Quote collection
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"Nonviolence is the only way. Even if you achieve your goal by violent means there are always side effects, and these can be worse than the problem. Violence is against human nature."
"Because of lack of moral principle, human life becomes worthless. Moral principle, truthfulness, is a key factor. If we lose that, then there is no future."
"We live within the environment. So that directly relates with our survival, our life. So through that way, more concern of well being of humanity, then naturally concerned about environment."
"Just as you have the instinctive natural desire to be happy and overcome suffering, so do all sentient beings; just as you have the right to fulfill this innate aspiration, so do all sentient beings. So on what exact grounds do you discriminate?"
"At a personal level, as a Buddhist practitioner, I deliberately visualize and think about death in my daily practice. Death is not separated from our lives. Due to my research and thoughts about death, I have some guarantee and some conviction that it will be a positive experience."
"Not so long ago people believed in ideologies, systems, and institutions to save all societies. Today, they have given up such hopes and have returned to relying on the individual, on individual freedom, individual initiative, individual creativity."
"As a human being, anger is a part of our mind. Irritation also part of our mind. But you can do - anger come, go. Never keep in your sort of - your inner world, then create a lot of suspicion, a lot of distrust, a lot of negative things, more worry."
"Computers make me totally blank out."
"It is not enough simply to wish that love and compassion should increase in us. We need to make a sustained effort, again and again, to cultivate the positive aspects within us - and the key here is constant familiarity. The nature of human thoughts and emotions is such that the more you engage in them, the more you consciously develop them, the more powerful they become."
"It is important to pray for peace. . . But you must also take actions to make that happen. Every single day."
"There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, 'I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman.'"
"Basically we are all the same human beings with the same potential to be a good human being or a bad human being. The important thing is to realize the positive side and try to increase that; realize the negative side and try to reduce. That's the way."
"The question of world peace, the question of family peace, the question of peace between wife and husband, or peace between parents and children, everything is dependent on that feeling of love and warmheartedness."
"The egotistical ambition to always want to earn more money harms both the company and the individual himself. That is the biggest weakness of many managers - the financial crisis has proven this."
"Whether it is under the guise of survival and self-defence or directly expressed through dominion and greed, the failure to recognize the common humanity shared by us all lies at the heart of our difficulties. To overcome it, we should begin to develop, from the level of the individual through that of society to the world at large, what I call a sense of universal responsibility; a deep respect for every living being who lives on this one small planet and calls it home."
"There should be a spirit of dialogue. Whenever we see any disagreements, we must think how to solve them on the basis of recognition of oneness of the entire humanity. This is the modern reality."
"Happiness in simplicity can be achieved with a flexible mindset and nine hours sleep each night."
"The world will be changed by western women."
"In order to develop the willpower it takes to sacrifice, you must first realize that spending all your time and energy pursuing material comforts means you will eventually suffer. It's all about positive and negative consequences. It's very important to be aware that there are long-term consequences [for every action]."
"If your mind is scattered, it is quite powerless."