“Inner peace, or mental peace, is the source of all our happiness. Although all living beings have the same basic wish to be happy all the time, very few people understand the real causes of happiness. We usually believe that external conditions such as food, friends, cars and money are the real causes of happiness, and as a result we devote nearly all our time and energy to acquiring them. Superficially it seems that these things can make us happy, but if we look more deeply we will see that they also bring us a lot of suffering and problems.”

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
‍ ‍‘How to Tranform Your Life’

“Happiness and suffering are opposites, so if something is a real cause of happiness it cannot give rise to suffering. If food, money and so forth really are causes of happiness, they can never be causes of suffering; yet we know from our own experience that they often do cause suffering."

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
‍ ‍‘How to Transform Your Life’

“In recent years our knowledge of modern technology has increased considerably, and as a result we have witnessed remarkable material progress, but there has not been a corresponding increase in human happiness. There is no less suffering in the world today, and there are no fewer problems. Indeed, it might be said that there are now more problems and greater dangers than ever before. This shows that the cause of happiness and the solution to our problems do not lie in knowledge of material things.”

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
‍ ‍‘How to Tranform Your Life’

"Happiness and suffering are states of mind, and so their main causes are not to be found outside the mind. If we want to be truly happy and free from suffering, we must learn how to control our mind.”

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
‍ ‍‘How to Tranform Your Life’

“The real source of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, we will be happy all the time, regardless of external conditions, but if it is disturbed or troubled in any way, we will never be happy, no matter how good our external conditions may be. External conditions can only make us happy if our mind is peaceful. We can understand this through our own experience. For instance, even if we are in the most beautiful surroundings and have everything we need, the moment we get angry any happiness we may have disappears. This is because anger has destroyed our inner peace.”

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
‍ ‍‘How to Tranform Your Life’