The Second Dalai Lama – Gedun Gyatso (1475–1542)

The Great Fourteenth Dalai Lama — Quotes from His Holiness the Great 14th Dalai Lama

“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”

“The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.”

“The purpose of all major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.”

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”

“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”

“Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility.”

“Love is the absence of judgement.”

“When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.”

“The question is not to know the meaning of life, but what meaning I can give to my life.”

“The more we take the welfare of others to heart and work for their benefit, the more benefit we derive for ourselves. This is a fact that we can see.”

“ Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”

“If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.”

“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” 

“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday, and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.”

“Open your arms to change but don’t let go of your values.” 

“Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity.” 

“Every day, think as you wake up: Today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.” 

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” 

“The goal is not to be better than the other man, but your previous self.” 

“Peace does not mean an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through humane ways.” 

“The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and forgiveness.” 

“Love and compassion are the true religions to me. But to develop this, we do not need to believe in any religion.” 

“Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.” 

“Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.” 

“There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.” 

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” 

“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.” 

“When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.” 

“We don’t need more money, we don’t need greater success or fame, we don’t need the perfect body or even the perfect mate. Right now, at this very moment, we have a mind, which is all the basic equipment we need to achieve complete happiness.” 

“We need to learn how to want what we have, not to have what we want in order to get steady and stable happiness.” 

We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness there is a lot that we as individuals can do.”

“the three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing our happiness are our ability to reframe our situation more positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and generous.” 

“Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.”

“Marriages, even the best ones—perhaps especially the best ones—are an ongoing process of spoken and unspoken forgiveness.”

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General Inquiries

Tsering Youdon

Program Manager

Tsering Youdon is the Program Manager at 108 Peace Institute. She has 6 years of experience as a project officer and program coordinator in the Central Tibetan Administration’s Nepal branch. Her expertise includes planning, designing, and monitoring projects and supporting the capacity building of local organizations and individuals. Tsering is an MBA graduate from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York.

Tenzin Donzey

Program Manager

Tenzin Donzey is a Program Manager at the 108 Peace Institute. She has served in the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR), Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) as a Project Officer and Tibet Support Groups’ Liaison Officer. Tenzin has extensive experience in planning, designing, and managing programs. She is a recipient of the Tibetan Scholarship Program under which she obtained an MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), New York.

Dr Lobsang Sangay

Founder and President

Lobsang Sangay is a Senior Visiting Fellow at East Asian Legal Studies Program, Harvard Law School. He was a democratically elected Sikyong (President) of the Central Tibetan Administration and served two terms (2011-21). Lobsang completed his BA and LLB from Delhi University. He did his LLM ’95 and SJD ‘04 from Harvard Law School and received the Yong K. Kim’ 95 Memorial Prize for excellence in dissertation and contributions to the understanding of East Asia at the Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, akin to track III, he organized seven rounds of meetings/conferences between Tibetan, Western, and Chinese scholars, most notably, the first-ever meeting between HH the Dalai Lama and Chinese scholars and students.

སྤྱིར་བཏང་གི་འདྲི་རྩད།

ལས་ཀ་དང་ཉམས་གསོག

མཉམ་ལས་ཀྱི་རེ་འདུན།

Lobsang Dakpa

Operations Director

Lobsang Dakpa currently serves as the Operations Director of the 108 Peace Institute. He was a democratically elected Member of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile from 2016 to 2021. Lobsang holds a BA and LLB, having studied at the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru and JSS Law College in Mysuru. He also earned his LLM from Christ University, Bengaluru. From 2015 to 2016, he worked as a senior Chinese-language reporter for Voice of Tibet. He is a founding member of the Tibetan Legal Association (TLA), where he served as General Secretary from 2013 to 2016 and was later elected as President, serving from 2016 to 2022. Throughout his career, Lobsang has provided legal awareness and education to thousands of Tibetans and non-Tibetans across settlements, monasteries, and schools. He has also offered free legal assistance to many individuals in need. During his term in Parliament, he was invited to participate in numerous national and international conferences, representing the Tibetan community and advocating for justice and human rights.

