Matthieu Ricard Quotes

“A big part of pain is the subjective reaction of trying to revolt against pain. If it's there, it's better to deal with it. Most of it is "I cannot stand it," and that component is enhancing pain so much.”

“Anyone can be happy by simply training their brain.”

“At each point in our lives, we are at a crossroads. We are the fruit of our past and we are the architects of our future... If you want to know your past, look at your present circumstances. If you want to know your future, look at what is in your mind.”

“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 and deep peace.”

“Confidence is closely linked to how well our perceptions match reality.”

“Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.”

“Envy and jealousy stem from the fundamental inability to rejoice at someone else's happiness or success.”

“Happiness is not the endless pursuit of pleasant experiences - that sounds more like a recipe for exhaustion - but a way of being that results from cultivating a benevolent mind, emotional balance, inner freedom, inner peace, and wisdom. Each of these qualities is a skill that can be enhanced through training the mind.”

“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, and however we try to seek it: creativity, justice, altruism, striving, completion of a plan or a piece of work.”

“Happiness is the result of inner maturity. It depends on us alone, and requires patient work, carried out from day to day. Happiness must be built, and this requires time and effort. In the long term, happiness and unhappiness are therefore a way of being, or a life skill.”

“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 harmony with our true nature and allows us to taste the freshness of the present moment.”

“If you want to know the future, look at what is in your mind.”

“Imagine a ship that is sinking and needs all the available power to run the pumps to drain out the rising waters. The first class passengers refuse to cooperate because they feel hot and want to use the air-conditioner and other electrical appliances. The second-class passengers spend all their time trying to be upgraded to first-class status. The boat sinks and the passengers all drown. That is where the present approach to climate change is leading.”

“In the freshness of the present moment, past is gone, future is not yet born, and—if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom—disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace. That is basic meditation.”

“Isn't it the mind that translates the outer condition into happiness and suffering?”

“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 thoughts and illuminate each one of our perceptions.”

“Let us live simply in the freshness of the present moment, in the clarity of pure awakened mind.”

“Meditation gives you more inner strength and confidence, and if you don't feel vulnerable, you can put that to the service of others. So it's not just about sitting and cultivating caring mindfulness. It's building up a way of being and then using it for the service of others.”

“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”

“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. But you cannot, at the same time - toward the same object, the same person - want to harm and want to do good.”

“Negative emotions like hatred destroy our peace of mind.”

“Nothing goes right on the outside when nothing is going right on the inside.”

“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 makes us take on thousands of less important activities.”

“The basic root of happiness lies in our minds; outer circumstances are nothing more than adverse or favourable.”

“The mind is malleable. Our life can be greatly transformed by even a minimal change in how we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world. Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time.”

“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 happiness and suffering- that our thoughts and our actions do to ourselves and others.”

“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 whom he or she has become.”

“True freedom means freeing oneself from the dictates of the ego and its accompanying emotions.”

“We deal with our mind from morning till evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.”

“We do all kinds of things to remain beautiful. Yet, we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most - the way our mind functions.”

“Whatever you train, you change your brain.”

“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 to recognize the luminous simplicity of mind that is always present behind the veils of thought.”

“Worries are pointless. If there's a solution, there's no need to worry. If no solution exists, there's no point to worry.”

“You're not insensitive or indifferent, but you're also not vulnerable to the upheavals that cause emotional stress because you can buffer that... So that's the result of meditation; you could call that emotional balance.”

“Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure as he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them.”

“Genuine fearlessness arises with the confidence that we will be able to gather the inner resources to deal with any situation that comes our way.”

“Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.”

“Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment.”

“I have also come to understand that although some people are naturally happier than others, their happiness is still vulnerable and incomplete, and that achieving durable happiness as a way of being is a skill. It requires sustained effort in training the mind and developing a set of human qualities, such as inner peace, mindfulness, and altruistic love.”

“It's not the magnitude of the task that matters, it's the magnitude of our courage.”

“May every moment of my life and of the lives of others be one of wisdom, flourishing, and inner peace!”

“One is not born wise; one becomes it.”

“Repeatedly comparing our situation with that of others is a kind of sickness of the mind that brings much unnecessary discontent and frustration. When we have a new source of enjoyment or a new car, we get excited and feel that we are at the top of our game. But we soon get used to it and our excitement subsides; when a new model comes out we become unhappy with the one we have and feel that we can only be satisfied if we get the new one, especially if other people around us have it.”

“Tibetan poet Shabkar said: "One with compassion is kind even when angry; one without compassion will kill even as he smiles.”

“To love oneself is to love life. It is essential to understand that we make ourselves happy in making others happy.”

“We are very much like birds that have lived too long in a cage to which we return even when we get the chance to fly away. We have grown so accustomed to our faults that we can barely imagine what life would be like without them. The prospect of change makes us dizzy.”

“We find that the optimists have an undeniable advantage over the pessimists. Many studies show that they do better on exams, in their chosen profession, and in their relationships, live longer and in better health, enjoy a better chance of surviving postoperative shock, and are less prone to depression and suicide.”

“We try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary, and often, illusory.”

“When hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it's opening and the pessimist thinks it's closing.”

“While it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.”

“By transforming our way of perceiving things, we transform the quality of our lives.”

“For a few moments, be aware of your potential for change. Whatever your present situation is, evolution and transformation are always possible. At the least, you can change your way of seeing things and then, gradually, your way of being as well.”

“No change occurs if we just let our habitual tendencies and automatic patterns of thought perpetuate and even reinforce themselves, thought after thought, day after day, year after year. But those tendencies and patterns can be challenged.”

“The goal of meditation is precisely to make your mind smooth and manageable so that it can be concentrated or relaxed at will; and especially to free it from the tyranny of mental afflictions and confusion”

“The ultimate reason for meditating is to transform ourselves in order to be better able to transform the world.”