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A Real Love Letter Is Made Of Insight, Understanding, And Compassion. Otherwise It's Not A Love Letter. A True Love Letter Can Produce A Transformation In The Other Person, And Therefore In The World. But Before It Produces A Transformation In The Other Person, It Has To Produce A Transformation Within Us. Some Letters May Take The Whole Of Our Lifetime To Write.

-Nhat Hanh

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A Real Love Letter

Nhat Hanh

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A Real Love Letter Is Made Of Insight, Understanding, And Compassion. Otherwise It's Not A Love Letter. A True Love Letter Can Produce A Transformation In The Other Person, And Therefore In The World. But Before It Produces A Transformation In The Other Person, It Has To Produce A Transformation Within Us. Some Letters May Take The Whole Of Our Lifetime To Write.

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People Deal Too Much With The Negative, With What Is Wrong. Why Not Try And See Positive Things, To Just Touch Those Things And Make Them Bloom?

Thinking Negative

Every Moment Is A Moment Of Happiness.

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If You Truly Get In Touch With A Piece Of Carrot, You Get In Touch With The Soil, The Rain, The Sunshine. You Get In Touch With Mother Earth And Eating In Such A Way, You Feel In Touch With True Life, Your Roots, And That Is Meditation. If We Chew Every Morsel Of Our Food In That Way We Become Grateful And When You Are Grateful, You Are Happy.

In English We Say 'we Are' But It's Proper To Say 'we Are Becoming' Because Things Are Becoming.

A Smile Can Change The Situation Of The World.

‎we Have A Lamp Inside Us. The Oil Of That Lamp Is Our Breathing, Our Steps, And Our Peaceful Smile. Our Practice Is To Light Up The Lamp.

I Will Practice Coming Back To The Present Moment...not Letting Regrets And Sorrow Drag Me Back Into The Past Or Letting Anxieties, Fears, Or Cravings Pull Me Out.

Our Joy, Peace And Happiness Depend Very Much On Our Practice Of Recognizing And Transforming Habit Energies. There Are Positive Habit Energies That We Have To Cultivate, And Negative Habit Energies That We Have To Recognize, Embrace And Transform. The Energy With Which We Do These Things Is Mindfulness.

You Only Need To Walk In Mindfulness, Making Peaceful, Happy Steps On Our Planet. Breathe Deeply, And Enjoy Your Breathing. Be Aware That The Sky Is Blue And The Birds' Songs Are Beautiful. Enjoy Being Alive And You Will Help The Living Christ And The Living Buddha Continue For A Long, Long Time.

With Negative Energy You Can Make The Positive Energy. A Flower Will Become Compost Someday, But If You Know How To Transform The Compost Back Into The Flower, Then You Don't Have To Worry. You Don't Have To Worry About Your Anger Because You Know How To Handle It - To Embrace, To Recognize, And To Transform It. So This Is What Is Possible.

Positive Energy

The Buddha Also Counseled The Monks And Nuns To Avoid Wasting Any Precious Time By Engaging In Idle Conversation, Oversleeping, Pursuing Fame And Recognition, Chasing After Desires, Spending Time With People Of Poor Character, And Being Satisfied With Only A Shallow Understanding Of The Teaching.

Live Your Daily Life In A Way That You Never Lose Yourself

Mindful Consumption Is The Object Of This Precept. We Are What We Consume. If We Look Deeply Into The Items That We Consume Every Day, We Will Come To Know Our Own Nature Very Well. We Have To Eat, Drink, Consume, But If We Do It Unmindfully, We May Destroy Our Bodies And Our Consciousness, Showing Ingratitude Toward Our Ancestors, Our Parents, And Future Generations.

We Humans Think We Are Smart, But An Orchid, For Example, Knows How To Produce Noble, Symmetrical Flowers, And A Snail Knows How To Make A Beautiful, Well-proportioned Shell. Compared With Their Knowledge, Ours Is Not Worth Much At All. We Should Bow Deeply Before The Orchid And The Snail And Join Our Palms Reverently Before The Monarch Butterfly And The Magnolia Tree. The Feeling Of Respect For All Species Will Help Us Recognize The Noblest Nature In Ourselves.

Go Slowly, Breathe And Smile.

Do Not Be Idolatrous About Or Bound To Any Doctrine, Theory, Or Ideology, Even Buddhist Ones. All Systems Of Thought Are Guiding Means; They Are Not Absolute Truth.

We Have To Continue To Learn. We Have To Be Open. And We Have To Be Ready To Release Our Knowledge In Order To Come To A Higher Understanding Of Reality.

In All The Practice Centers In The Tradition Of Plum Village Whenever The Phone Rings Or The Clock Chimes In The Dining Hall, People Stop Everything They Are Doing And Breathe Consciously, Releasing All Thinking And Any Tension.

Are We Treating Our Body Kindly By The Way We Eat, By The Way We Drink, By The Way We Work? Are We Treating Ourselves With Enough Joy And Tenderness And Peace? Or Are We Feeding Ourselves With Toxins That We Get From The Market - The Spiritual, Intellectual, Entertainment Market?

In Our Consciousness, There Are Many Negative Seeds And Also Many Positive Seeds. The Practice Is To Avoid Watering The Negative Seeds, And To Identify And Water The Positive Seeds Every Day.

By Living Deeply In The Present Moment We Can Understand The Past Better & Prepare For A Better Future.

Love Is The Capacity To Take Care, To Protect, To Nourish. If You Are Not Capable Of Generatng That Kind Of Energy Toward Yourself - If You Are Not Capable Of Taking Care Of Yourself, Of Nourishing Yourself, Of Protecting Yourself - It Is Very Difficult To Take Care Of Another Person. In The Buddhist Teaching, It's Clear That To Love Oneself Is The Foundation Of The Love Of Other People. Love Is A Practice. Love Is Truly A Practice.

Our Mind Is The Foundation Of All Our Actions, Whether They Are Actions Of Body, Speech, Or Mind, I.e., Thinking. Whatever We Think, Say, Or Do Arises From Our Mind. What Our Consciousness Consumes Becomes The Substance Of Our Life, So We Have To Be Very Careful Which Nutriments We Ingest.

Without Understanding, Your Love Is Not True Love. You Must Look Deeply In Order To See And Understand The Needs, Aspirations, And Suffering Of The One You Love.

Birth Is Okay And Death Is Okay, If We Know That They Are Only Concepts In Our Mind. Reality Transcends Both Birth And Death.

Only The Present Moment Contains Life.

Peace Is Every Step

Being Vegetarian Here Also Means That We Do Not Consume Dairy And Egg Products, Because They Are Products Of The Meat Industry. If We Stop Consuming, They Will Stop Producing. Only Collective Awakening Can Create Enough Determination For Action.

If You Are Truly Present And Know How To Take Care Of The Present Moment As Best You Can, You Are Doing Your Best For The Future Already.

To Reconcile Conflicting Parties, We Must Have The Ability To Understand The Suffering Of Both Sides.

You Have Two Gardens: Your Own Garden And That Of Your Beloved. First, You Have To Take Care Of Your Own Garden And Master The Art Of Gardening. In Each One Of Us There Are Flowers And There Is Also Garbage. The Garbage Is The Anger, Fear, Discrimination, And Jealousy Within Us. If You Water The Garbage, You Will Strengthen The Negative Seeds. If You Water The Flowers Of Compassion, Understanding, And Love, You Will Strengthen The Positive Seeds. What You Grow Is Up To You.

The Source Of A True Smile Is An Awakened Mind. Smiling Helps You Approach The Day With Gentleness And Understanding.

What Is Most Important Is To Find Peace And To Share It With Others. To Have Peace, You Can Begin By Walking Peacefully. Everything Depends On Your Steps.

When We Speak, We Want To Say Something Sweet, But We Don't Say Something Sweet Because Something Is Ordering Us From Deep Down To Say Something Unkind. We Want To Open Our Hearts To People, But We Can't Do It, Because We Are Being Ordered Around By The Sufferings We Have Concealed Deep In Our Consciousness.

