Top 100 Sakyong Mipham Quotes
#1. Being human is a precious situation, and we shouldn't waste time in useless activities.
Sakyong Mipham
#2. The most outrageous thing we can do in this world is to accept what happens and fly with it.
Sakyong Mipham
#3. Shambhala is a Buddhist tradition with its own unique view and approach.
Sakyong Mipham
#5. If we cut speed and relax with what's going on in our life right now, kindness and patience will naturally come about.
Sakyong Mipham
#6. Ultimately, as individuals we each have to ask ourselves to be courageous and apply certain principles.
Sakyong Mipham
#7. Your regular teachers will get mad at you. If you keep asking something again and again, they will get tired of saying the same thing. A book will not do that. A book always will be there for you. In whatever you want, the book will be there.
Sakyong Mipham
#8. If ruling our world stems from developing certainty in our sanity, how do we discover it? The Shambhala teachings instruct us to "put our mind of fearfulness in the cradle of loving-kindnes."
Sakyong Mipham
#10. The principles of Buddhism have become more commonplace, which is a good thing.
Sakyong Mipham
#11. Shambhala teachings say we all have the potential to accomplish our enlightened nature - our basic goodness.
Sakyong Mipham
#12. Once I was running and there was someone on the treadmill next to me who stopped running to answer a question I asked and flew of the back of the treadmill. Being fully engaged has many benefits.
Sakyong Mipham
#13. Whatever we do lays a seed in our deepest consciousness, and one day that seed will grow.
Sakyong Mipham
#14. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor-the determining factor of success and happiness is contentment.
Sakyong Mipham
#15. Poetry is a language for when you can't quite write prose about something, you can't quite say it, but if you do a poem, it kind of gets to the point.
Sakyong Mipham
#16. Changing our decision sets up a bad habit. It reinforces decision-making as an expression of bewilderment and ignorance, instead of wisdom and freedom.
Sakyong Mipham
#17. When people say that meditation makes them calm, they are often referring to this stability of the mind. A stable mind creates the foundation for a happier and more contented person.
Sakyong Mipham
#18. When I was going into one of my first meditation retreats, I asked my father, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, for some advice. He said, "How you act when you're alone affects the rest of your life." Even in solitude, the ruler engages in virtue.
Sakyong Mipham
#20. Certain teachers have tremendous amounts of experience. They are articulate, and they give wonderful discourse. But at some point along the road, they themselves learned from and studied a book.
Sakyong Mipham
#21. Our root fantasy is that "I" am real and that it's possible for "me" to be happy.
Sakyong Mipham
#22. For me, language and how I use it are very important. I held back on doing a poetry book, walking the fine line between trying to be helpful and just putting more junk out there.
Sakyong Mipham
#23. People sometimes don't like organized situations. Sometimes people need to be left alone more. Sometimes people need environmental support.
Sakyong Mipham
#24. When stress is the basic state of mind, even good things stress us out. We have to learn to let go.
Sakyong Mipham
#25. If you see life as an opportunity, or if you see helping others as an opportunity, then all of a sudden you become joyous. You want to go forward.
Sakyong Mipham
#26. Meditation practice is relevant because in meditation our conceptual mind relaxes and we can feel who we are at heart.
Sakyong Mipham
#27. The wise are balanced, and the foolish are extreme.
Sakyong Mipham
#28. As a leader, you have the choice to determine what you are going to do and how you are going to engage others. You can decide to act compassionately regardless of what the weather is - whether it is cloudy or sunny - or whether things are inspirational or not.
Sakyong Mipham
#29. If you rise with a positive attitude - because everything is possible, everything is doable - if you have that level of confidence, you exude it. It actually inspires the people around you.
Sakyong Mipham
#30. The notion of auspiciousness is something positive, something with forward momentum, coming out of our actions.
Sakyong Mipham
#31. We live in a culture where information is becoming easier to access. Certain special practices have been kept very quiet and secret, and those traditions need to be respected. But there are a lot of teachings people can access that would benefit them greatly.
Sakyong Mipham
#32. The first thing you have to do is acknowledge the basic and fundamental goodness of all beings. If you don't, then you are going to have conflict. That's at the core of Shambhala.
Sakyong Mipham
#33. Sometimes it seems like most people are being pulled into a negative energy, but then you meet strong individuals or strong leaders and they are free from it.
Sakyong Mipham
#34. If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.
