Dalai Lama Quotes

Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic, that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea - and there is no experiment up to now that has found any center in the brain which corresponds to awareness.

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.

The forms of my awareness are richer than yours.

I don't talk about consciousness. I talk about interiority.

The distinguishing characteristics of mind are of a subjective sort; we know them only from the contents of our own consciousness.

Experiences such as, 'I went; I came; I was; I did,' come naturally to everyone. From these experiences, does it not appear that the consciousness 'I' is the subject of those various acts? Enquiry into the true nature of that consciousness, and remaining as oneself, is the way to understand, through enquiry, one's true nature.

Consciousness - that, to me, is the theme of the modern novel.

Consciousness... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. Source of the expression 'stream of consciousness'.

Scott Fitzgerald said famously that "he who invented consciousness would have a lot to be blamed for." But he also forgot that without consciousness, he would have no access to true happiness or even the possibility of transcendence.

Consciousness begins when brains acquire the power, the simple power I must add, of telling a story.

That I am not my experiences is very obvious. I am the one who is having those experiences. Spirituality has nothing to do with experience.

The individual point of view is the only point of view from which one is able to look at the world in its truth.

When you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in.

Experience is a private, very largely speechless affair.

If you hold a beautiful flower in your hand, you can write a whole book about it. However, you are still just you perceiving and experiencing it from your own point of view.

You can indeed be aware of your body, but you can also be aware of your mind - you can right now notice all the thoughts and ideas and images floating in front of the mind's inward eye. You can, in other words, experience your mind, be aware of your mind. And it's very important to experience your mind directly, cleanly, intensely, because only by bringing awareness to the mind can you begin to transcend the mind and be free of its limitations.

Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought

You know, mind allows us to portray in different sensory modalities, visual, auditory, olfactory, you name it, what we are like and what the world is like. But this very, very important quality of subjectivity, this quality that allows us to take a distant view and say, "I am here, I exist, I have a life and there are things around me that refer to me." That me-ness, M-E-hyphen, that is what really constitutes consciousness.

My mind cannot know you, only labels, judgments, facts, and opinions about you. Being alone knows directly.

I'm your mind", it claims. "You can't parse ME into dendrites and synapses

...[I am] utterly entranced, at times, with the mere fact that there are other people, and that they experience themselves as the primary center of consciousness just as I do. That fact alone...Well, that fact alone is staggering.

Where consciousness is concerned, the appearance is the reality.

No matter whether "I" feels victorious or defeated, elated or discouraged, these are mere phantoms compared to consciousness itself.

Many people mistakenly suppose that the essence of consciousness is that of a control mechanism

Reality is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can't be related to another person.