Movie acting is primarily listening. If you're really engaged, that's all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what's happening in your world.
— Richard Gere
It's not enough to say that the Olympics is an athletic contest outside of politics, because it's not. The Chinese clearly are using the Olympics to recreate how they are viewed in the world and how they view themselves.
Sometimes I'm kind of spacey. I'm like Ferdinand the bull, sniffing the daisy, not aware of time, of what's going on in the real world.
My life is pretty simple and normal.
I have a lot of beautiful friends.
I think life is self-examination. Certainly the voyage that one takes.
I think most of our religious institutions are pretty corrupt, so they're not reliable. I think the Christian religion that I was brought up with has very little to do with Christ, really, and more an institutions that have built up around the church.
I would rather be loved than have money and all that other stuff.
I have no sense of time, and I'm a dreamer.
People have a different idea of how movies are made than they really are.
I cry every chance I get.
When someone has a strong intuitive connection, Buddhism suggests that it's because of karma, some past connection.
What we all have in common is an appreciation of kindness and compassion; all the religions have this. We all lean towards love.
There's really one character for every actor. The voyage is to find that one character.
My first encounter with Buddhist dharma would be in my early 20s. Like most young men, I was not particularly happy.
In saving Tibet, you save the possibility that we are all brothers, sisters.
I'm not that tough; I'm not that smart. I need life telling me who I am, showing me my mind constantly. I wouldn't see it in a cave.
Mindfulness is a quality that's always there. It's an illusion that there's a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you're either mindful or you're not.
I think people do want to relate their entertainment to what's going on in their lives. Not everything.
I tend to be a bit of a dreamer.
I have made plenty of mistakes. The key to life is to learn from them. I have been a little too introspective, but I think that stemmed from insecurity or shyness. I took a long time to grow up.
I meet human beings who are flawed, who are mentally ill and have enormous problems, but I don't think I've ever met someone who was a totally dark energy that had no humanity or sense of love or affection for anything in their life. That's very rare.
People don't understand what happiness is, so they have an idea of what will make them happy, but it never does.
I would say that the West is very young, it's very corrupt. We're not very wise. And I think we're hopeful that there is a place that is ancient and wise and open and filled with light.
It's nice to have money, but the first thing I did with money was buy my father a snow-blower, because my job was to shovel snow, and I wasn't there to do it any more, so I was able to buy him a blower.
Everyone seems to think they know what acting techniques are. Techniques just help you get to a certain place, but if the thing is happening just by itself, you don't need those techniques.
From a Buddhist point of view, emotions are not real. As an actor, I manufacture emotions. They're a sense of play. But real life is the same. We're just not aware of it.
The secret of my success is my hairspray.
When I started acting, it was really the way for me to be able to communicate.
Western Buddhists in many ways are much serious Buddhists than Tibetans are.
There is nothing real about film. Nothing. Even the light particles that project the film can't be proven to exist. Nothing is there.
Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality.
In a way, one gets stability from being able to order the rational mind.
I'm less needy about needing to express myself through acting. I have many different lives outside of this that are extremely fulfilling.
There are some problems on this planet that seem to be intractable.
I've lived in New York when I've had nothing, and I've lived in New York when I had money, and New York changes radically depending on how much money you have. It's the texture of life.
I meditate. Daily practice is essential to my life.
I've had an interesting life.
I've got a lot of opportunities, a lot of love in my life, a lot of things going for me. Still, it's not complete. I know this is not the whole thing. There's much more.
The drive for happiness is vital; it's what keeps us in motion.
Well I think on a simple ecological level that the diversity of this planet is important for our survival, that all of our different cultures, people are important to the health of the whole the same way that a species of animal should be saved and at a simple ecology level.
I've stayed good friends with most of my girlfriends.
In the process of developing a character, you do, in fact, start to take him on as a personality.
I'm younger than I once was. Internally. Less self-conscious. Less insecure.
When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.
When His Holiness won the Nobel Peace Prize, there was a quantum leap. He is not seen as solely a Tibetan anymore; he belongs to the world.
Tibetan Buddhism had an enormous impact on me.
The Dalai Lama said that he thinks mother's love is the best symbol for love and compassion, because it is totally disinterested.
Maybe the Dalai Lama is the only person who is totally honest, and even with him, he's skillful not to hurt anybody. He's skillful.
If the work is going well and it's something that has value with some meaning to it, it gives back a lot.