Enlightenment Is Always There. Small Enlightenment Will Bring Great Enlightenment. If You Breathe In And Are Aware That You Are Alive - That You Can Touch The Miracle Of Being Alive - Then That Is A Kind Of Enlightenment.

If We Are Not Able To Smile, Then The World Will Not Have Peace.

Waking Up This Morning, I Smile. Twenty-four Brand New Hours Are Before Me. I Vow To Live Fully In Each Moment And To Look At All Beings With Eyes Of Compassion.

You Have To Do It By Yourself. You Can Not Do It Alone.

Total Relaxation Is The Secret To Enjoying Sitting Meditation. I Sit With My Spine Upright, But Not Rigid; And I Relax All The Muscles In My Body.

Many People Think Excitement Is Happiness.... But When You Are Excited You Are Not Peaceful. True Happiness Is Based On Peace.

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If You Think That Peace And Happiness Are Somewhere Else And You Run After Them, You Will Never Arrive.

When You Look Deeply Into Your Anger, You Will See That The Person You Call Your Enemy Is Also Suffering. As Soon As You See That, The Capacity Of Accepting And Having Compassion For Them Is There.

I Would Not Be Happy If I Could Not Become A Monk. They Call It The Beginner's Mind - The Deep Intention, The Deepest Desire That A Person May Have. And I Can Say That Until This Day, This Beginner's Mind Is Still Alive In Me.

To Develop Understanding, You Have To Practice Looking At All Living Things With The Eyes Of Compassion.

Our Appointment With Life Is In The Present Moment. If We Do Not Have Peace And Joy Right Now, When Will We Have Peace And Joy?

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You Are Not An Observer, You Are A Participant.

Just Listen Be Peace.

The More Compassionate You Are, The More Generous You Can Be. The More Generous You Are, The Move Loving Friendliness You Cultivate To Help The World.

Each Second Of Life Is A Miracle

Peace Is Present Right Here And Now, In Ourselves And In Everything.

Peace And Serenity

Peace Is Every Step

Meditation Is, First Of All, A Tool For Surveying Our Territory So We Can Know What Is Going On. With The Energy Of Mindfulness, We Can Calm Things Down, Understand Them, And Bring Harmony Back To The Conflicting Elements Inside Us.

Leaves Are Usually Looked Upon As The Children Of The Tree. Yes, They Are Children Of The Tree, Born From The Tree, But They Are Also Mothers Of The Tree. The Leaves Combine Raw Sap, Water, And Minerals, With Sunshine And Gas, And Convert It Into A Variegated Sap That Can Nourish The Tree. In This Way, The Leaves Become The Mother Of The Tree. We Are All Children Of Society, But We Are Also Mothers. We Have To Nourish Society. If We Are Uprooted From Society, We Can Not Trasform It Into A More Liveable Place For Us And Our Children.

Words Can Travel Thousands Of Miles. May My Words Create Mutual Understanding And Love. May They Be As Beautiful As Gems, As Lovely As Flowers.

If You Are A Poet, You Will See Clearly That There Is A Cloud Floating In This Sheet Of Paper. Without A Cloud, There Will Be No Rain; Without Rain, The Trees Cannot Grow; And Without Trees, We Cannot Make Paper. The Cloud Is Essential For The Paper To Exist. If The Cloud Is Not Here, The Sheet Of Paper Cannot Be Here Either. So We Can Say That The Cloud And The Paper Inter-are.

The Fact That I Am Standing There And Washing Bowls Is A Wondrous Reality. I'm Being Completely Myself, Following My Breath, Conscious Of My Presence, And Conscious Of My Thoughts And Actions.

If You Realize That The Other Person Is A Human Being Too, And You Have Exactly The Same Kind Of Spiritual Path, And Then The Two Can Become Good Practitioners. This Appears To Be Practical For Both.

In Order To Be Loved, We Have To Love, Which Means We Have To Understand.

Your Journey To A Healthier Weight Is Not A Journey That You Start And Then Give Up. It Is A Journey That You Are Living Every Day For The Rest Of Your Life.

