Tibet Quotes

After I handed over all my authority, I feel now our struggle [for Tibet ] become much, much safer. And me personally, the day I officially handed over, that night, very unusual sound. I am quite free now.

There are only a few people out there who can completely overcome their fears, and they all live in Tibet.

Tibet is a beautiful and richly endowed region of our great motherland.

In some respects I have been the most unlucky because I have spent more time living as a refugee outside my country than I have spent in Tibet. On the other hand, it has been very rewarding for me to live in a democracy and to learn about the world in a way that we Tibetans had never known before.

I am confident I will set foot again in Tibet in my lifetime.

You can continue your practice, you can exercise kindness, you can practice meditation whether you're in a prison or a millionaire's house, whether you're in India or Tibet.

I have three commitments. Number one commitment is promotion of human value. Number two commitment is promotion of race harmony. Number three commitment is about Tibet. My retirement is the third commitment. The previous two commitments, to my death, I have committed.

Tibet, why is it occupied? For political reasons maybe they have a reason. I don't know. But religiously, why? The fact that the religious community is being oppressed and persecuted is something that every single person in the world who has any religious faith and religious feeling for - for people who have faith should speak up.

Judge your success by what you had to give up to get it.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

You don't become a saint until you lead a good life whether in Tibet or Italy or America.

The big lamas coming from Tibet, Ladakh, India - everywhere - have been very friendly. But I don't figure in their world. For one thing, being Western puts you outside the limits. A token female doesn't hurt - there's only one.

Because my main concern is the Tibetan Buddhist culture, not just political independence, I cannot seek self-rule for central Tibet and exclude the 4 million Tibetans in our two eastern provinces of Amdo and Kham.

Had Tibet not fallen away from dharma China could not have invaded.

It's impressive that a man [Dalai Lama], on the day after his Nobel Prize was announced, in October, 1989, said to me, "I really wonder if my efforts are enough?" Most of us, if we just won the Nobel Prize, would think this is vindication, or at last there's a chance for Tibet. He's the rare person who thinks, as a Buddha would, "I don't know if I've done enough, I don't know if I will do enough."

Often when we think of exile we think of destruction or loss. But the Dalai Lama always says exile is reality, it's something we can make use of, and he has used it to get rid of everything that he thought was stifling and old, and to create a new, improved and much healthier Tibet.

I would hesitate to give advice to the Dalai Lama and his people because they are suffering. The Dalai Lama suffered from exile and the people in Tibet suffer from oppression.

Himmler wants to send an expedition to Tibet to look for ancient manuscripts on the Aryans. The man is like a little schoolgirl. What culture is there in an old jug, I ask you?

Wherever I live, I shall feel homesick for Tibet. I often think I can still hear the cries of wild geese and cranes and the beating of their wings as they fly over Lhasa in the clear, cold moonlight. My heartfelt wish is that my story may create some understanding for a people whose will to live in peace and freedom has won so little sympathy from an indifferent world.

I meditate, and when I do, Prince Harry appears in my subconscious and meditates with me. It's a little strange but I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Sometimes he's not the only one; the other day it was me, Prince Harry, the Dalai Lama, Mr. Rogers, Coco the gorilla, and George Clooney. We were all floating above the earth looking down at the continents as they passed. George Clooney suggested I visit Providence, Rhode Island. The Dalai Lama sighed deeply and said he'd like to visit Tibet. Poor Dalai Lama.

[Tibet] is a small country based on religious principle, religious traditions. It never wanted any conquest.

[Tibet] never sought any territory. All it wanted is the conquest of the soul, that people should attain a kind of inner sovereignty, inner independence, inner freedom. And inner strength to attain the absolute.

People in the West sometimes have these marvelous visions of India and Tibet. They assume that there are all these sadhus walking around and everybody is breathing enlightenment. Forget it. Don't look at it through rose-colored glasses.

Dalai Lama has made new opportunities for women that they never had in Tibet, introduced science into the monks' curriculum and had Tibetan students in exile take their classes in English after the age of ten so that they will know more about the outside world. But one of the great things he's done is to bring all the Tibetan groups together in exile, as perhaps they couldn't have been when they weren't in exile and they weren't under such pressure.

I would say to [Chinese government], You don't need Tibet really. You don't need all the problems Tibet creates for you. It's so small, so far away. Give them their religious freedom and I know that they wouldn't misuse it.

I have been clear in my position for quite a while, but the Chinese have not responded. Therefore, we are now in the process of holding a referendum on our policy among all the Tibetan community in exile and even inside Tibet, to check whether the majority thinks we are on the right track.

