Quotes from Matthieu Ricard

Trying to purify something that is fundamentally bad would be as pointless as trying to bleach a lump of coal.

Dans la pitié, ce qui est premier c'est la tristesse. Je suis triste que l'autre souffre, mais je ne l'aime pas vraiment. Dans la compassion, ce qui est premier c'est l'amour79

Les conversations ordinaires sont des « échos d'échos », regrettait l'ermite Patrul Rinpoché. Il suffit d'allumer la télévision ou de se rendre à une soirée mondaine pour être englouti par un déluge de paroles qui non seulement sont inutiles mais exacerbent la convoitise, le ressentiment, la vanité...

Humility is like a vessel placed at ground level, ready to receive the rain of qualities." Humility is a forgotten value in today's world. Our obsession with the image we have to project of ourselves is so strong that we have stopped questioning the validity of appearances and endlessly seek better ways to appear.

No se tienen dos corazones, uno para los animales y otro para los humanos. Se tiene un corazón o no se tiene.»

la pitié sentimentale n'est en réalité que « l'impatience du cÅ"ur de se débarrasser au plus vite de la pénible émotion qui vous étreint devant la souffrance d'autrui, qui n'est pas du tout la compassion, mais un mouvement instinctif de défense de l'âme contre la souffrance étrangère.

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. A

For me, happiness is eating a tasty plate of spaghetti"; or "Walking in the snow under the stars," and so on.

In every sphere of human activity there are sources of inspiration whose perfection, far from discouraging us, in fact whets our enthusiasm by holding out an admirable vision of that to which we aspire.

Buddhism affirms that the ultimate nature of phenomena is emptiness and that emptiness carries within it an infinite potential of manifestation.

Every man wants to be happy, but in order to be so he needs first to understand what happiness is. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

I didn't say how I want to be happy. There are so many ways to find happiness: start a family, have kids, build a career, seek adventure, help others, find inner peace. . . . Whatever I end up doing, I want my life to be a truly happy one.

l'amour de soi conduit à souhaiter son propre bien, tandis que l'amour égoïste conduit à ne souhaiter que celui-ci.

these days, we are constantly dealing with strangers who know nothing of our identity, qualities and defects, so it is tempting, and sometimes useful, to broadcast as ostentatiously as possible the image of ourselves that we would like to see recognized by those around us.

Martin Seligman once told me, "The best it [psychoanalysis] can do is to bring us from minus ten to zero.

Can you give me one reason why I should go on living?" This book is a humble response to that question, for happiness is above all a love of life. To have lost all reason for living is to open up an abyss of suffering. As influential as external conditions may be, suffering, like well-being, is essentially an interior state. Understanding that is the key prerequisite to a life worth living.

The search for happiness is not about looking at life through rose-colored glasses or blinding oneself to the pain and imperfections of the world. Nor is happiness a state of exaltation to be perpetuated at all costs; it is the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred and obsession, that literally poison the mind. It is also about learning how to put things in perspective and reduce the gap between appearances and reality. To