious and exotic names evoking unknown worlds. It was like Tibetan incense, where you need only say the name, Zang Xiang, to smell the subtle, refined fragrance and to see the joss sticks sweating beads of scented moisture which, in the lamplight, resemble drops of liquid gold. — Dai Sijie

The unflagging optimism and constant good nature of the Tibetan people challenges us to identify the source of our misery and discontent. Most of the time when we examine it, we realise we have little to be upset about at all. It is simply our lack of control over our own lives that causes us the majority of our own suffering. Attack the real root of the situation, and we can solve the problem. But any other action simply causes more problems. — James Oroc

Are, however, the terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term? Do they really believe? What they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, deep indifference towards the non-believer's way of life. — Slavoj Zizek

O Nobly Born, now there is born in you exceeding compassion for all those living creatures who have forgotten their true nature. - Mahamudra text of Tibetan yogi Longchenpa — Jack Kornfield

Beidleman knew they were on the eastern, Tibetan side of the Col and that the tents lay somewhere to the west. But to move in that direction it was necessary to walk directly upwind into the teeth of the storm. Wind-whipped granules of ice and snow struck the climbers' faces with violent force, lacerating their eyes and making it impossible to see where they were going. "It was so difficult and painful," Schoening explains, "that there was an inevitable tendency to bear off the wind, to keep angling away from it to the left, and that's how we went wrong. "At times you couldn't even see — Jon Krakauer

On October 7, 1950, the enemy attacked the Tibetan frontier in six places simultaneously. — Heinrich Harrer

For Tibetans, the real strength of our struggle is truth - not size, money, or expertise. — Dalai Lama

Now he's far away, floating in the clouds, playing Scrabble with the Dalai Lama, but wouldn't you know it, all the tiles are in Tibetan. — Neal Shusterman

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. — Dalai Lama

There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.'
No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster. — Dalai Lama XIV

To say 'I want to have sex with this person' is to express a desire which is not intellectually directed in the way that 'I want to eradicate poverty in the world' is an intellectually directed desire. Furthernore, the gratification of sexual desire can only ever give temporary satisfaction. Thus as Nagarjuna, the great Indian scholar said: 'When you have an itch, you scratch. But not to itch at all is better than any amount of scratching. — Dalai Lama XIV

If we lack the proper antidotes of emptiness and bodhichitta, we will not be able to control our minds when frightening appearances manifest. It is considered a sign of progress in this practice if we go unconscious, and then, when we wake up, have forgotten our names and whose bodies we have! This is the ceasing of clinging to the body. — Zongtrul Losang Tsondru

In my experience, some Dzogchen masters are better teachers than others. I have been in the presence of several of the most revered Tibetan lamas of our time while they were ostensibly teaching Dzogchen, and most of them simply described this view of consciousness without giving clear instructions on how to glimpse it. The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with the precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self. There might be some initial struggle and uncertainty, depending on the student, but once the truth of nonduality had been glimpsed, it became obvious that it was always available - and there was never any doubt about how to see it again. I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me that I had no self to transcend. — Sam Harris

Whenever the sadness got too much, I would hire a rickshaw and go to the Upper Bazaar. Those little rickshaw trips to the market and back, shopping for lipsticks and imitation Gucci bags and wind-chimes and what not, are some of my happiest memories today. You know, one day, during one of those trips, I sold all my well-thumbed copies of 'Inside Outside' to the Tibetan guy who ran the old book store on Netaji Road for seventy rupees, six Tintins and a disarming smile. And all of a sudden, that moment, standing at the corner of Netaji road, I found out who I was.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') — Kunal Sen

The life-tree of practice is single-minded application. — Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye

When His Holiness won the Nobel Peace Prize, there was a quantum leap. He is not seen as solely a Tibetan anymore; he belongs to the world. — Richard Gere

Science is reaching the conclusions that we had been taught through the Tibetan Buddhist experience. — Gelek Rimpoche

It is important to have determination and optimism and patience. If you lack patience, even when you face some small obstacle, you lose courage. There is a Tibetan saying, "Even if you have failed at something nine times, you have still given it effort nine times." I think that's important. Use your brain to analyze the situation. Do not rush through it, but think. Once you decide what to do about that obstacle, then there's a possibility that you will achieve your goal. — Dalai Lama

The mystery school continued throughout the greater Egyptian civilization, which was the second age of humankind and later on into the third age of humankind when the Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan high cultures flourished — Frederick Lenz

The Beijing government avidly asserts its control over matters of reincarnation as a way of securing the loyalty and political complexion of influential Tibetan figures. — Evan Osnos

Then I remembered a joke told by a Tibetan friend: "What is the difference between a Buddhist and a non-Buddhist?" The answer: "The non-Buddhist thinks there is one. — Eric Dinerstein

There's a Tibetan saying: 'Wherever you have friends that's your country, and wherever you receive love, that's your home.'" There — Dalai Lama XIV

Tibetan Buddhism, has inspired me and accelerated my understanding of life. — Jet Li

At the museum a troubled woman destroys a sand painting meticulously created over days by Tibetan monks. The monks are not disturbed. The work is a meditation. They simply begin again. — Susan Griffin

In comparison, Mount Everest, though 29,029 feet above sea level, rests on the 17,000-foot-high Tibetan plateau and rises just 12,000 feet from base to summit. A similar plateau boosts the Andes; without those geological booster seats, those peaks all would lie in Denali's shadow. — Andy Hall

