81 Spiritual Quotes from The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama XIV
Reading The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama XIV was a spiritual experience.
Though I’m not a Buddhist but I still find his views very impressive. This is a
really suitable book for those who have achieved material success but still
feel unhappy and unfulfilled.Those who have trouble managing anger or
depression or are going through a tough period can also greatly benefit from reading this book. Dalai
lama has such a realistic view of sex, money,music, suffering and food. The
book also contains the views of Desmond Tutu,which are also worth reading. I agree with Dalai Lama that giving overwhelming importance to money or sex can bring unhappiness and depression. Instead,we our main goal or purpose in life should be to serve others and gaining self-control.
Here are the quotes that I Love:
‘’Materialistic values cannot
give us peace of mind. So we really need to focus on our inner values, our true
humanity. Only this way can we have peace of mind—and more peace in our world.
A lot of the problems we are facing are our own creation, like war and
violence. Unlike a natural disaster, these problems are created by humans ourselves.’’
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting
Happiness in a Changing World
‘’Everyone has the responsibility
to develop a happier world. We need, ultimately, to have a greater concern for
others’ well-being. In other words, kindness or compassion, which is lacking
now. We must pay more attention to our inner values. We must look inside.”
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
“In order to develop our mind, we must look at a deeper level. Everyone
seeks happiness, joyfulness, but from outside—from money, from power, from big
car, from big house. Most people never pay much attention to the ultimate
source of a happy life, which is inside, not outside. Even the source of
physical health is inside, not outside.’’
''Personally I am Buddhist, and I
consider faith very important, but at the same time the reality is that out of
seven billion people, over one billion people on the planet are nonbelievers.
So we cannot exclude them. One billion is quite a large number. They are also
our human brothers and sisters. They also have the right to become happier
human beings and to be good members of the human family.So one need not depend
on religious faith to educate our inner values.”
''when you are pursuing happiness, you are not going to find it. It’s
very, very elusive. You don’t find it by saying, I’m going to forget about
everything and just pursue happiness.''
“It’s wonderful to discover that
what we want is not actually happiness. It is not actually what I would speak
of. I would speak of joy. Joy subsumes happiness. Joy is the far greater thing.
Think of a mother who is going to give birth. Almost all of us want to escape
pain. And mothers know that they are going to have pain, the great pain of
giving birth. But they accept it. And
even after the most painful labor, once the baby is out, you can’t measure the
mother’s joy. It is one of those incredible things that joy can come so quickly
from suffering.’’
''There are really only four
fundamental emotions, three of which are so-called negative emotions: fear,
anger, and sadness. The only positive one is joy or happiness. Exploring joy is
nothing less than exploring what makes human experience satisfying.''
As we recognize others’ suffering and realize that we are not alone,
our pain is lessened.
''There are different aspects to any event. For example, we lost our own
country and became refugees, but that same experience gave us new opportunities
to see more things…personally, I prefer the last five decades of refugee life.
It’s more useful, more opportunity to learn, to experience life. Therefore, if
you look from one angle, you feel, oh how bad, how sad. But if you look from
another angle at that same tragedy, that same event, you see that it gives me
new opportunities. So, it’s wonderful. That’s the main reason that I’m not sad
and morose.''
''It’s going to happen whether you
like it or not. There are going to be frustrations in life. The question is not: How do I escape? It
is: How can I use this as something positive?''
''Some suffering, maybe even intense suffering, is a necessary ingredient
for life, certainly for developing compassion.''
‘’When Nelson Mandela went to
jail he was young and, you could almost say, bloodthirsty…. He spent
twenty-seven years in jail, and many would say, Twenty-seven years, oh, what a
waste. And I think …, the twenty-seven years were necessary. They were
necessary to remove the dross. The suffering in prison helped him to become
more magnanimous, willing to listen to the other side. To discover that the people
he regarded as his enemy, they too were human beings who had fears and
expectations. And they had been molded by their society. And so without the
twenty-seven years I don’t think we would have seen the Nelson Mandela with the
compassion, the magnanimity, the capacity to put himself in the shoes of the
other.”