Sakyong Mipham
#35. In meditation we are continuously discovering who and what we are.
Sakyong Mipham
#36. A lot of people talk about the spirituality of Buddhism, and it is a spiritual discipline. But in Shambhala there also is a notion that you have to be synchronized with both heaven and earth.
Sakyong Mipham
#38. When we are using this term 'basic goodness,' we are talking about our inherent completeness.
Sakyong Mipham
#39. Each of us holds human destiny in our hands. It will be completely determined by how the mind feels about itself.
Sakyong Mipham
#41. What is really happening in meditation is that we are developing the ability to think when we want to, and to not think when we don't want to.
Sakyong Mipham
#42. Our mind is always subject to being distracted by thoughts of what happened in the past and ideas of what could happen in the future, but the living experience is what is happening NOW.
Sakyong Mipham
#43. Shambhala existed in Tibet and has been continued over the years, and now it is in the West. At its core, it is very much dedicated to the basic theme of benefiting others.
Sakyong Mipham
#44. The nature of our mind may be displayed in many ways, but Ashe is the fundamental basis.
Sakyong Mipham
#46. Being fooled into trying to make things work out for 'me' is called samsara.
Sakyong Mipham
#47. As the conceptual, material world increases its hold on us, and inanimate objects become more lifelike, we humans must become more human. Open hearts, kindness and care-these are our most precious gifts.
Sakyong Mipham
#48. If we do not appreciate the sensitivity and subtlety of the human heart, how can we appreciate the sensitivity and subtlety of the natural world?
Sakyong Mipham
#49. Caring for others is the basis of worldly success.
Sakyong Mipham
#50. What is amazing is how stuck people are in their own habits. It is really hard to get people out of their habits. But once they shift, it also is amazing how rapid the progress can be.
Sakyong Mipham
#51. One of the characteristics of every great teacher I've known is tremendous exertion. It's interesting: You may see them as spiritual people or compassionate people, but the driving force is that incredible exertion - and their ability to sustain it.
Sakyong Mipham
#52. Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don't even notice it.
Sakyong Mipham
#53. The practice of overcoming hope is recognizing our positive qualities. With excessive hope, we begin to belittle what we have achieved. We might then feel inadequate and have fear of not achieving more.
Sakyong Mipham
#54. To shift the direction of our planet, we must now be willing to experiment with the theory that within the speed and stress, we are good.
Sakyong Mipham
#55. We want to infuse our day with good habits so that we can turn seemingly mundane situations into a ceremony of goodness.
Sakyong Mipham
#56. When we are certain that the way to accomplish our own wishes is to help others, we have no regrets.
Sakyong Mipham
#57. Movement is good for the body. Stillness is good for the mind.
Sakyong Mipham
#58. You have people who are good at English but don't have the training in Buddhism or Shambhala, or they have the training but are not good in English. Getting that mixture is really rare.
Sakyong Mipham
#59. It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our mind?
Sakyong Mipham
#60. To me, the relationship between meditation and running is natural, for one is a training of the mind and one is a training of the body.
Sakyong Mipham
#61. If you want to be miserable, think of yourself. If you want to be happy, think of others.
Sakyong Mipham
#62. A lot of people do their practice. They meditate on compassion. Then they yell at people afterwards. NThat is not quite working. One of the things I try to emphasize is contemplative meditation - bringing your thought and intention into meditation.
Sakyong Mipham
#63. Enlightened Society is all about nurturing the human spirit - waking up to the goodness, kindness and strength that we already have.
Sakyong Mipham
#64. When I came to the West and heard about knights slaying dragons, I was shocked. In Tibet, the dragon symbolizes incomprehensible profundity.
Sakyong Mipham
#65. I hope you will attain enlightenment. I am here to tell you that you already have! But you don't know ... The difference between the Buddha and us is the confidence in knowing that he was enlightened.
Sakyong Mipham
#66. The most important thing is having the right mind - a mind that can see it. Once you have an open mind, you see a lot of auspicious coincidence taking place.
Sakyong Mipham
#67. I think we are very environmental people. We need to be supported environmentally. Books very much have that imprint on the mind.
Sakyong Mipham
#68. Our only reliable source of strength is the goodness of our hearts. Our only foundation for coming to terms with the suffering of the times is our innate need to be decent human beings.
Sakyong Mipham
#69. When we're on the "me" plan, what others say about us has great power. A friend tells us we look good - our mind soars. A colleague tells us we're not pulling our weight at work - our mind sinks.
