The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success Quotes

“May this action be the cause for my enlightenment for the sake of all living beings.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“The only thing that matters is how we’re used to thinking.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“We teach what we most need to learn, yes?”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Change our mind, and we change our experience.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Often, our greatest suffering is self-inflicted.

When we say, "I can only be happy when this happens" or "I can only feel peaceful if that happens", that's when we make a problem for ourselves.
Attachment is when we believe that a person, a thing or an outcome is necessary for our happiness. At that moment, we turn the person, thing or outcome into a source of future suffering. We risk becoming enslaved to it. Much better to think: I am already the possessor of happiness and inner peace. To have this person, thing or outcome in my life - how wonderful! But it is not necessary for my fundamental wellbeing.

The more we let go, the more peace here - he touched his heart.

All is letting go. If we wish to be happy, we let go of our delusions: renunciation. If we wish to fulfill our true purpose, to experience ultimate wellbeing, we let go of our preoccupation with ourselves: bodhicitta. And if we wish to act in accordance with reality, we let go of illusions about the way that things exist: sunyata.

Sometimes the things we cling to most tightly are those that hurt us more than anything. But we keep on clinging because we don't believe there's a different way.

Greater concentration means less agitation.

It is a rare privilege for a cat to allow full, eye-to-eye contact with a human.

No matter where you are or what you are doing, as a physically fit and capable person, you are better able to deal with whatever life throws at you.

Training the mind is the same. No matter where you are or what you are doing, as a mentally fit and capable person, you are better able to deal with whatever life throws at you.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“our problems are not out there in the world, but in our minds—where we can do something about them.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Compassion, wisdom, power. When you have compassion and power but no wisdom, this is idiot compassion. Compassion and wisdom but no power—what can you achieve?” he shrugged. “All three are necessary, together.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“soul friend”. An Anam Cara may play the role of death midwife, helping a being through an important time of transition.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Everything begins with intention,”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Yoga means to unite. To join.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“As long as we kept on practicing loving kindness and creating the grounds for positive future outcomes, we need have no fear of what might arise.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“The problems of our lives are many and varied. Each one of us has to deal with constant change. For as long as we are caught up in the conventional reality of birth, aging, sickness and death, we have to live with unpredictability and challenge. We have to live with the only certainty that, some day in the future, we will definitely lose everything we possess, every being whom we cherish, every accomplishment we may treasure, and move on from this lifetime, never to experience reality this way again.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“We are connected to each other through innumerable lifetimes and in limitless ways.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“the experience of an event depends on the mind of the experiencer, even more than the event itself.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“When we are with pets,” observed the Dalai Lama. “We can be ourselves. No need to pretend.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“The sense of profound wellbeing that comes from what you give, rather than from what you receive.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“In Buddhism, we define love as the wish to give happiness to others.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“We all need to let go—especially of our preoccupations with ourselves.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“The more we let go, the more peace here.” He touched his heart.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“renunciation is the start of our inner journey. Instead of fixating on external circumstances, we look within.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Attachment is when we believe that a person, a thing or an outcome is necessary for our happiness”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Compassion is the wish to relieve beings of suffering.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“It is said that each one of us has been a mother to every other living being, at some time in the past,” he gazed at me with open-hearted benevolence. “Imagine, little Snow Lion, if we could all feel that connection, as if it were real?”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“The best use for these methods is in our practice of Dharma. That is how they evolved. When we begin our journey with renunciation, we accept that our happiness, our wellbeing, is dependent not so much on circumstances, as on our mind. We decide to turn away from the true causes of our unhappiness, which is, say, our attachment or anger, and instead cultivate more beneficial mental states. We take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, yes?”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“instantly understood in that moment, however, was that the version of the beings we saw in the world around us was as much a reflection of our own mind, as it was of them. And that the more our mind was filled with thoughts of self and our own needs and wishes, the less space and compassion there was for others—and the less happy we would be.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“Apart from concept,” he confirmed, “there is no self. It is just an idea. A notion. A thing that comes and goes. A story we tell ourselves about our experience of reality that’s changing the whole time, sometimes up, sometimes down.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

“happiness and inner peace. To have this person, thing or outcome in my life—how wonderful! But it is not necessary for my fundamental wellbeing.”
― David Michie, The Dalai Lama's Cat and The Four Paws of Spiritual Success