“It is how we face all of the
things that seem to be negative in our lives that determines the kind of person
we become. If we regard all of this as frustrating, we’re going to come out
squeezed and tight and just angry and wishing to smash everything.’’
‘’Nothing beautiful in the end
comes without a measure of some pain, some frustration, some suffering. This is
the nature of things. This is how our universe has been made up…If you want to be a good writer,… you are
not going to become one by always going to the movies and eating bonbons. You have
to sit down and write, which can be very frustrating, and yet without that you
would not get that good result.”
‘’A self-centered attitude is the
source of the problem. We have to take care of ourselves without selfishly
taking care of ourselves. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we cannot
survive. We need to do that. We should have wise selfishness rather than
foolish selfishness. Foolish selfishness means you just think only of yourself,
don’t care about others, bully others, exploit others. In fact, taking care of
others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and to
have a happy life. So that is what I call wise selfishness.”
‘’So much depends on where we put
our attention: on our own suffering or that of others, on our own perceived
separation or on our indivisible connection.’’
‘’The three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on
increasing our happiness are our ability to reframe our situation more
positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and
generous.’’
“When we speak of experiencing happiness, we need to know that there
are actually two different kinds. The first is the enjoyment of pleasure
through our senses….Sex…is one such experience. But we can also experience
happiness at the deeper level through our mind, such as through love,
compassion, and generosity. What characterizes happiness at this deeper level
is the sense of fulfillment that you experience. While the joy of the senses is
brief, the joy at this deeper level is much longer lasting. It is true joy.’’
‘’Hedonism is the default
philosophy of most people and certainly has become the dominant view of
consumer ‘shop till you drop’ culture. Yet scientists have found that the more we experience any pleasure, the
more we become numb to its effects and take its pleasures for granted. The
first bowl of ice cream is sublime, the second bowl tasty, and the third causes
indigestion. It is like a drug that must be taken in
ever-greater quantities to produce the same high.’’
‘’Ultimately our greatest joy is when we seek to do good for others.”
‘’I could not speak as I am
speaking without having learned it from other human beings. I could not walk as
a human being. I could not think as a human being, except through learning it
from other human beings. I learned to be a human being from other human beings.
We belong in this delicate network. It is actually quite profound.
Unfortunately, in our world we tend to be blind to our connection until times
of great disaster.’’
‘’How do you develop trust? It’s
simple: You show your genuine sense of concern for their well-being. Then trust
will come. But if behind an artificial smile, or a big banquet, is a
self-centered attitude deep inside of you, then there will never be trust. If
you are thinking how to exploit, how to take advantage of them, then you can
never develop trust in others. Without trust, there is no friendship. We human
beings are social animals, as we’ve said, and we need friends. Genuine friends.
Friends for money, friends for power are artificial friends.”
‘’When we are able to move beyond
our own pain and suffering, we are more available to others; pain causes us to
be extremely self-focused. Whether the pain is physical or mental, it seems to
consume all of our focus and leave very little attention for others.’’
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
‘’Survey after survey has shown that it is unhappy people who
tend to be most self-focused and are socially withdrawn, brooding, and even
antagonistic. Happy people, in contrast, are generally found to be more
sociable, flexible, and creative, and are able to tolerate life’s daily
frustrations more easily than unhappy people. And, most important, they are
found to be more loving and forgiving than unhappy people.”
‘’The way we heal our own pain is actually by turning to the pain of
others. It is a virtuous cycle. The more we turn toward others, the more joy we
experience, and the more joy we experience, the more we can bring joy to
others.’’
‘’If possible, serve and help
others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others.’’
“Everyone knows that physical pain is bad and tries to avoid it. We do
this not only by curing diseases, but also by trying to prevent them and by
trying to keep our physical immunity strong.Mental pain is equally bad, so we
should try to alleviate it as well. The way to do this is to develop mental
immunity.”
