Sakyong Mipham Quotes

Our mind is always subject to being distracted by thoughts of what happened in the past and ideas of what could happen in the future, but the living experience is what is happening NOW.

Ultimately, as individuals we each have to ask ourselves to be courageous and apply certain principles.

It is said that if our intention is to help others-even if we are unable to follow it through-we will never have any regret. Regret is a result of trying to make "me" happy.

After you run, there's a sense of accomplishment; you feel like your life is meaningful. It's a moment of clarity.

Shambhala can be relevant in terms of what is going on in the world.

The self-assured strength that grows from knowing that we already have what we need makes us gentle, because we are no longer desperate.

I hope you will attain enlightenment. I am here to tell you that you already have! But you don't know... The difference between the Buddha and us is the confidence in knowing that he was enlightened.

I think Shambhala can be a very strong force as a social example of how you can try to live a life balanced in terms of both the spiritual and the secular.

In Tibetan, we say people who have good windhorse have the sense they can accomplish what they want to do.

Every moment of our life is important.

In meditation we are continuously discovering who and what we are.

To shift the direction of our planet, we must now be willing to experiment with the theory that within the speed and stress, we are good.

I think we are very environmental people. We need to be supported environmentally. Books very much have that imprint on the mind.

I want people to know you can live a life that is less aggressive and still have success.

If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.

The most outrageous thing we can do in this world is to accept what happens and fly with it.

When the mind is totally present, it is relaxed, nimble, and sensitive. It feels lighter and clearer. It notices everything, but it is not distracted by anything. It is the feeling of knowing exactly where you are and what you are doing.

Karma moves in two directions. If we act virtuously, the seed we plant will result in happiness. If we act non-virtuously, suffering results.

We want to infuse our day with good habits so that we can turn seemingly mundane situations into a ceremony of goodness.

A lot of times people do spiritual practice just for themselves. I try to turn that a little bit. I try to make spiritual practice more a part of the community. I write about infusing people with compassion.

Being human is a precious situation, and we shouldn't waste time in useless activities.

We can't hire out our own inner work, but we can do the manual labor with delight and decency.

If you see life as an opportunity, or if you see helping others as an opportunity, then all of a sudden you become joyous. You want to go forward.

Many people think spirituality has nothing to do with success or accomplishing - that it's something you do with removal, with leaving the world.

What is amazing is how stuck people are in their own habits. It is really hard to get people out of their habits. But once they shift, it also is amazing how rapid the progress can be.

When I ask people to contemplate selflessness, the sometimes react as if I've asked them to put their house on the market or give away all their money. If there was a self that existed in the way we think, discovering selflessness would be like putting our house on the market. But in the Buddhist tradition, the discovery of selflessness is called "completely joyful." It's not called "the raw end of the deal," or "I'd rather go back to bed," or "This is scary and depressing."

If we are going to live in a society, there has to be an attitude where people really do care for others.

Shambhala does have unique teachings, as do many Buddhist traditions. For example, certain teachings within Shambhala have to do with raising the personal windhorse, or the energy of the individual, so a person has good fortitude to be able to live a good life.

I think there is a tendency for people to become more isolated as they move along a spiritual path. With more development, people get more isolated. Also, as they have more wealth, they get more isolated.

A book very much is the center of the road, so people always can refer back to it.

Your life and your practice should not be separate. You bring your practice into experience. You bring it about.

When we have gone beyond the boundaries of hope and fear, we are able to work with whatever comes our way.

Running and meditation are very personal activities. Therefore they are lonely. This loneliness is one of their best qualities because it strengthens our incentive to motivate ourselves.

A lot of people talk about the spirituality of Buddhism, and it is a spiritual discipline. But in Shambhala there also is a notion that you have to be synchronized with both heaven and earth.

Our root fantasy is that "I" am real and that it's possible for "me" to be happy.

As a leader, you have the choice to determine what you are going to do and how you are going to engage others. You can decide to act compassionately regardless of what the weather is - whether it is cloudy or sunny - or whether things are inspirational or not.

If you decide to go on a Buddhist path, you have to be careful if you start mixing a lot of different traditions you are not totally familiar with - mixing this kind of meditation with that kind of practice or this kind of visualization with that kind of mantra. Then you really are concocting your own thing, and you have no idea what is going to happen.

We humans have come to a crossroads in our history: we can either destroy the world or create a good future.

This is bravery: using the challenge of daily life to sharpen our mind and open our heart.

When people say that meditation makes them calm, they are often referring to this stability of the mind. A stable mind creates the foundation for a happier and more contented person.

It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor-the determining factor of success and happiness is contentment.

A lot of people do their practice. They meditate on compassion. Then they yell at people afterwards. That is not quite working. One of the things I try to emphasize is contemplative meditation - bringing your thought and intention into meditation.

There is a tendency sometimes within the Shambhala community to make it just about meditating and, so, less about compassion. Shambhala is based upon compassion, but a lot of people come in and say, "I need to get more meditation. I need to do this for me, me, me." That's fine, but the view here is much more societal.

Shambhala vision is universal. It has no bias towards one type of culture or group. It is not ethnocentric and does not encourage one specific kind of person, race, or religion. Shambhala vision promotes a universality in relationship to basic goodness. All human beings are basically good and an enlightened society, at various levels of manifestation, can occur in any culture.

The first thing you have to do is acknowledge the basic and fundamental goodness of all beings. If you don't, then you are going to have conflict. That's at the core of Shambhala.

Many of us are slaves to our minds. Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus, and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night. We try to be good to the people we love, but then we forget them and put ourselves first.

Certain teachers have tremendous amounts of experience. They are articulate, and they give wonderful discourse. But at some point along the road, they themselves learned from and studied a book.

My books definitely are ambassadors, as you called them. They express what the vision is, what the purpose is.