We Inter-breath With The Rain Forests, We Drink From The Oceans. They Are Part Of Our Own Body.

Look Deeply; I Arrive In Every Second To Be A Bud On A Spring Branch ... To Be A Jewel Hiding Itself In A Stone.

The Essence Of Nonviolence Is Love. Out Of Love And The Willingness To Act Selflessly, Strategies, Tactics, And Techniques For A Nonviolent Struggle Arise Naturally. Nonviolence Is Not A Dogma; It Is A Process.

Around Us, Life Bursts With Miracles--a Glass Of Water, A Ray Of Sunshine, A Leaf, A Caterpillar, A Flower, Laughter, Raindrops. If You Live In Awareness, It Is Easy To See Miracles Everywhere. Each Human Being Is A Multiplicity Of Miracles. Eyes That See Thousands Of Colors, Shapes, And Forms; Ears That Hear A Bee Flying Or A Thunderclap; A Brain That Ponders A Speck Of Dust As Easily As The Entire Cosmos; A Heart That Beats In Rhythm With The Heartbeat Of All Beings. When We Are Tired And Feel Discouraged By Life's Daily Struggles, We May Not Notice These Miracles, But They Are Always There.

Sometimes We Believe That Happiness Is Not Possible In The Here And Now, That We Need A Few More Conditions To Be Happy. So We Run Toward The Future To Get The Conditions We Think Are Missing. But By Doing So We Sacrifice The Present Moment; We Sacrifice True Life.

There May Be A Time When A Country Will Have To Wake Up From A Vision Of Happiness, When They Have To Realize That Theirs Is Not The Perfect Idea, That There Are Many Aspects That Do Not Correspond To The Reality Of What Is There, The Real Need And Aspirations Of The People.

There Is A Time For Everything. There Is A Time When I Sit Down, I Concentrate Myself On The Problem Of My Bills, But I Would Not Worry Before That. One Thing At A Time.

Compassionate Listening Is To Help The Other Side Suffer Less. If We Realize That Other People Are The Same People As We Are, We Are No Longer Angry At Them.

Meditation Is Not Passive Sitting In Silence. It Is Sitting In Awareness, Free From Distraction, And Realizing The Clear Understanding That Arises From Concentration.

Meditation Practice

Just Breathing And Smiling Can Make Us Very Happy, Because When We Breathe Consciously We Recover Ourselves Completely And Encounter Life In The Present Moment.

If We Do Not Know How To Take Care Of Ourselves And To Love Ourselves, We Cannot Take Care Of The People We Love. Loving Oneself Is The Foundation For Loving Another Person.

Survival Means The Survival Of Human Kind As A Whole, Not Just A Part Of It. If The South Cannot Survive, Then The North Is Going To Crumble. If Countries Of Third World Cannot Pay Their Debts, You Are Going To Suffer Here In The North. If You Do Not Take Care Of The Third World, Your Well-being Is Not Going To Last, And You Will Not Be Able To Continue Living In The Way You Have Been Much Longer. It Is Leaping Out At Us Already. You Cannot Leave The Job To The Governments Or The Political Scientists Alone. You Have To Do It Yourself.

Meditation Is Not An Escape From Life... But Preparation For Really Being In Life.

Happiness Is Available. Please Help Yourself To It.

Real Peace Is Not In Power, Money, Or Weapons, But In Deep Inner Peace.

When We Respect Our Blood Ancestors And Our Spiritual Ancestors, We Feel Rooted. If We Find Ways To Cherish And Develop Our Spiritual Heritage, We Will Avoid The Kind Of Alienation That Is Destroying Society, And We Will Become Whole Again. ... Learning To Touch Deeply The Jewels Of Our Own Tradition Will Allow Us To Understand And Appreciate The Values Of Other Traditions, And This Will Benefit Everyone.

Hatred And Fear Blind Us. We No Longer See Each Other. We See Only The Faces Of Monsters, And That Gives Us The Courage To Destroy Each Other.