“Mental immunity,is just learning
to avoid the destructive emotions and to develop the positive ones. First, we
must understand the mind—there are so many different states of mind—the diverse
thoughts and emotions we experience on a daily basis. Some of these thoughts
and emotions are harmful, even toxic, while others are healthy and healing. The
former disturb our mind and cause much mental pain. The latter bring us true
joyfulness.’’
‘’If your health is strong, when
viruses come they will not make you sick. If your overall health is weak, even
small viruses will be very dangerous for you. Similarly, if your mental health
is sound, then when disturbances come, you will have some distress but quickly
recover. If your mental health is not good, then small disturbances, small
problems will cause you much pain and suffering. You will have much fear and
worry, much sadness and despair, and much anger and aggravation.’’
“People would like to be able to take a pill that makes their fear and
anxiety go away and makes them immediately feel peaceful. This is impossible.
One must develop the mind over time and cultivate mental immunity. Often people
ask me for the quickest and best solution to a problem. Again, this is impossible.
You can have quickest or you can have best solution, but not both. The best solution
to our suffering is mental immunity, but it takes time to develop.’’
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
‘’We human beings have the ability to make a distinction between the
rational level and the emotional level. At the rational level, we accept that
this is a serious problem that we have to deal with, but at the deeper,
emotional level, we are able to keep calm. Like the ocean has many waves on the
surface but deep down it is quite calm. This is possible if we know how to
develop mental immunity.’’
Even with this [mental] immunity,
there will be times when we will have negative or destructive emotions, and
when this does happen, the last thing we want to do is judge ourselves harshly.
‘’We try to control the moment,
which results in our feeling that what is happening should not be happening. So
much of what causes heartache is our wanting things to be different than they
are.’’
‘’No one ought to feel annoyed with
themselves. It just adds to the frustration. I mean, we are human
beings,fallible human beings.’’
‘’This being on earth is a time
for us to learn to be good, to learn to be more loving, to learn to be more
compassionate. And you learn, not theoretically….You learn when something
happens that tests you.”
“You learn how to react to a
child who is really frustrating you. You are better with your third child than
you were with your first child. And so I would say to everyone: You are made
for perfection, but you are not yet perfect. You are a masterpiece in the
making.”
“Fear and anxiety are mechanisms
that have helped us to survive. You know, if you did not feel fear when you saw
a lion over there and you just walked merrily by, in next to no time there
would be no you. God has given us these things because God knew that we needed
them. Otherwise, we would be fearless, but then we’d also be very stupid, and
we would not be around very long. The problem is when the fear is exaggerated
or when it is provoked by something that is really quite insignificant.”
‘’Courage is not the absence of fear,
but the ability to act despite it….courage is indeed the triumph of our heart’s
love and commitment over our mind’s reasonable murmurings to keep us safe.’’
“Our opportunities are so much
greater now, but so, too, are our anxieties.”
‘’How do we make the ride smoother?
How do we minimize the worry we experience?Stress and anxiety often come from
too much expectation and too much ambition,…Then when we don’t fulfill that
expectation or achieve that ambition, we experience frustration. Right from the
beginning, it is a self-centered attitude. I want this. I want that. Often we
are not being realistic about our own ability or about objective reality. When
we have a clear picture about our own capacity, we can be realistic about our
effort. Then there is a much greater chance of achieving our goals. But
unrealistic effort only brings disaster. So in many cases our stress is caused
by our expectations and our ambition.”
‘’Constant stress actually wears
down our telomeres, the caps on our DNA that protect our cells from illness and
aging. It is not just stress but our thought patterns in general that impact
our telomeres, which has led Epel and Blackburn to conclude that our cells are
actually ‘listening to our thoughts.’ ‘’
‘’Epel and Blackburn explain that it is not the stress alone that damages
our telomeres. It is our response to the stress that is most important. They
encourage us to develop stress resilience. This involves turning what is
called 'threat stress,' or the perception that a stressful event is a threat
that will harm us, into what is called 'challenge stress,' or the perception
that a stressful event is a challenge that will help us grow. The remedy
they offer is quite straightforward.One simply notices the fight-or-flight
stress response in one’s body—the beating heart, the pulsing blood or tingling
feeling in our hands and face, the rapid breathing—then remembers that these
are natural responses to stress and that our body is just preparing to rise to
the challenge.’’
