Latest Matthieu Ricard Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Various studies indicate that with age people gain more wisdom about life and are somehow happier than younger people. This is especially true if, as we age, we learn how to become more generous, altruistic, and peaceful.

  Matthieu Ricard

  People, Peaceful, Age

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• I don't often get into a bad mood, since it does not help anything and clouds my judgment, but I can certainly see that sometimes things go terribly wrong. We need to understand the reasons for this and work towards building new conditions that will bring about better circumstances.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Clouds, Doe, Needs

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• When faced with adverse circumstances, if you can do something, do it and there is not need to worry. If you can't do anything, then there is no point to worry. So in either case, worrying is an added suffering. But this does not mean of course that we should not be unhappy about injustice, abuse and other kinds of behavior that brings suffering upon others.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Mean, Worry, Abuse

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• We deal with our mind from morning until evening. This mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy. We should do everything we can to improve outer circumstances - remedying poverty, inequalities, conflicts, and so on - while also doing our best to achieve a state of mind that give us the inner resources to deal with the ups and downs of life.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Morning, Worst Enemy, Giving

  "Happiness as a Skill" by Matthieu Ricard, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 30, 2017.

• Happiness is not the endless pursuit of pleasant experiences - that sounds more like a recipe for exhaustion - but a way of being that results from cultivating a benevolent mind, emotional balance, inner freedom, inner peace, and wisdom. Each of these qualities is a skill that can be enhanced through training the mind.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Emotional, Skills, Inner Peace

  "Happiness as a Skill" by Matthieu Ricard, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 30, 2017.

• Too much involvement with one's feeling [is destructive]. If they have too much self-centered feelings, they get in trouble.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Self, Feelings, Too Much

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• When you see those in healthcare who don't get this burn-out, they are very motherly, fatherly, or loving and attentive with the patients. [These] wonderful caretakers, doctors, and nurses don't get as much burn-out as people who are more defensive of the feelings and suffering of others.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Doctors, Suffering Of Others, Nurse

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• If contemplation of other people's pain just increases distress, then I think we should see it in another way. If we don't center too much on ourselves, then [we] increase our courage and our determination to remedy the pain, not our distress. If we have unconditional compassion, then it increases our courage. So that's the difference, self-centered motivation versus altruistic motivation.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Determination, Pain, Motivation

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• You're not insensitive or indifferent, but you're also not vulnerable to the upheavals that cause emotional stress because you can buffer that... So that's the result of meditation; you could call that emotional balance.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Stress, Emotional, Meditation

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• [You] can dramatically change [your emotions] to be more altruistic, more loving, more compassionate, more attentive, and especially to have an inner sort of confidence and strength that you know that you have the resources to deal with whatever comes your way.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Way, Emotion, Resources

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• Meditation is about cultivating constructive emotions, like altruism, compassion.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Compassion, Meditation, Emotion

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• There is definitely openness to others' suffering that is dealt not with distress but with compassion.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Compassion, Suffering, Openness

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• When you engage in compassion, and you hear a distressing sound, like someone calling for help, there is an activation in an area of the brain called the insular, which has to do with empathy and altruism, that is vastly more activated than in non-meditators.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Compassion, Empathy, Brain

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• If you don't have altruism, inner strength, inner peace, attention, then it's a trauma. It makes a difficult life for you and for others.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Inner Peace, Inner Strength, Attention

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• In a way, there's nothing wrong with playing the piano, but it's not a huge trauma if you don't.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Piano, Way, Trauma

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• Whatever you train, you change your brain.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Brain, Train

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• The way you experience [pain] can change so much depending on your attitude.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Pain, Attitude, Way

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• A big part of pain is the subjective reaction of trying to revolt against pain. If it's there, it's better to deal with it. Most of it is "I cannot stand it," and that component is enhancing pain so much.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Pain, Trying, Reactions

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• Just be free, and at least you will go through adversity with a stronger mind, and therefore, you'll be less affected, and pain will affect you less.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Pain, Adversity, Mind

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• You get [something] in your body that is the suffering or the problem, and then you [add] a second one, which is worry. In both cases, [it is] pointless.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Worry, Suffering, Add

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• If there is a remedy or a cure, a solution to a problem or difficulty, why worry?

  Matthieu Ricard

  Worry, Problem, Cures

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• When you see a Tibetan doctor taking care of a patient, first of all, of course there are many wonderful medicines that come from [there in the past] 2,000 years. But this doctor is usually so attentional, so kind, and so careful of what you really feel and then [he sees] you as a human being instead of running you through some quick tests. So that itself, the trust and confidence in someone that cares for you is of course so invigorating... that someone cares.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Running, Past, Doctors

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• Placebos are like the lollipop of optimism, but we can do much better by dealing directly with the mind... And it works!

  Matthieu Ricard

  Optimism, Mind, Lollipop

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• I think if your direction in life is clear and if you develop the wish to accomplish/have a fulfilled life and to contribute something to others, I think that definitely gives you such a strength to want to be alive, that that would be the best placebo.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Thinking, Giving, Wish

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

• We vastly underestimate the power of transformation of mind.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Mind, Transformation, Underestimate

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu