His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I think the fundamental thing is, everyone wants a happy life, successful life. And this I think this is a legitimate right, to have a happy life, a successful life. And that is also our goal. But then the question is “How do I achieve that happy life?”

1. The Truth of Suffering

Venerable George Chuninoff

All of the things that we encounter in life, whatever they might appear, the riches, the fame, the power, the control, even the knowledge – all of it can't be taken with you. The satisfaction that you get from it is momentary.

Venerable Karin Valham

So, although we strive so hard for happiness, a lot of the time, it's like, the more we try, the less happiness we experience, the more problems we experience.

2. The Cause of Suffering

Venerable Robina Courtin

The whole idea of karma is that we have on our mindstream, on our subtle consciousness, countless numbers of imprints, or seeds, that have been put there by everything we have thought, done and said. But not in just this life, but in infinite numbers of past lives. It's like this computer, like we have programmed our mind. And there are billions of imprints, and they all waiting for the appropriate conditions to ripen into a certain type of life.

Venerable Sangya Khadro

So this is what's been happening in our mind. This is what's been happening in our mind from beginningless time. It's not that we're a bad person, it's just that we are, basically, confused. There is confusion in our mind about how things are.

Lama Thubten Yeshe

Everything is illusion! Everything is your projection! All your old girlfriends, or your new girlfriends, both are equally illusion.

3. The End of Suffering

Professor Robert Thurman

We have to stop and think about freedom. We have to really develop the effort to imagine it. We have to remember times when we were a little free of something, when we felt a little bit freer. And then we have to realize that, infinity, as he laters calls it 'emptiness' or 'voidness' – that the great healing concept of all time of everything – is infinity. If you just meditate everyday about infinity, life will be immensely better.

Professor Janice Willis

I am, you are, every single thing, all selves, and all things in existence – are empty of an independent existence. That's all. Therefore, it's simple you see, therefore, things are not independent. Therefore, things are dependent, and interconnected. All things are connected.

4. The Path of Liberation

Geshe Michael Roach

If you really want to be helpful to other people – if you really have compassion for other people – then wouldn't it be the most compassionate thing to teach them how not to die. Teach them how not to suffer. Forget all those other things: cancer, AIDS, bad relationships, divorces, trouble with your boss, unhappiness, depression, low self-esteem. Those are even lower, those are even easier – those are easy compared to death. You can even overcome death.

Ribur Rinpoche

What is the essence? How do you extract the essence out of this life? By practicing bodhicitta. So, bodhicitta is the very essence of all objects of knowledge, or whatever needs to be learned, and whatever needs to be practiced.

Gelek Rinpoche

The more you get into the civilization, of what I thought was civilization, then you get back to this great Buddhist teaching. Because that gives you the joy, and harmony, and the peace in mind.

Venerable Thubten Chodron

So I think the real practice of patience involves looking inside, and stopping. “Why am I angry?” And initially our mind says “Well, I'm angry because they did this, this, this and this!” And so I say to myself, “Well, yes, they may have done that. But why do I have to be angry about it?”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

The the question is about practice. It is not a question of not understanding the dharma. The question is practice. Now, here, the person, you see, certainly realizes that life is like any distraction. Did not practice what one has understood, what one has studied. All those years. So, again, you say, “I have wasted my life so much.” It then gives courage, “Now, I must practice.”