What makes a difference is when we take our mind and put it into the scriptures, when we read the Buddhist Canon, the Pali Canon, when we read the Tibetan books, when we read anything inspiring - somebody else's journey into the world of enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth. Real devotion is rooted in an awed and reverent gratitude, but one that is lucid, grounded, and intelligent. — Sogyal Rinpoche

Anyen Rinpoche is a compassionate embodiment of wisdom. The skillful teachings in The Tibetan Yoga of Breath will be a source of peace and happiness for many in these troubled times, for which I am very grateful. — Garchen Rinpoche

Norbu rejects the Western stereotype of Tibetans as an innately nonviolent people, a romantic notion which he thinks gratifies many Western people discontented with the aggressive selfishness of their societies but obscures the political aspirations of the Tibetan peoples and the variety of means available to them to achieve independence. In 1989, he published a book about one of the Khampa warriors of eastern Tibet, who fought the invading Chinese Army in 1950 and then initiated the bloody revolt against Chinese rule that eventually led to the Dalai Lama's departure for India.
"We are ordinary Tibetans," Norbu told PBS. "We drink; we eat; we feel passion; we love our wives and kids. If someone sort of messes around with them, even if they're an army, you pick up your rifle. — Pankaj Mishra

But, nevertheless, if there is even the slightest recognition, liberation is easy. Should you ask why this is so - it is because once the awesome, terrifying and fearful appearances arise, the awareness does not have the luxury of distraction. The awareness is one-pointedly concentrated. — Karma-glin-pa

A page from a journal of modern experimental physics will be as mysterious to the uninitiated as a Tibetan mandala. Both are records of enquiries into the nature of the universe. — Fritjof Capra

The teachings of Osho, in fact, encompass many religions, but he is not defined by any of them. He is an illuminating speaker on Zen, Taoism, Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity and ancient Greek philosophy ... and also a prolific author. — Nevill Drury

Tibetan poet Shabkar said: One with compassion is kind even when angry; one without compassion will kill even as he smiles. — Matthieu Ricard

What sets Tibetan Buddhism apart from other Buddhist traditions - such as the Zen Buddhism of Japan or the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka - is that while Tibetans aim to become enlightened, they don't want to enter Nirvana. — Scott Carney

I teach Zen, tantric mysticism, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, Tibetan mysticism, occultism and psychic development. I also teach poetry and literature, film and many other different things. — Frederick Lenz

The person who is tormenting the Tibetans feels they have to get rid of the Tibetans in order to be happy. — Robert Thurman

The Tibetan Buddhist realization is that mind does not have any particular qualities or attributes of its own. It's clear - clear light. — Frederick Lenz

When I speak about love and compassion, I do so not as a Buddhist, nor as a Tibetan, nor as the Dalai Lama. I do so as one human being speaking with another. I hope that you at this moment will think of yourself as a human being rather than as an American, Asian, European, African, or member of any particular country. These loyalties are secondary. If you and I find common ground as human beings, we will communicate on a basic level. — Dalai Lama XIV

Imagine God inside your computer, your phone, everyone else's computer. Imagine someone who almost is the Black Corporation, with all its power and riches and reach. And who, despite all this, seems pretty sane and beneficent by the standards of most gods. Oh, and who sometimes swears in Tibetan ... — Stephen Baxter

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

Death and dying provide a meeting-point between the Tibetan Buddhist and modern scientific traditions. I believe both have a great deal to contribute to each other on the level of understanding and of practical benefit. — Dalai Lama

Hundreds of political prisoners still suffer in Tibetan prisons. Freedom of speech is not allowed in any sense. It is illegal to possess a photo of the Dalai Lama. — Joanna Lumley

I was studying Tibetan Buddhism when I was quite young, again influenced by Kerouac. — David Bowie

China can keep her troops on the external frontiers of Tibet, and Tibetans will pledge to accept the appropriate form of union with China. — Dalai Lama

Im a Tibetan monk, not a vegetarian, — Dalai Lama

I don't believe in sampling some Tibetan music just to make it sound groovy, but you do your homework, you understand what you're doing with it. — Jessica Hagedorn

My aim is to create a happy society with genuine friendship. Friendship between Tibetan and Chinese peoples is very essential. — Dalai Lama

I think it's more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn't really work in a way where there's a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it's a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you're following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart. — Jake Gyllenhaal

One of the happier ironies of recent history is that even as Tibet is being wiped off the map in Tibet itself, here it is in California, in Switzerland, in Japan. All over the world, Tibetan Buddhism is now part of the neighborhood. In 1968, there were two Tibetan Buddhist centers in the West. By 2000, there were 40 in New York alone. — Pico Iyer

I have been clear in my position for quite a while, but the Chinese have not responded. Therefore, we are now in the process of holding a referendum on our policy among all the Tibetan community in exile and even inside Tibet, to check whether the majority thinks we are on the right track. — Dalai Lama

In 1995, the Chinese government picked a 6-year-old child to succeed the Panchen Lama, the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism. — Barbara Demick

Tibetan Buddhism had an enormous impact on me. — Richard Gere

The Sanskrit word samsara - which traditionally represents the summation of all our confusion and destructive patterns of behavior - literally means "wandering around." The Tibetan word for a sentient being caught up in confusion - drowa - could be translated as "always on the go." I like to think of this word as meaning "commuter. — Ethan Nichtern

You are already the awakeness that you seek! — Loch Kelly

A Tibetan Lama said to me, "The best place to stand, Ram Dass, is halfway between hope and hopelessness." So I can write a scenario for the 21st century in either direction. One is that it all goes to hell and that it's truly the dark age. — Ram Dass

Many people would say that A Tibetan monk, even in Lhasa, may be free while the ruler of China may not be free. — Pico Iyer