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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.

Matthieu Ricard

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Matthieu Ricard
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: February 15
Bhikkhu
Geneticist
Monk
Philosopher
Photographer
Translator
Writer
People
Becoming
Distinguish
Term
Aim
Religion
Spirituality
Better
Essential
Human
Essentials
Humans
Remains
Optional
Must
Terms
Adopting
Make
General
Aims

More quotes by Matthieu Ricard

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I don't often get into a bad mood, since it does not help anything and clouds my judgment, but I can certainly see that sometimes things go terribly wrong. We need to understand the reasons for this and work towards building new conditions that will bring about better circumstances.
Matthieu Ricard
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When hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it's opening and the pessimist thinks it's closing.
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If there is a remedy or a cure, a solution to a problem or difficulty, why worry?
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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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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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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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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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It's not the magnitude of the task that matters, it's the magnitude of our courage.
Matthieu Ricard
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While it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.
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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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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Let us live simply in the freshness of the present moment, in the clarity of pure awakened mind.
Matthieu Ricard
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The Dalai Lama has been extremely interested in science since his childhood.
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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Whatever you train, you change your brain.
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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To love oneself is to love life. It is essential to understand that we make ourselves happy in making others happy.
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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Nothing goes right on the outside when nothing is going right on the inside.
Matthieu Ricard
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You're not insensitive or indifferent, but you're also not vulnerable to the upheavals that cause emotional stress because you can buffer that... So that's the result of meditation you could call that emotional balance.
Matthieu Ricard