Luminous Wisdom

Imagine Your Buddha-Nature

Imagine your buddha-nature – the essential purity of your own awareness – symbolically as a pearl of radiant white light at your heart. And all of that incandescent, radiant white light is of the nature of joy, of loving-kindness that has always been within you. Then, with each in-breath, imagine drawing from this inexhaustible source of light at your heart, as if you were drawing water from a well. With each in-breath imagine drawing out the light from this source, a source that can be so easily obscured while we attend to others things, as our priorities become lost in distractions. With each in-breath imagine drawing this light out, like drawing from a deep well. Then with each out-breath imagine this light of well-being, this light of loving-kindness, suffusing every part of your body, your mind, your spirit. Then think: May I experience genuine happiness and the very source of happiness itself. May I be well and happy.

Genuine Happiness: Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment, B. Alan Wallace

Freedom from Suffering

Some may wonder whether it is a luxury to seek to dispel their own inner pain in order to attain inner freedom when so many others are suffering from famine, extreme poverty, war, and countless other disasters. Why don't we simply try to relieve their suffering immediately? If that were possible, scientists too would give up their research just to work on emergency cases. Likewise, what would be the point of spending five years building a hospital? Electrical and plumbing work doesn't cure anybody. Why not just head for the street, set up some tents, and begin treating the sick straightaway?

Matthieu Ricard, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

Instructions for Happiness

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion. 

The Dalai Lama

[I've had this quote for awhile, don't remember the source.]

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The Way to Happiness

Happiness comes through taming the mind; without taming the mind there is no way to be happy.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, Kindness, Clarity, and Insight

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The Dalai Lama on Genuine Happiness

During the course of my life, I have had to handle enormous responsibilities and difficulties. At sixteen, I lost my freedom when Tibet was occupied. At twenty-four, I lost my country itself when I came into exile. For forty years now I have lived as a refugee in a foreign country, albeit the one that is my spiritual home. Throughout this time, I have been trying to serve my fellow refugees, and, to the extent possible, the Tibetans who remain in Tibet. Meanwhile, our homeland has known immeasurable destruction and suffering. And, of course, I have lost not only my mother and other close family members but also dear friends. Yet for all this, although I certainly feel sad when I think about these losses, still so far as my basic serenity is concerned, on most days I am calm and contented. Even when difficulties arise, as they must, I am ususally not much bothered by them. I have no hesitation in saying I am happy.

According to my experience, the principal characteristic of genuine happiness is peace: inner peace.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium

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Generous Heart, Wholesome Actions

It is worth reminding ourselves that what brings us the greatest joy and satisfaction in life are those actions we undertake out of concern for others. Indeed we can go further. For whereas the fundamental questions of human existence, such as why we are here, where we are going, and whether the universe had a beginning, have each elicited different responses in different philosophical traditions, it is self-evident that a generous heart and wholesome actions lead to greater peace.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millenium

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Making Ourselves Happy

To love oneself is to love life. It is essential to understand that we make ourselves happy in making others happy.

Matthieu Ricard, Happiness / A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

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Cave Facing North

Seeking happiness outside ourselves is like waiting for sunshine in a cave facing north.

Tibetan saying

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The Meaning of Happiness

By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasureable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.

Matthieu Ricard, Happiness / A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

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