Tenzin Palmo Quotes

We only think about the difficult people and the horrible things that happen. That's what gets all the media attention.

When I look back I can think that of course I've been lazy and haven't practiced as much as I could have and have wasted time. Still though, I look back on my life and I think that really, I am very happy that I lived my life the way I have and I would never ever have wished it any other way - especially, the six years with my lama and then the 18 in Lahul.

People talk over and over about bodhichitta, but so often their heart is quite cold.

You have to recharge your batteries.

It's only when all the dust is completely gone from the mirror, and there is only mirror, no dust, that we're really enlightened. So that's a lot of work.

Monastic life cuts off the distractions and emotional entanglements one becomes involved in, in the lay life.

We have to cultivate contentment with what we have. We really don't need much. When you know this, the mind settles down. Cultivate generosity. Delight in giving. Learn to live lightly. In this way, we can begin to transform what is negative into what is positive. This is how we start to grow up.

In the beginning especially, we won't realize we're changing.

In a monastic setting, if someone doesn't want to obey the rules and just wants to live the way they've always lived as a lay person, then why did they become ordained? They have no sense that they have to give something up to gain so much.

Some students went to Milarepa and said, we should stop living in caves and meditating because we should go out and help beings as bodhisattvas. And Milarepa said that as long as space exists, so long will there be beings for you to help.

To be completely enlightened means that you're a Buddha.I don't speak of enlightenment.

The real spiritual power is enabling beings to realize the nature of the mind. That's the power of Buddha activity.

I know many Catholic priests and nuns who use the Buddhist teachings to become better Catholics, and Jews who use them to become better Jews. Why not?! It just takes us towards more deeply recognizing our original nature, which is what we all share after all.

The Buddha himself said, "I still use conceptual thinking, but I'm not formed by it." And that's the Buddha.

I've always loved the Sangha. I have the deepest, deepest respect for them. I'm very sorry that in the West people don't appreciate what the monastic order is about.

Distraction is the main problem for us all - what the Buddha called the monkey mind. We need to tame this monkey mind.

We've been human countless times and done everything you can imagine. So we've been planting all these negative seeds, and they're going to come up.

There are other ways of benefiting than by being a recognized tulku and sitting on a throne.

You think you're enlightened. But as my lama said, when you realize the intrinsic nature of the mind, then you start to meditate. It's not the end, it's the beginning.

People get very deep experiences and they think they're enlightened. That's not enlightenment, that's just some realization.

We are educated. We can think. We have the freedom to think.

The Tibetans have many teachings on how to die, consciously, and how to remain in the clear light, and it works. You can see it working, and they can stay in that state for hours, days, or weeks.

In one way I would like to teach, but I have no qualifications to teach Westerners.

A lot of people with the purest motivation end up getting completely burned out. And that's because they lack the wisdom and the skill and the inner space.

Even if one isn't a committed Buddhist, it just helps us become better human beings.

We have to know what is Buddhadharma and what is not Buddhadharma. It needn't go on forever. You don't have to spend 18 years at it. But still, a basic and uncompromised understanding of Buddhist principles is important. Very basic: the three signs of being, the four noble rruths, karma, and so on.

Either we're aware and present, or we're not. There is no half way.

Women are fully capable of doing everything.

If you've made a lot of negative seeds, and not a lot of positive seeds, even though you meet with the dharma, you're going to have problems.

Everyone should not be ordained, but for those who really feel that the only thing that matters in this world is the Dharma, then it is a logical step to adopt a form of life that automatically precludes worldly distractions.

This precious life is our opportunity. We are not the millions and millions of other things that are not human.

There is a basic problem that a lot of Western monks and nuns become ordained without really understanding or appreciating what the monastic life is all about.

I think it would help if, when people are first ordained, they underwent a period of strict training, maybe for several years. During this time they would learn basic Buddhist philosophy in a monastic community where all the teaching and training was directed toward living a perfect monastic life and wasn't channeled out to fit into the lay life - which is what usually happens in Dharma centers where the teachings are directed toward how to live the Dharma in your everyday life.

A realized being would not be making any fresh karma because karma is very much connected to the ego but would still be receiving the results of past karma.

The nature of the mind is completely incredible.

I sometimes feel tremendous compassion and helplessness.

All of us are playing roles, and there's nothing wrong with playing roles because we have to live in this world - the problem is only when we believe in those roles.

For any practice to work, the mind which is meditating on the object must merge. Often they are facing each other. One has to become completely absorbed, then the transformation will occur.

Still all the tulkus being born are men.

We make the commitment to stop for a moment and look at what the mind is doing, what mind state we are dwelling in. We don't judge it, we just know it. Gradually we'll become more and more accustomed to being conscious of what we're thinking and our various positive and negative states. We'll become more and more the masters of our mind, rather than the slaves.

I really don't know what I could teach and don't really plan to teach.

In this life you have obstacles.

When I heard that our bodies change when we get a bit older, I thought, oh good, now I'll go back to being a boy again. But it didn't happen like that.

We have met with the dharma. Many of us have met with teachers. We do have some idea of what to do and how to practice. And we should not be lazy.

Some males are intelligent, some are dumb. Some females are intelligent, some are dumb. We're all human beings, no one is superior.

There is a tremendous rise now in feminine awareness and wishing for equality, equal opportunities.

Ultimately there is light and love and intelligence in this universe. And we are it, we carry that within us, it’s not just something out there, it is within us and this is what we are trying to re-connect with, our original light and love and intelligence, which is who we are, so do not get so distracted by all this other stuff, you know, really remember what we are here on this planet for.