“The most striking quality that humans and animals have in common is the capacity to experience suffering.”

“The Happiest Man in The WorldThe French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama, former academic and dedicated meditator Matthieu Ricard, came into the spotlight in the field of neural science after being named “the happiest man in the world”. Naturally, there are many other men and women who demonstrate such equanimity, but the studies on his brain uncovered truly astonishing results. MRI scans showed that Matthieu Ricard and other serious long-term meditators (with more than 10,000 hours of practice each) were mentally, emotionally and spiritually fulfilled and displayed an abundance of positive emotions and equanimity in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain. When talking about his mindfulness training, Matthieu Ricard said with humility that: “Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time”.”

“Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.”

“Negative emotions like hatred destroy our peace of mind.”

“Neuroscience has proven that similar areas of the brain are activated both in the person who suffers and in the one who feels empathy. Thus, empathic suffering is a true experience of suffering.”

“Few of us would regret the years it takes to complete an education or master a crucial skill. So why complain about the perseverance needed to become a well-balanaced and truly compassionate human being?”

“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”

“According to the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville: The wise man has nothing left to expect or to hope for. Because he is entirely happy, he needs nothing. Because he needs nothing, he is entirely happy.”

“Few of us would regret the years it takes to complete an education or master a crucial skill. So why complain about the perseverance needed to become a well-balanced and truly compassionate human being?”

“We try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary, and often, illusory.”

“It’s said that the Buddha’s enlightenment is great than that of a traveler setting out, in the same proportion as the heavens are bigger than what can be seen of them through the eye of a needle. But in both cases, what you see is the sky.”