‘’When we see others as separate,
they become a threat. When we see others as part of us, as connected, as
interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face—together.’’
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
‘’When I meet someone,…I always
try to relate to the person on the basic human level. On that level, I know
that, just like me, he or she wishes to find happiness, to have fewer problems
and less difficulty in their life. Whether I am speaking with one person, or
whether I am giving a talk to a large group of people, I always see myself
first and foremost as just another fellow human.That way, there is in fact no
need for introduction.’’
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
‘’We need to be willing to admit
our vulnerability. We are often ashamed of these fears and hurts, thinking that
if we were invulnerable, we would never experience pain, but this,… is not the
nature of being human. If we can have compassion for ourselves, and acknowledge
how we feel afraid, hurt, or threatened, we can have compassion for
others—possibly even for those who have evoked our anger.’’
‘’Constant fear, constant anger,
constant hatred harms our immune system. Everybody tries to take care of his or
her health. So they need both a healthy body and a healthy mind. A healthy mind
is a calm mind. Fear and anger are destroyers of a calm mind. Then you realize
that anger is no use in solving problems. It will not help.It creates more
problems. Then eventually through training of our mind—and using reasoning—we
can transform our emotions.’’
‘’If we can discover our role in
creating the situations that upset us, we are able to reduce our feelings of
frustration and anger. Also, when we are able to recognize that the other
person has their own fears and hurts, their own fragile and human perspective,
then we have a chance of escaping from the normal reflex of anger.''
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
‘’Sadness is seemingly the most
direct challenge to joy,But… it often leads us most directly to empathy and
compassion and to recognizing our need for one another.’’
“Sadness and grief are, of course, natural human responses to loss, but
if your focus remains on the loved one you have just lost, the experience is
less likely to lead to despair. In contrast, if your focus while grieving
remains mostly on yourself—‘What am I going to do now? How can I cope?’—then
there is a greater danger of going down the path of despair and depression. So,
again, so much depends on how we respond to our experience of loss and sadness.”
‘’Grief is the reminder of the
depth of our love. Without love, there is no grief. So when we feel our grief,
uncomfortable and aching as it may be, it is actually a reminder of the beauty
of that love, now lost.’’
“Despair can come from deep grief, but it can also be a defense against
the risks of bitter disappointment and shattering heartbreak. Resignation and cynicism
are easier, more self-soothing postures that do not require the raw vulnerability
and tragic risk of hope. To choose hope is to step firmly forward into the
howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time,the
storm will pass.”
‘’Hope is the antidote to
despair. Yet hope requires faith, even if that faith is in nothing more than
human nature or the very persistence of life to find a way. Hope is also
nurtured by relationship, by community, whether that community is a literal one
or one fashioned from the long memory of human striving whose membership
includes Gandhi, King,Mandela, and countless others. Despair turns us inward.
Hope sends us into the arms of others.’’
‘’The number of close friends
people report having has reduced from three to two. While we might have
hundreds of Facebook friends, our true, close friends are decreasing. Perhaps
most concerning of all, one in ten people said they had no close friendships at
all.’’
“People in the big cities are
very busy, and although they may see each other’s faces or even know each other
for several years, they have practically no human connection. So when something
happens, people feel lonely because they have no one they can turn to for help
or support.”
‘’Our whole society has a
materialistic culture…In the materialistic way of life, there’s no concept of
friendship, no concept of love,just work, twenty-four hours a day, like a
machine. So in modern society, we eventually also become part of that large
moving machine.”
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
‘’We often are alone without feeling lonely and feel lonely when we are not alone, as when we are in a crowd of strangers or at a party of people we do not know. Clearly the psychological experience of loneliness is quite different from the physical experience of being alone. We can feel joy when we are alone but not when we are lonely.’’
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
‘’Much depends on your attitude. If you are filled with negative judgment and anger, then you will feel separate from other people. You will feel lonely. But if you have an open heart and are filled with trust and friendship, even if you are physically alone, even living a hermit’s life, you will never feel lonely.”
