Heart of Wisdom Quotes

“Buddha is sometimes called the ‘Awakened One’ because he has awakened from the ‘sleep’ of ignorance.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“Sometimes we may fulfil our desires for worldly attainments, such as reputation, a high position, relationships, wealth and so forth, but these attainments are deceptive; they continually give rise to many undesirable problems.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“even though we do not want to suffer we create our own suffering by performing non-virtuous actions.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“Not all minds are valid cognizers because not all minds know their object non-deceptively. For example, a tree stump at dusk may appear to our eye consciousness as a person, but this mind is not a valid mind and deceives us. Also a child may develop the thought that certain berries are good to eat because they are black and shiny. This thought is similar to a subsequent cognizer but it is not a valid mind because the reason used is not correct. The resulting mind is deceptive and could even lead to the child’s death. If”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“By doing this, when his or her wisdom of superior seeing directly realizes the emptiness of all phenomena, the Bodhisattva advances from the path of preparation to the path of seeing and becomes a Bodhisattva on the path of seeing. This Bodhisattva’s initial direct realization of emptiness, and all other realizations associated with this initial direct realization of emptiness, are called the ‘Mahayana path of seeing’ because it is the first time that the Bodhisattva directly sees emptiness, the way things really are. At this stage he or she becomes a Superior Bodhisattva and no longer experiences any physical or mental pain.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“Buddha has great compassion that is completely impartial, embracing all living beings without discrimination.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“Because of our strong attachment to the fulfilment of our own wishes, whenever our wishes – especially those we consider important – are not fulfilled we experience mental pain, discouragement and many other problems.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“we bring nothing with us from our former lives except suffering and delusions.”
― Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart

“someone places a toy rubber snake in our room, the first time we see it we may believe that it is a real snake and be quite startled by it. Even though there is no actual snake in our room, a snake appears vividly to our mind. For a short time, we may cling to this appearance as real and develop fear as a result. However, if we look more carefully we will discover that the snake does not exist in the way that it appears. Clearly there is no real snake existing from its own side; we have merely imputed a snake with our conceptual mind.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, The New Heart of Wisdom: Profound Teachings from Buddha's Heart