洛桑扎巴

运营总管

洛桑扎巴目前担任108和平研究院的运营总监。他曾于2016年至2021年间,作为民选代表在西藏人民议会任职。 洛桑拥有文学学士(BA)和法学学士(LLB)学位,曾就读于印度班加罗尔国家法学院(National Law School of India University)和迈索尔JSS法学院(JSS Law College)。他还在班加罗尔基督大学(Christ University)获得了法学硕士(LLM)学位。 2015年至2016年期间,他曾担任“西藏之声”电台的资深中文记者。他是西藏法律协会(Tibetan Legal Association, TLA)的创始成员之一,并于2013年至2016年担任该协会的秘书长,随后于2016年至2022年担任会长。 在其职业生涯中,洛桑致力于为西藏定居点、寺院和学校的成千上万名藏人及非藏人提供法律知识普及和教育。他还为许多有需要的人士免费提供法律援助。 在其议员任期内,他受邀参加了众多国内外会议,代表藏人社区发声,积极倡导正义与人权。

བློ་བཟང་གྲགས་པ།

ལག་བསྟར་སྤྱི་ཁྱབ་འགན་འཛིན།

བློ་བཟང་གྲགས་པ་ནི་༡༠༨ཞི་བདེ་ལྟེ་གནས་ཀྱི་ལག་བསྟར་འགན་འཛིན་ཡིན།ཕྱི་ལོ་༢༠༡༦ནས་༢༠༢༡དབར་ཁོང་གིས་བོད་མི་མང་སྤྱི་འཐུས་ཀྱི་ཕྱག་ལས་གནང་།ཁྲིམས་ལུགས་མཐོ་སློབ་ National Law school of India University, Bangalore དང་Mysore JSS Law School བརྒྱུདཁོང་ཉིད་་ཁྲིམས་ལུགས་རབ་འབྱམས་པ་ (LL.B) སློབ་མཐར་སོན། ཕྱི་ལོ་ ༢༠༡༤ ལོར་རྒྱ་གར་ཁྲིམས་ལུགས་མཐོ་སློབ་Christ Law School, Bangalore ནས་ཁྲིམས་ལུགས་གཙུག་ལག་རབ་འབྱམས་པ (LL.M) མཐར་ཕྱིན་པ་གནང་པ་མ་ཟད།ཁོང་ནི་བོད་མིའི་ཁྲིམས་ལུགས་རིག་པ་བའི་ཚོགས་པ་གསར་འཛུགས་གནང་མཁན་ཁོངས་ཀྱི་མི་སྣ་ཞིག་ཡིན་པ་དང་།ཕྱི་ལོ་༢༠༡༣ནས་༢༠༡༦བར་ཚོགས་པ་དེའི་སྤྱི་ཁྱབ་དྲུང་ཆེའི་ཕྱག་ལས་གནང་པ་དང་།ཕྱི་ལོ་༢༠༡༥ནས་༢༠༡༦དབར་ལོ་གཅིག་རིང་ནོར་ཝེ་བོད་ཀྱི་རླུང་འཕྲིན་ཁང་གི་རྒྱ་སྐད་གསར་འགོད་པ་རྒན་པའི་ཕྱག་ལས་གནང་ཡོད།ཕྱི་ལོ་༢༠༡༦ནས་༢༠༢༢དབར་བོད་མིའི་ཁྲིམས་ལུགས་རིག་པ་བའི་ཚོགས་པའི་ཚོགས་གཙོའི་ཕྱག་ལས་གནང་པ་རེད།དུས་ཡུན་དེ་དག་གི་རིང་།ཁོང་གིས་བཙན་བྱོལ་བོད་མིའི་དགོན་སྡེ་ཁག་དང་སློབ་གྲྭ་ཁག།གཞིས་ཆགས་ཁག་ཏུ་བསྐྱོད་ནས་བོད་མི་ཁྲི་སྟོང་མང་པོ་ལ་ཁྲིམས་ལུགས་ཀྱི་གོ་རྟོགས་སྤེལ་པ་མ་ཚད།ཁྲིམས་དོན་གྱི་དཀའ་ངལ་འཕྲད་པའི་བོད་མི་རྒྱ་ཕྲག་མང་པོ་ལ་ཕྱག་རོགས་གནང་ཡོད།ཁོང་གིས་བོད་མི་མང་སྤྱི་འཐུས་ཀྱི་ཕྱག་ལས་གནང་ཡུན་རིང་།རྒྱལ་ནང་དང་རྒྱལ་སྤྱིའི་ཚོགས་སྡེ་འདྲ་མིན་ཀྱིས་གདན་ཞུས་གནང་ཏེ་བརྗོད་གཞི་འདྲ་མིན་ཐོག་ཚོགས་འདུ་ཆེ་ཆུང་མང་པོ་ལ་ཆ་ཤས་གནང་ཡོད་པ་རེད།