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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.

Matthieu Ricard

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Matthieu Ricard
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: February 15
Bhikkhu
Geneticist
Monk
Philosopher
Photographer
Translator
Writer
Giving
Another
Efficient
Way
Order
Serve
Life
Become
Ultimate
World
Able
Beings
Reason
Meaning
Noblest
Better
Gives
Meditating
Human
Possible
Transform
Humans
Others
Wiser

More quotes by Matthieu Ricard

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Placebos are like the lollipop of optimism, but we can do much better by dealing directly with the mind... And it works!
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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Transform our way of perceiving things, we transform the quality of our lives.
Matthieu Ricard
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We try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary, and often, illusory.
Matthieu Ricard
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You can't be at the same time a spiritual master and someone who is always angry. It doesn't work.
Matthieu Ricard
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The way you experience [pain] can change so much depending on your attitude.
Matthieu Ricard
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We have known about the placebo effect for many years. This is a remarkable effect - placebo can cure 30 percent in many cases.
Matthieu Ricard
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Just be free, and at least you will go through adversity with a stronger mind, and therefore, you'll be less affected, and pain will affect you less.
Matthieu Ricard
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It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love.
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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Good and evil exist only in terms of the happiness or suffering they create in ourselves and others
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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I got really involved in science research and the science of meditation.
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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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
Matthieu Ricard
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I think if your direction in life is clear and if you develop the wish to accomplish/have a fulfilled life and to contribute something to others, I think that definitely gives you such a strength to want to be alive, that that would be the best placebo.
Matthieu Ricard
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Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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If you don't have altruism, inner strength, inner peace, attention, then it's a trauma. It makes a difficult life for you and for others.
Matthieu Ricard