I myself feel, and also tell other Buddhists that the question of Nirvana will come later._x000D_ There is not much hurry._x000D_ If in day to day life you lead a good life, honesty, with love,_x000D_ with compassion, with less selfishness,_x000D_ then automatically it will lead to Nirvana.
Interpretation
Leading a good life filled with love and compassion naturally leads to spiritual fulfillment.
The Dalai Lama emphasizes that rather than obsessing over the concept of Nirvana as a distant goal, individuals should focus on living a good life through honesty, compassion, and reduced selfishness. By embodying these virtues in daily life, one will organically progress towards a state of Nirvana, signifying spiritual enlightenment and peace.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, I shared this quote to emphasize the importance of ethical living.
Human beings are not intrinsically selfish, which isolates us from others. We are essentially social animals who depend on others to meet our needs. We achieve happiness, prosperity and progress through social interaction. Therefore, having a kind and helpful attitude contributes to our own and others' happiness.
Material objects give rise to physical happiness, while spiritual development gives rise to mental happiness. Since we experience both physical and mental happiness, we need both material and spiritual development. This is why, for our own good and that of society we need to balance material progress with inner development.
All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
The ultimate source of a happy life is warm-heartedness. This means extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves. On a simple level we find that if we have a compassionate heart we naturally have more friends. And scientists today are discovering that while anger and hatred eat into our immune system, warm-heartedness and compassion are good for our health.
My religion is kindness. _x000D_ A good mind, a good heart, _x000D_ warm feelings these are _x000D_ the most important things.
If a person's basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience. On the other hand, if someone is suffering from depression, anxiety, or any form of emotional distress, then even if he or she happens to be enjoying physical comforts, he will not really be able to experience the happiness that these could bring.
The aim of life is to be fully born, though its tragedy is that most of us die before we are thus born.
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
The multiplication of our kind borders on the obscene; the duty to love them, on the preposterous.
We impoverish God in our minds when we say there must be answers to our prayers on the material plane; the biggest answers to our prayers are in the realm of the unseen.
We must be careful with our lives, for Christ's sake, because it would seem that they are the only lives we are going to have in this puzzling and perilous world, and so they are very precious and what we do with them matters enormously.
All manifest life seems to require a period of sleep, of calm, in which to gain added strength, renewed vigour, for the next manifestation, or awakening to activity. Thus is the march of all progress, of all manifest life - in waves, successive waves, [of] activity and repose. Waves succeed each other in an endless chain of progression.
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