A Fearless Heart Quotes

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. —WILLIAM JAMES (1842–1910)”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“May you be happy . . . May you be free from suffering . . . May you be healthy . . . May you find peace and joy.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“When we help someone with genuine concern for her well-being, levels of endorphins, which are associated with euphoric feeling, surge in the brain, a phenomenon referred to as the helper’s high. In studies in which participants were asked to consciously extend compassion to another person, the reward centers of the compassionate brain were activated – the same brain system that lights up when we think of chocolate or another treat...The fulfillment Mother Teresa derived from her selfless service was a by-product, not the goal. Her primary motive was to bring help and solace to the destitute. This is the catch – a happy catch – to compassion: The more we are in it for other people, the more we get out of it ourselves.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“Witnessing kindness makes us feel compassionate, and compassion predicts helping behavior.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“Rather, the aim is to offer a systematic practice to make compassion the fundamental principle governing all aspects of our lives, from how we see ourselves and interact with others, to bringing up our children, to engaging with the world around us.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“People lash out or shut down when they are criticized, because they are all too ready to believe anything bad about themselves, but at the same time they can’t stand to hear anything bad about themselves because they lack a sense of self-worth to balance it. People feel like frauds, especially when things are going well. They live in fear that one day they’ll be exposed, because they don’t actually believe they deserve anything good. People feel anxious and depressed and desperate and they don’t know what to do—and they blame and berate themselves for this too.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“We also need to remind ourselves of a basic truth about close relationships: Sharp and painful exchanges occur because we care for each other and feel safe enough to let down our guard. As long as both sides keep sight of this truth, kindness will remain at the core of the relationship.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“extreme loneliness is twice as likely to cause death among the elderly as obesity or high blood pressure. Those who had reported being lonely had a 14 percent greater risk of dying.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“Es por medio de la debilidad y la vulnerabilidad que la mayor parte de nosotros aprendemos a ser empáticos y compasivos y descubrimos nuestra alma”.”
― Thupten Jinpa, Anatomía del corazón: Compasión budista para transformar tu vida

“We let ourselves be at the mercy of our thoughts and our thoughts at the mercy of our negative emotions, in this way we undermine ourselves. —A TIBETAN SAYING”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“In subsequent studies, Warneken and Tomasello found that children were willing to help even when doing so involved hardship and interrupting their play.
Interestingly, they also found that rewarding the children was counterproductive. The children who were rewarded for helping were later less likely to help than those who had never been rewarded. Studies also show that infants as young as six months demonstrate clear preference for toys that enact helping behavior rather than hindering.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

“la compasión nos permite abrirnos a la realidad del sufrimiento y buscar su alivio.”
― Thupten Jinpa, Anatomía del corazón: Compasión budista para transformar tu vida

“The Dalai Lama once said that he envisions a time when, just as today we accept good diet and exercise as key to physical health, the world will come to recognize the importance of mental care and training for mental health and human flourishing. That time may not be so far away.”
― Thupten Jinpa, A Fearless Heart: Why Compassion is the Key to Greater Wellbeing