Robert Thurman Quotes
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born 1941), the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, is a prominent Buddhist scholar and translator. Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, he has authored numerous books and is a close friend of the Dalai Lama.
The essence of Buddhist practice is to reduce our selfishness and to work for the benefit of others.
Robert Thurman
Enlightenment is the realization that we were never really separate from one another or from all of life.
Robert Thurman
The Buddha taught that wealth does not bring happiness and security. The pursuit of wealth is a matter of living in balance.
Robert Thurman
The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.
Robert Thurman
The practice of patience guards us against losing our presence of mind.
Robert Thurman
Meditation is not about getting away from it all. It's about getting into it all.
Robert Thurman
When you recognize that pain and suffering are impermanent, you become free.
Robert Thurman
True freedom is not the absence of commitment but the presence of choice.
Robert Thurman
The ultimate revolution is the spiritual revolution, where we learn to see reality as it truly is.
Robert Thurman
The practice of Buddhism is fundamentally a practice of expanding our happiness and diminishing our suffering.
Robert Thurman
The purpose of our lives is to be happy, and happiness is found in benefiting others.
Robert Thurman
Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead, it's about becoming more fully human.
Robert Thurman
The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.
Robert Thurman
The purpose of life is to be happy, to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is not to be well known, cited, or powerful.
Robert Thurman
Emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is the space of possibility.
Robert Thurman
The practice of mindfulness begins in the small, remote cave of your unconscious mind and blossoms with the sunlight of your conscious life.
Robert Thurman
The path to enlightenment is not a path at all. It is a realization that where you are is where you have always been.
Robert Thurman
True happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through cultivation of altruism, of love, of compassion.
Robert Thurman
The essence of Buddhism is not a belief system but a systematic investigation of our experience.
Robert Thurman
The key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion.
Robert Thurman