Tenzin Palmo Quotes

The answer lies within ourselves. If we can't find peace and happiness there, it's not going to come from the outside.

Meditation is for you to realise that the deepest nature of your existence is beyond thoughts and emotions, that it is incredibly vast and interconnected with all other beings.

If we greet situations with a positive attitude, we will eventually create positive returns. If we respond with a negative attitude, negative things will eventually come our way.

In the very deep darkness of this world, little pinpoints of light show up very brightly and can shine a long way.

Our pure awareness is not male or female.

The first thing is to learn how to quiet the mind, relax the mind, and bring the awareness to the front so that we are conscious of what we're doing when we're doing it without all the commentary.

Develop confidence in your innate qualities and believe that these qualities will be brought to fruition.

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

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

We have produced many of our problems through our confused mental states.

It's important to lighten up a bit!

The purpose of dharma is to help your mind to expand, to grow, to clarify. It should uphold us and create an inner sense of peace, joy, and clarity.

This is a time that calls for extreme restraint. In a world of outright aggression and violence there can be no winners. To respond to violence with counter-violence only throws oil on the fire.

You see people swimming, and you think, oh, how wonderful to swim. But most people stand on the edge swaying back and forth, afraid to jump. They don't think they can swim.

Buddhism helps us to overcome our endless ego grasping mind to open up to something so much more spacious and genuinely meaningful.

I sometimes feel tremendous compassion and helplessness.

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.

It's interesting to see people's projections because one lives very much in the world of projections.

There are wars, there's pestilence, there are plagues, there is corruption in religious circles, corruption in the government, when was it not?

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

My mother's love was really not based on attachment. Her love was genuine love. To make me happy, not how I will make her happy.

From the point of view of emptiness, there is neither being nor non-being, but we're not on the point of view of emptiness, we're on the point of view of our relative being.

I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form - no matter how many lifetimes it takes.

The power of thought is extremely powerful.

You can still practice to be a better and kinder and happier person. That's perfectly possible.

The world is full of incredible people who are embodiments of compassion. Some of them have a spiritual path; some of them don't.

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

If you take the time to study how to be a doctor and how to use your scalpel and your medicine, then there are endless beings out there to help.

Meditation is a way to take us to a deeper level of awareness.

There are wonderful beings in this world.

We need to be sincere in our practice, but at the same time we can't take ourselves too seriously.

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

Because we're trying, because we want, it's very hard to get.

The Tibetans are good at learning many skillful ways to show that everything we do becomes dharma practice, depending on which kind of approach we use.

If you're meeting with the dharma, you have probably been a human being before.

I think the problem with Western students is they're very ambitious.

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.

There are certain people who people think are enlightened. The problem with the word enlightenment is what you mean by it.

Just because someone is very charismatic, it doesn't mean that they're genuinely qualified.

My body is not good for prostrations.

We don't want to go to heaven. We want to be reborn so that we can keep going and realize the dharma so we can benefit other beings, endlessly. It's a very different thing.

The Dharma is a very, very special and precious thing. The more you practice it, the more you will realize this.

Joining the Sangha and renouncing worldly life is necessary in order to devote your whole life and all your energies toward the Dharma.

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.

It's interesting that in those countries like Taiwan or Korea, where nuns are given equal opportunities for study and practice, they also develop great social awareness.

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

To become effortless takes a lot of effort. It's good to compare it to learning an instrument or learning a sport.

As a human being, we have everything we need. It's enough suffering to give us incentive to go on, but not so much that we don't know where to turn.

We have to transform those ordinary actions of our day into dharma practice because otherwise nothing is going to move.

First you have to help yourself.