Matthieu Ricard Quotations

Negative emotions like hatred destroy our peace of mind.

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.

Neuroscience has proven that similar areas of the brain are activated both in the person who suffers and in the one who feels empathy. Thus, empathic suffering is a true experience of suffering.

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.

That's what Buddhism has been trying to unravel - the mechanism of happiness and suffering. It is a science of the mind.

I got really involved in science research and the science of meditation.

Happiness can’t be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world—a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks.

Good and evil exist only in terms of the happiness or suffering they create in ourselves and others

It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love.

What counts is not the enormity of the task, but the size of the courage.

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

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.

If you see the humanity in the world, grains of sand that bring everything to a halt — it's corruption, clashes of egos, human factors more than resources. So, how to avoid that? There's a lack of human maturity. So it's not a vain or futile exercise to perfect yourself to some extent before you serve others, otherwise it's like cutting the wheat when it's still green. And nobody is fed by that. So we need a minimum of readiness to efficiently and wisely be at the service of others. So compassion needs also to be sort of enlightened by wisdom. Otherwise, it's blind.

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.

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.

Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity, it is a state of being.

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

Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment.

Wisdom and compassion should become the dominating influences that guide our thoughts , our words, and our actions.

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.

We must distinguish between spirituality in general terms, which aims to make us better people, and religion. Adopting a religion remains optional, but becoming a better human being is essential.

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.

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

Although the optimist may be a little giddy when foreseeing the future, telling himself that it will all work out in the end when that isn't always the case, his attitude is more fruitful since, in the hope of undertaking a hundred projects, followed up by diligent action, the optimist will end up completing fifty. Conversely, in limiting himself to undertake a mere ten, the pessimist might complete five at best and often fewer, since he'll devote little energy to a task he feels to be doomed from the start.

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.

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

There is a dilemma, to reconcile three time scales: in the short term, the economy; in the middle range, global well - being generally; and, in the long range, the environment.

Peace is not weak. Standing up to a tank is harder than dropping a suicide bomb

Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions.

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

The ultimate reason for meditating is to transform ourselves in order to be better able to transform the world or, to put it another way, to transform ourselves so we can become better human beings in order to serve others in a wiser and more efficient way. It gives your life the noblest possible meaning.

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

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.

Anyone can be happy by simply training their brain

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Enlightenment is eliminating mental confusion, eliminating hatred, jealousy, mental toxins, cravings. That's very simple and straightforward. Whether you can do it or not is another matter.

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.

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.

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

Confidence is closely linked to how well our perceptions match reality

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

Happiness is a skill, emotional balance is a skill, compassion and altruism are skills, and like any skill they need to be developed. That's what education is about.

If we dedicate a certain amount of time each day to cultivating compassion or any other positive quality, we are likely to attain results, just like when we train the body... Meditation consists of familiarizing ourselves with a new way of being, of managing our thoughts and the way we perceive the world. Through the recent advances in neuroscience it is now possible to evaluate these methods and to verify their impact on the brain and body.

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

By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.

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 all have the ability to study the causes of suffering and gradually to free ourselves from them....it is not the magnitude of the task that matters, it's the magnitude of our courage.

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.

Transform our way of perceiving things, we transform the quality of our lives.

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

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

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.

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

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.

By breaking down our sense of self-importance, all we lose is a parasite that has long infected our minds. What we gain in return is freedom, openness of mind, spontaneity, simplicity, altruism: all qualities inherent in happiness.

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

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

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.