All of our energy should be in sacrifice and services. Suffering, at least.
America has never paid any attention to other people, so it's absurd for Bush to say that it's all in the best interests of the Iraqi people.
At the end of your career, you've got to find, what was it that really leapt out?
Billions of people don't practice a religion at all.
Bush's plans for war are a bizarre bad dream.
Certainly there have been better actors than me who have had no careers. Why? I don't know.
Even in comedies, you've got to feel safe for things to just happen in a way that is natural and free, and recognizable as human.
Everyone responds to kindness.
Going to India is an opportunity to remember, literally, what the mission is, why we're here.
His Holiness doesn't see himself as Gandhi; he doesn't create dramatic, operatic situations.
His Holiness is my root guru, and he's been quite tough with me at times.
His Holiness said, if you can love and respect an insect, something we instinctively are repulsed by, then that's a huge step.
I actually encountered the written dharma, and I met a teacher. Before that, I was engaged in philosophical pursuit in school.
I can't say I have control over my emotions; I don't know my mind. I'm lost like everyone else. I'm certainly not a leader.
I cry every chance I get.
I do think that good actors can do any part. It doesn't mean that they are the best ones to do it.
I don't know any of us who are in relationships that are totally honest - it doesn't exist.
I don't know if I was suicidal, but I had questions like, Why anything? I was probably pushing the edges of my own sanity.
I don't think that bravery is about skin. Bravery is about a willingness to show emotional need.
I honestly do not think about celebrity or image or sexual expectations on me. It only comes up when people have a list of questions. But what I am told is that there is a quality that I have onscreen, where it's a little bit of everything.
I know pretty much who I am. It's good for me to be in the world.
I never thought of it in terms of the leading man or not leading man, or whatever. I don't think it changes.
I said, There's this thing at the very end where I do this tap dance, and I've never tapped.
I talk about these things, but only in the sense that this is what my teachers have given me. Nothing from me.
I'll try to catch up with all my teachers. Some of them are hermits up in the hills, but they come down when His Holiness gives teachings.
I'm a 50 year-old guy and I'm not in shape like I was when I was 30.
I'm less needy about needing to express myself through acting. I have many different lives outside of this that are extremely fulfilling.
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.
I'm voting for Gore because the other is unthinkable. Which most of us will probably do. I hope all of us. I've always liked Ralph Nader and would like to see a real third party, but the thought of George Bush as president is unthinkable.
I've been married now a couple of times.
I've had a lot of teachings, and some have stuck. Somehow they do communicate-not because of me, but despite me.
If someone came up with the Loch Ness Monster, I'd be interested.
If the United States marches into Iraq without the backing of the United Nations, that will be done entirely without the backing of the American people.
If the work is going well and it's something that has value with some meaning to it, it gives back a lot.
If we are so lost in our animal natures, the best way to start to get out of that is to learn to be kind.
In a way, one gets stability from being able to order the rational mind.
In saving Tibet, you save the possibility that we are all brothers, sisters.
It completely changed my life the first time I was in the presence of His Holiness. No question about it.
It is remarkable that an entire people is imbued with a spirit of gentleness.
Just a picture of His Holiness seems to communicate so much. Just to see his face. It's arresting, and at the same time it's opening.
Life here is an incredible distraction. It's very easy to get off track.
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.
Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality.
My first encounter with Buddhist dharma would be in my early 20s. Like most young men, I was not particularly happy.
My involvement in a career, in a normal householder life, is a great challenge for deepening the teachings inside of me.
Obviously, problems come with no separation of church and state.
People sometimes have quite a romantic vision of His Holiness.
Tantra has become less romantic to me. It seems more familiar.
The absolute is the wind blowing; it's just the fact that there was a storm that day.
The analytical approach to working with the mind is enormously helpful. It's something very clear to fall back on.
The anger that I might have felt 20 years ago is quite different now.
The Dalai Lama said that he thinks mother's love is the best symbol for love and compassion, because it is totally disinterested.
The incredible suffering of the people of Tibet works symbolically, but also works in a very fundamental way.
The motivation is probably less egocentric now in terms of my need to do it, but to work with great people.
The present Tibet bridges the dreamlike and the utterly real.
The secret of my success is my hairspray.
There is kind of this cosmic reality of the wind, whatever that is. Karma, in a larger sense.
There is nothing real about film. Nothing. Even the light particles that project the film can't be proven to exist. Nothing is there.
There's really one character for every actor. The voyage is to find that one character.
Tibet had extremely limited American involvement.
Tibet will be taken care of in the process, but it's about saving every sentient being.
Tibetan Buddhism had an enormous impact on me.
We've had too many World AIDS Days.
Western Buddhists in many ways are much serious Buddhists than Tibetans are.
What we all have in common is an appreciation of kindness and compassion; all the religions have this. We all lean towards love.
Whatever I've learned in the process certainly feeds who I am as a man, the people around me and my family.
Whatever positive energies have touched people in myriad lifetimes are going to come through somehow.
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.
When I started acting, it was really the way for me to be able to communicate.
When someone has a strong intuitive connection, Buddhism suggests that it's because of karma, some past connection.
When space is not there for you, the intellectual work will still keep you buoyed up.
When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.
Why is it when we have 10 million people in this country who say 'No', we still have a president who says 'Yes.' In a democracy, something's wrong here.
You can imagine what it would have been like to see the Buddha. Just to see his face would put you so many steps ahead.
You don't want to be watching your back or thinking that you are being judged.
Richard and his wife Carey Lowell currently live in Greenwich Village with their son and her daughter from a previous marriage.
On December 12, 1991, he married supermodel Cindy Crawford in Las Vegas.
He received a Golden Globe nomination in 1981 for his work in American Gigolo.
He fired his press agent after American Gigolo came out because he let People magazine have pictures of him without a shirt on after being told not to sell them.
In 1973, Richard played Danny Zuko in the London production of Grease.
In 1969, after only two years in college, he won a place with the prestigious Provincetown Players acting troupe and quit school to focus on acting full time.
Richard can play the piano, bass, guitar, and trumpet. So perhaps it's only apt that he shares his birthday with teenage rock impresario Debbie Gibson. (Their age difference is 21 years).
He was the first man ever to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine.
He actually composed and performed the piano solo he performs in the 1991 film, Pretty Woman.
In 1967, Richard graduated from North Syracuse Central High School in Syracuse, NY.
For many years, Richard has been both a practicing Buddhist and a vegetarian.
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