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
“The paradox is that although the drive behind excessive self-focus is
to seek greater happiness for yourself, it ends up doing exactly the opposite.
When you focus too much on yourself, you become disconnected and alienated from
others.In the end, you also become alienated from yourself, since the need for connection
with others is such a fundamental part of who we are as human beings. This excessive self-focus is also bad for your health. Too much fear
and distrust, too much focus on yourself leads to stress and high blood
pressure.''
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
when one is thinking about others with kindness and compassion, one is
never lonely.
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
''Usually, we don’t actually compare ourselves to the hedge fund
billionaire or to the genius scientist or to the supermodel. We tend to compare
ourselves to those who are in our social circle.''
‘’And then he offered another remedy
[for envy]: motivation. ‘Certainly with
envy, it can also be a spur, you know? It can help you say, I haven’t got a car
or a house like that guy, so why don’t I aim to work to try and get something
like that?’ As the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama had said, these external
goals will not bring us true joy or lasting happiness, but motivation to
improve our situation is certainly better than envy of someone else’s.’’
“Often envy comes because we are
too focused on material possessions and not on our true inner values. When we
focus on experience or knowledge, there is much less envy. But most important
is to develop a sense of concern for others’ well-being. If you have genuine
kindness or compassion, then when someone gets something or has more success
you are able to rejoice in their good fortune. For a person who is committed to
compassion practice and a genuine sense of concern for others’ well-being, then
you will rejoice in others’ good fortune because you will be happy that what
that person aspires for is being obtained.”
“Preventive measures are the best
way. Yes, if some disease has already developed, then there’s no other choice
but to take medicine. So similarly, once a person develops a strong negative
emotion, like anger or jealousy, it is very difficult to counter it at that moment.
So the best thing is to cultivate your mind through practice so that you can
learn to prevent it from arising in the first place. For example, the major source
of anger is frustration and dissatisfaction. At the moment when an emotion like
anger is full-blown, even if we try to use our experience and our knowledge to
reduce it, we will find it is very difficult to stop. At that point it is like
a flood. During monsoon season, it is too late to stop the flooding. We need to
start early in the spring and investigate what is causing the flooding and try
to build flood walls to prevent disaster…Similarly, for our mental health also,
the earlier we start practicing preventive measures, the easier and more
effective they are.’’
The suffering is what makes you appreciate the joy.
‘’You see, in
reality like our physical body, where growth takes time, our mental development
also takes time—minute by minute, day by day, month by month, year by year, decade
by decade.’’
‘’Nothing beautiful
comes without some suffering.’’
“Our almost natural response is, When I’m
hit, I hit back. When you have been refined, you want to find out what it is
that impelled this other one to do what he did. And so you put yourself in the
shoes of the other. So it is almost an axiom that generosity of spirit seems to
require that one will have had setbacks to remove the dross.’’
‘’You can’t expand the volume of your chest
just by sitting. You have to walk up mountains…. Your natural longing is to
want to sit still.But if you do that and become a sofa cabbage or a couch
potato, it’s going to show. So what is true physically is, in a wonderful way,
true spiritually as well.Deep down we grow in kindness when our kindness is
tested.”
‘’Because of the shock suffering causes us,
our arrogance falls away.Suffering also gives rise to compassion for all others
who are suffering, and, because of our experience of suffering, we avoid
actions that will bring suffering to others.’’
''Marriages, even the best ones—perhaps especially
the best ones—are an ongoing process of spoken and unspoken forgiveness.''
''As our dialogue progressed, we converged on
eight pillars of joy. Four were qualities of the mind: perspective,
humility, humor, and acceptance. Four were qualities of the heart: forgiveness,
gratitude, compassion, and generosity .''
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
''Our perspective toward life is our final
and ultimate freedom.''
''We
suffer from a perspectival myopia. As a result, we are left nearsighted, unable
to see our experience in a larger way. When we confront a challenge, we often
react to the situation with fear and anger. The stress can make it hard for us to
step back and see other perspectives and other solutions…But if we try, we can
become less fixated, or attached,…to one outcome and can use more skillful
means to handle the situation.''
