37 Inspirational Dalai Lama Quotes For Enlightenment

The Dalai Lama is the 14th Dalai Lama, and has been in power since 1950. His teachings and leadership have been proven incredibly popular and effective, and by 2013, he had become the joint most popular world leader.

As you can see, if you use the original words, you get the meaning you intend, but if you use the paraphrase, you get a completely different meaning.

The greatest problem in the world is that Westerners have the idea that they know what is true and what is right. Whereas, the greatest problem in the world is that Asians have the idea that they know what is true and what is right.

For those of you that know something about the struggle, this is one of your favorite quotes.

A few words of advice from the Dalai Lama for the world’s leaders.

37 Inspirational Dalai Lama Quotes

If you feel like you are so insignificant, try sleeping with a mosquito.

When you realize that sometimes silence is the best answer.

The Dalai Lama believes that we must be nice to everyone no matter what kind of enemies they have.
We never know when someone is an enemy, and we should always
be polite and welcoming to them.

When we face obstacles in our life we tend to give up or think that the world is against us.

I don’t like guns, and I am glad to know that most of you are safe from them! I wish that the same could be said about our society’s reliance on nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

This paraphrase of the Dalai Lama is taken from the Huffington Post.

The way to change others’ minds is with love, and not anger.

If the situation is not as bad as it could be, then the situation will be okay because you can fix it. If the situation is bad, then there is only one solution and that’s to worry.

When you get into a situation where you can’t be kind, then you can be kind. The situation doesn’t allow you to be kind, so you’re not.
Don’t be hard on yourself for things you can’t control.

9th of 37 Dalai Lama Quotes

We suffer because we are ignorant. We are ignorant because we do not know how to be happy. We do not know how to be happy because we do not know the truth. We do not know the truth because we do not think. We do not think because we are greedy. We are greedy because we do not know how to stop being greed.

It is very simple, your life. If you don’t want to live a particular way, then you have to give up your life. But if you want to live a particular way, then you must accept your life, even if it means that you will face death. No one can make you live any other way. Life is very important. You don’t have to be afraid of death if you live the way you want.

The Dalai Lama has said that if you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

The Dalai Lama emphasizes the importance of kindness in society and the world.

When couples who love each other are able to forgive each other, and are able to find happiness in each others’ company even though they have disagreements.

We are what we think. We become what we think about.

If you are successful in something, you must look back at what you gave up to achieve it. If you don’t, you haven’t achieved it.

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil shows you where you’re going wrong and helps you correct your mistakes, and that’s the kind of friend you should value as if they were some kind of secret of hidden treasure.

Peace does not mean an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. The meaning of peace is to solve these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through understanding and compassion.

18th of 37 Dalai Lama Quotes

The reason I am here is to help people realize that this planet earth is our home, and that we must work to live together in harmony for the benefit of all.

If you are afraid of falling, do you think you can make yourself fall? If you really think so, then you are already afraid of falling. If you are not afraid of falling, then you need to examine what is really happening. If it is really happening, then you should feel the desire to make the right thing to make yourself fall. If you do not have any desires, then you have nothing to worry about.

The purpose of life, then, is the practice of tolerance–not only toward those who think as we do, but even toward those who do not think as we do. If we practice tolerance to the fullest extent possible, we prepare our minds to make progress in our quest for wisdom.

Only the development of compassion and understanding of others can bring us tranquility and happiness that we all seek.

It is under the greatest adversity that there
exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for yourself and
others.

If we consider ourselves to be more spiritual, we must show kindness to others by being respectful to them and by listening to them.

Give the ones you love wings to fly, roots to go in and reasons to stay.

We need to have a clear idea about our goals before we begin to plan how to achieve them. Also, we need to know which kind of people we are interacting with. It is impossible to understand the wisdom of those who do not share our goals and values.

People have different ways to fulfill their desires and achieve happiness. Also, these are roads and not one specific path to get to your end goal.

27th of 37 Dalai Lama Quotes

The purpose of all the major religions is not to build big temples on the outside, but to create holy places of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.

Happiness is not something ready made. You need to do things that bring happiness and if you do the things that bring happiness and you do them well there is a good chance that you will enjoy the happiness that comes after.

Old friends fade away; new friends appear. All I can say is make your friendships count, make them meaningful, make them important, make them life-giving.

I am not the expert to tell you which is the best way. It is up to you. If you find a way which is useful to you, then you can experiment to find out. If you find that it is of no use, you can discard it.

It’s a wonderful and great thing when we finally get what we want. And we are lucky! It’s about that we could be getting what we want right now.

If you can’t always avoid difficult situations it is vital to learn how to deal with challenges effectively.
It is vital to learn how to respond when you feel down or angry.

When we feel love and kindness toward others even just a little bit, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it also helps us to develop inner happiness and peace.

If you really want the happiness you have, and you want to improve your life, you have to be willing to give up the things you have, so you can have the things you don’t have.

The world owes its prosperity to the contribution of all living creatures, be they human beings or animals. The creatures that inhabit this earth are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.

36. The way to achieve immortality is to give as much as you can to the ones you love.

This is a basic teaching from the Heart Sutra. If you think about it, this meditation is about breathing in “caring” and breathing out “caring.” One of the main components of the practice is to let go of your habitual mental patterns, and this is also done by letting go of the need to “care” about anything. If you take care of yourself, you will not need to “care” about anything else.

Dalai Lama Picture Quote

Summary

Thank you for stopping by this awesome collection of inspiring Dalai Lama quotes. I like the one that says “No matter how much we change the world, it is in our hearts” because I think that is so true.