Sakyong Mipham
#70. Even when we speak of selflessness, the mind goes to "me." We think, "I'm selfless," but everything is selfless.
Sakyong Mipham
#71. In a speedy and aggressive culture, we need different principles to live by-bravery and insight. The first moment of bravery is building trust in the mind, which we do in meditation. When we know how to create peace in our own mind, we can transform the world.
Sakyong Mipham
#72. True happiness is always available to us, but first we have to create the environment for it to flourish.
Sakyong Mipham
#73. There is a direct correlation between physical exertion and mental relief.
Sakyong Mipham
#74. If we are going to live in a society, there has to be an attitude where people really do care for others.
Sakyong Mipham
#75. We suffer because we want life to be different from what it is. We suffer because we try to make pleasurable what is painful, to make solid what is fluid, to make permanent what is always changing.
Sakyong Mipham
#76. This jewel is the wisdom and compassion that it takes to act not on behalf of ourselves but for all beings. This is where real confidence and competence come from. Once we possess this jewel, our life becomes blessed.
Sakyong Mipham
#77. Heaven is the natural spaciousness of our mind before we make it small with self-protection.
Sakyong Mipham
#78. If we can feel confident in our goodness, it will illuminate our life and society
Sakyong Mipham
#79. What distinguishes Shambhala is its intention of trying to create a society based upon certain principles. So, Shambhala's focus is not just on the individual, but on society as a whole.
Sakyong Mipham
#80. when we are brave enough to be in the present, we have the power to transform the world.
Sakyong Mipham
#81. What is my great wish and intention, is to make a base of compassion and to encourage people to work to shift the energy.
Sakyong Mipham
#82. As a leader, people push you. They really want to keep pushing you until you get aggressive. Then they say, "Oh, see, it doesn't work."
Sakyong Mipham
#83. One of my favorite Tibetan sayings is Even if you're going to die tomorrow, you can learn something tonight.
Sakyong Mipham
#84. For a lot of us, the opposite of auspicious coincidence is obstacles. Life usually is a mixture of both, but as we begin to exhibit exertion, more and more auspiciousness happens.
Sakyong Mipham
#85. Your life and your practice should not be separate. You bring your practice into experience. You bring it about.
Sakyong Mipham
#86. It is said that if our intention is to help others-even if we are unable to follow it through-we will never have any regret. Regret is a result of trying to make "me" happy.
Sakyong Mipham
#87. People can be trained in certain principles, but then they actually have to apply them and try them out.
Sakyong Mipham
#88. The principles of Buddhism and Shambhala can be effective in helping the course of what is happening in the world.
Sakyong Mipham
#89. I would say courage first; then wisdom, which is a sense of knowledge and confidence; and also the wish and desire to uplift. The underlying notion is "How do I help?" That attitude really is a spiritual journey and a path.
Sakyong Mipham
#90. We can't hire out our own inner work, but we can do the manual labor with delight and decency.
Sakyong Mipham
#91. I want people to know you can live a life that is less aggressive and still have success.
Sakyong Mipham
#92. To protect this earth is to protect the very spirit of life
Sakyong Mipham
#93. Karma moves in two directions. If we act virtuously, the seed we plant will result in happiness. If we act non-virtuously, suffering results.
Sakyong Mipham
#94. The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness.
Sakyong Mipham
#95. Shambhala does have unique teachings, as do many Buddhist traditions. For example, certain teachings within Shambhala have to do with raising the personal windhorse, or the energy of the individual, so a person has good fortitude to be able to live a good life.
Sakyong Mipham
#96. The self-assured strength that grows from knowing that we already have what we need makes us gentle, because we are no longer desperate.
Sakyong Mipham
#97. In looking for my mind, I discovered that it seems to be in many different places. Sometimes it is drinking a glass of water, remembering swimming in the summer, feeling the breeze. In this contemplation I observed that the self is more elusive than I thought.
Sakyong Mipham
#98. My books definitely are ambassadors, as you called them. They express what the vision is, what the purpose is.
Sakyong Mipham
#99. Auspicious coincidence is the right thing happening at the right time.
Sakyong Mipham
#100. Running and meditation are very personal activities. Therefore they are lonely. This loneliness is one of their best qualities because it strengthens our incentive to motivate ourselves.
Sakyong Mipham
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
