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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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Matthieu Ricard
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: February 15
Bhikkhu
Geneticist
Monk
Philosopher
Photographer
Translator
Writer
Like
Placebo
Optimism
Dealing
Directly
Works
Better
Much
Mind
Lollipop

More quotes by Matthieu Ricard

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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.
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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Nothing goes right on the outside when nothing is going right on the inside.
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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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
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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.
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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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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Negative emotions like hatred destroy our peace of 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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Whatever you train, you change your brain.
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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What counts is not the enormity of the task, but the size of the courage.
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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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
Matthieu Ricard
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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.
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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Peace is not weak. Standing up to a tank is harder than dropping a suicide bomb
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