Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer
Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer, known as Pico Iyer, is a British-born essayist and novelist of Indian origin, best known for his travel writing. He is the author of numerous books on crossing cultures including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk and The Global Soul. An essayist for Time since 1986, he also publishes regularly in Harper's, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and many other publications...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionWriter
CountryIndia
eden curiosity purgatory
One curiosity of being a foreigner everywhere is that one finds oneself discerning Edens where the locals see only Purgatory.
love compassion going-away
The ultimate purpose of Zen,' I remembered the roshi telling me, 'is not in the going away from the world but in the coming back. Zen is not just a matter of gaining enlightenment; it's a matter of acting in a world of love and compassion.
moon water way
Like the moon on the water, in a way. When you confront a Zen master, what you're really seeing are not his limitations but yours.
liberation knows
As soon as I'm on the road, I see, often palpably, that I know nothing at all, which is always a great liberation.
awake snaps
The beauty of being foreign is that it snaps you awake.
christian thinking action
[The Dalai Lama ] says Western traditions can teach Tibetans a lot about social action, and he thinks some Christians are very good at that.
waiting praying dalai
The Dalai Lama says don't pray for peace, don't wait for peace, don't talk about peace - do it right now.
war men world
I'd spent thirty years visiting the Dalai Lama, and twenty years as a journalist going to difficult places, war zones and revolutions from North Korea to Haiti and Beirut to Sri Lanka, and the question came up: What does this man have to offer to this world which seems so torn up and so attached to conflict?
spiritual moving thinking
Unlike many spiritual leaders, Dalai Lama is never been in a position to just sit on a mountain top handing out wisdom. He's had to live out his principles in the middle of this very complex situation, every day for sixty years or more. I think it's something that moves many people about his example.
meditation helping dalai
The Dalai Lama would say that meditation is something that can help everyone. But he's aware that it can be misused or things can go wrong.
buddhist catholic speak
The Dalai Lama says that when a Catholic and a Buddhist speak, the Buddhist becomes a deeper Buddhist and the Catholic becomes a deeper Catholic.
spiritual thinking political
If you'd asked me some years ago, I would have said [Dalai Lama] is an extraordinarily compassionate, clear-sighted, calm human being. But now, I'm more convinced than ever that his political positions as well as his spiritual positions arise out of such precise and realistic thinking that they're extremely sound.
opportunity age together
Dalai Lama has made new opportunities for women that they never had in Tibet, introduced science into the monks' curriculum and had Tibetan students in exile take their classes in English after the age of ten so that they will know more about the outside world. But one of the great things he's done is to bring all the Tibetan groups together in exile, as perhaps they couldn't have been when they weren't in exile and they weren't under such pressure.
loss opportunity kind
You can see exile as loss, and then it will be a loss for you. You can treat it as opportunity and then all kinds of benefits accrue.