''If you think you are just a normal
person—one human being out of seven billion—you see there’s no reason to be
surprised or to feel like I should be something special. So whenever I’m with
queens or kings or presidents or prime ministers or beggars I always remember
that we are all the same.”
ꟷThe Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
''Acceptance—whether
we believe in God or not—allows us to move into the fullness of joy. It allows
us to engage with life on its own terms rather than rail against the fact that
life is not as we would wish. It allows us not to struggle against the
day-to-day current. The Dalai Lama had told us that stress and anxiety come
from our expectations of how life should be. When we are able to accept that
life is how it is, not as we think it should be, we are able to ease the ride,
to go from that bumpy axle (dukkha), with all its suffering, stress,
anxiety,and dissatisfaction, to the smooth axle (sukha), with its
greater ease, comfort,and happiness.''
‘’Life is
constantly unpredictable, uncontrollable, and often quite challenging. ‘’
“Generally, when we speak of cultivating
compassion for someone, we are cultivating compassion for someone who is
actually undergoing acute suffering and pain. But you can also develop
compassion for someone who may not be experiencing acute pain or suffering
right now, but who is creating the conditions for their own future suffering…[For
example] people [who] are committing negative actions, committing harmful acts
that create lot of pain for others…, are creating karma that brings very
serious negative consequences. So there are many reasons to feel a sense of
real concern for their well-being. When you have a sense of concern for their
well-being, then there is no place for anger and hatred to grow.
“We stand firm against the wrong not only
to protect those who are being harmed but also to protect the person who is harming
others, because eventually they, too, will suffer. So it’s out of a sense of
concern for their own long-term well-being that we stop their wrongdoing. This
is exactly what we are doing. We do not let anger and negative feelings develop
toward the Chinese hard-liners,but in the meantime we strongly oppose their
actions.”
“There are certain people who act out of the animal mind. When someone
hits them, they want to hit back, retaliate….With our human brain, we can
think, If I hit back, what use will it be in the short-term or in the
long-term?We can also realize that obviously nobody was born to be cruel,
to harm us,but because of certain circumstances, now he or she dislikes me, so
hits me.Perhaps my behavior, or attitude, or even my facial expression
contributed to this person becoming my enemy. So I was also involved. Who is to
blame? So sitting and thinking of the different causes and conditions, then you
see that if we are really angry we must be angry toward the causes and
conditions—ultimately their anger, their ignorance, their short-sightedness,
their narrow-mindedness. So that brings a sense of concern, and we can feel
sorry for these people.So it is totally wrong,…to say that practice of
tolerance and practice of forgiveness are signs of weakness. Totally wrong.
Hundred percent wrong. Thousand percent wrong.’’
‘’Anthony Ray Hinton spent thirty
years on death row for a crime he did not commit. He was working in a locked
factory at the time of the crime that he was being accused of. When he was
arrested in the state of Alabama in the United States, he was told by the
police officers that he would be going to jail because he was black. He spent
thirty years in a five-by-seven-foot cell in solitary confinement, allowed out
only one hour a day. During his time on death row,Hinton became a counselor and
friend not only to the other inmates, fifty-four of whom were put to death, but
to the death row guards, many of whom begged Hinton’s attorney to get him
out.When a unanimous Supreme Court ruling ordered his release, he was finally
able to walk free. ‘One does not know the value of freedom until one has it
taken away,’ he told me. ‘People run out of the rain. I run into the rain. How
can anything that falls from heaven not be precious? Having missed the rain for
so many years, I am so grateful for every drop. Just to feel it on my face.’ When
Hinton was interviewed on the American television show 60 Minutes,the
interviewer asked whether he was angry at those who had put him in jail. He responded
that he had forgiven all the people who had sent him to jail. The interviewer
incredulously asked, ‘But they took thirty years of your life—how can you not
be angry?’ Hinton responded, ‘If I’m angry and unforgiving, they will have
taken the rest of my life.’ ‘’
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