Kelsang Gyatso Quotes

I think the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of reality because illusion never leaves us ultimately happy.

I am a spiritual person in an eastern religion kind of way. I learned that happiness for all of us is a switch that you flick in your brain. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a new house, a new car, a new girlfriend, or a new pair of shoes. Our culture is very much about that; we are never happy with what we have today.

I see what happens when one gets very attached to material things. That's just not what my life is.

True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore.

I don't believe happiness comes out of material gain, for sure.

By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite.

I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.

What's real freedom? Real freedom is being able to not have my way and still be just as happy as if I did.

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

The world assumes that we are very happy with high mansions, fine carriages, servants and attendants, huge investments, and concubines. But he who is without the honor and strength of the soul can be anything but happy.

Whatever your religion, you have to find internal happiness, which I found.

The Dalai Lama has taught me that the best way to live life is to try and avoid desire. Desire is really the basic source of unhappiness.

There are a lot of things that money can't buy, and once you realize that is how you break free.

Before practicing meditation, we see that mountains are mountains. When we start to practice, we see that mountains are no longer mountains. After practicing a while, we see that mountains are again mountains. Now the mountains are very free. Our mind is still with the mountains, but it is no longer bound to anything.

Ceremonies are no aid to blessedness.

The great Western disease is, ‘I'll be happy when... When I get the money. When I get a BMW. When I get this job. When I get the relationship,’ Well, the reality is, you never get to when. The only way to find happiness is to understand that happiness is not out there. It's in here. And happiness is not next week. It's now.

That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is preached incessantly by every American television set.

Sometimes we get wrong notions, we think we have to be in a luxurious house, in a large city, with a new car in order to be happy. Happiness isn't there. Happiness isn't in a new car, it isn't in a new and luxurious apartment. Happiness isn't in banks and stocks. Happiness is where you make it, it's up to you. It comes from within, it doesn't come from things.

You may have occasion to possess or use material things, but the secret of life lies in never missing them.

If you're looking for happiness in things, you'll never find it.

When you don't have any money, any things, any house - if you are unattached, what is the difficulty in it? But when you have everything and you remain unattached - a beggar in the palace - then something very deep has been attained.

Let there be as little materialism as possible, with the maximum of spirituality.

True happiness is not related to external conditions but comes from the unconditioned.

People who want to rise above a well-cooked meal and a well-tailored garment, are out of their spiritual minds.