The tradition of nonviolence, optimism, concern for the individual, and unconditional compassion that developed in Tibet is the culmination of a slow inner revolution, a cool one, hard to see, that began 2,500 years ago with the Buddha's insight about the end of suffering. What I have learned from these people has forever changed my life, and I believe their culture contains an inner science particularly relevant to the difficult time in which we live.

The Vietnam War ended because of the campus situation. And so many other injustices have been corrected in the World today only thanks to the young people. So, young people especially have a responsibility for Tibet.

To finish building the free society dreamed of by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, we must draw upon the resources of the enlightened imagination, which can be systematically developed by the spiritual sciences of India and Tibet. We have not yet tamed our own demons of racism, nationalism, sexism, and materialism. We have not yet made peace with a land we took by force and have only partly paid for. We are a teeming conglomeration of people from different tribes who have yet to embrace fully the humanness in one another. And none of us can be really free until all of us are.

Then another thing, now this is mainly for our interest about Tibet, our struggle. Whole struggle depend on within person. For dangerous. Foolish! Not for this only institution or even not only for Buddhist dogma, but before national sort of right, our right. So therefore this struggle must carried by people themselves.

They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

When I was two years old, I heard about his [Dalai Lama] flight from Tibet. Being very little, I said, "Oh, good Tibetans, bad Chinese." Those were the black-and-white ways that I thought.

Once you have learned to trust your own voice and allowed that creative force inside you to come out, you can direct it to write short stories, novels, and poetry, do revisions, and so on. You have the basic tool to fulfill your writing dreams. But beware. This type of writing will uncover other dreams you have, too-going to Tibet, being the first woman president of the United States, building a solar studio in New Mexico-and they will be in black and white. It will be harder to avoid them.

In Tibet there is no marriage, and there is no jealousy, yet we know that marriage is a much higher state. The Tibetans have not known the wonderful enjoyment, the blessing of chastity, the happiness of having a chaste, virtuous wife, or a chaste, virtuous husband. These people cannot feel that. And similarly they do not feel the intense jealousy of the chaste wife or husband, or the misery caused by unfaithfulness on either side, with all the heart-burnings and sorrows which believers in chastity experience. On one side, the latter gain happiness, but on the other, they suffer misery too.

I remember how people would often come to see my master Jamyang Khyentse simply to ask for his guidance for the moment of death. He was so loved and revered throughout Tibet, especially in the eastern province of Kham, that some would travel for months on end to meet him and get his blessing just once before they died. All my masters would give this as their advice, for this is the essence of what is needed as you come to die: "Be free of attachment and aversion. Keep your mind pure. And unite your mind with Buddha."

When I am in Tibet, I am very happy. The Tibetans radiate. They literally send out light. The Dalai Lama's holiness generates love and compassion to every human being. He has committed himself to that. I haven't made that leap yet. I haven't given up self-aspiration. I still love making movies.

You shouldn't speak until you know what you're talking about. That's why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? I'm a f***ing actor! They hand me a script. I act. I'm here for entertainment, basically, when you whittle everything away. I'm a grown man who puts on makeup.

I would love to go and see the Himalayan Mountain Kingdoms. There are very few left now. I would loved to have gone to Tibet and Nepal. And there are still parts of central Asia that are utterly unexplored.

Open your arms to change but don't let go of your values.

China can keep her troops on the external frontiers of Tibet, and Tibetans will pledge to accept the appropriate form of union with China.

The Tibetan religion has a past. And furthermore it has such an appeal. There again young people today are drawn to Buddhism and to Tibet. It's not only because of the Dalai Lama. It's because of what Tibet represents. There is a vast reservoir of knowledge, of mystical knowledge, which can be found in Tibet.The Chinese shouldn't be afraid of that really. They have other means of survival.

Gandhi and Mandela and Churchill and JFK and Reagan and Thatcher and Sarkozy and Franklin and Washington set the tone to an incredible degree-their "personal style" was their "brand." ("It" starts with personal style of the tip-top leadership team. Sorry to be politically insensitive, but who would give a hoot about Tibet if it weren't for the look and style of the Dalai Lama?) Boss at any level: You're either on the "it" boat-or not.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

I'm convinced after spending three weeks in China and Tibet, unless the United States gets its act together, our grandchildren will be living in a world dominated by the People's Republic. China is simply inexorable in its pursuit of wealth, growth and power. It cares little about human rights, democracy, labor protections, fair trade rules or the environment. It is relentless in advancing its national interests.

The Bush administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology... Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

The buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment. You don't have to look "over there." You don't have to figure anything out. You don't have to acquire anything. And you don't have to run off to Tibet, or Japan, or anywhere else. You wake up right here. In fact, you can only wake up right here. So you don't have to do the long search, the frantic chase, the painful quest. You're already right where you need to be.

With realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world.