Wisdom Is A Living Stream, Not An Icon To Be Preserved In A Museum. Only When A Practitioner Finds The Spring Of Wisdom In His Or Her Own Life Can It Flow To A Future Generation

"i Am Breathing In And Liberating My Mind. I Am Breathing Out And Liberating My Mind." One Practices Like This.

No One Is More Worthy Of Your Kindness And Compassion Than You Are.

I Clean This Teapot With The Kind Of Attention I Would Have Were I Giving The Baby Buddha Or Jesus A Bath.

Be Yourself. Life Is Precious As It Is. All The Elements For Your Happiness Are Already Here. There Is No Need To Run, Strive, Search, Or Struggle. Just Be.

That Is Why Those Who Are Not Capable Of Being There In The Present Moment, They Don't Really Live Their Life - They Live Like Dead People.

Seeds Can Produce Seeds Seeds Can Produce Formations. Formations Can Produce Seeds. Formations Can Produce Formations.

Life Is A Miracle, And Being Aware Of Simply This Can Already Make Us Very Happy.

I Am Determined To Practice Deep Listening. I Am Determined To Practice Loving Speech.

May We Awaken From Forgetfulness And Realize Our True Home.

A Real Love Letter Is Made Of Insight, Understanding, And Compassion. Otherwise It's Not A Love Letter. A True Love Letter Can Produce A Transformation In The Other Person, And Therefore In The World. But Before It Produces A Transformation In The Other Person, It Has To Produce A Transformation Within Us. Some Letters May Take The Whole Of Our Lifetime To Write.

Be Peace, Don't Just Talk About It.

Our Nature Is The Nature Of No Birth And No Death. It Is Impossible For A Cloud To Pass From Being Into Nonbeing. And That Is True With A Beloved Person. They Have Not Died. They Have Continued In Many New Forms And You Can Look Deeply And Recognize Them In You And Around You.

If We Are At War With Our Parents, Our Family, Our Society, Or Our Church, There Is Probably A War Going On Inside Us Also, So The Most Basic Work For Peace Is To Return To Ourselves And Create Harmony Among The Elements Within Us - Our Feelings, Our Perceptions, And Our Mental States. That Is Why The Practice Of Meditation, Looking Deeply, Is So Important.

The Mind Can Go In A Thousand Directions, But On This Beautiful Path, I Walk In Peace. With Each Step, The Wind Blows. With Each Step, A Flower Blooms.

In Buddhism, There Are Three Gems: Buddha, The Awakened One; Dharma, The Way Of Understanding And Loving; And Sangha, The Community That Lives In Harmony And Awareness. The Three Are Interrelated, And At Times It Is Hard To Distinguish One From Another. In Everyone There Is The Capacity To Wake Up, To Understand, And To Love. So In Ourselves We Find Buddha, And We Also Find Dharma And Sangha.

One Included All, And All Were Contained In One.

Let Us Not Be Afraid Of Decreasing. It Is Like The Moon, We See The Moon Increasing And Decreasing, But It Is Always The Moon.

You Can Only Recognize Your Happiness Against The Background Of Suffering.

The Quality Of Our Life Depends On The Quality Of The Seeds That Lie Deep In Our Consciousness.

Harm No Person, Animal, Plant Or Mineral.

When We Are Mindful, Deeply In Touch With The Present Moment, Our Understanding Of What Is Going On Deepens, And We Begin To Be Filled With Acceptance, Joy, Peace And Love.

There Is No Enlightenment Outside Of Daily Life.

Drink Your Tea Slowly And Reverently, As If It Is The Axis On Which The World Earth Revolves - Slowly, Evenly, Without Rushing Toward The Future.

With Mindfulness - The Practice Of Peace - We Can Begin By Working To Transform The Wars In Ourselves. Conscious Breathing Helps Us Do This.

There Are Two Ways To Wash The Dishes. One Way Is To Wash Them To Get Them Clean. The Other Way Is To Wash Them In Order To Wash The Dishes.

Even If You Only Stop And Focus On Your Breathing For A Few Breaths, Or For A Minute Or Two, Its Very Valuable.

If Our Love Is Only A Will To Possess, It Is Not Love.

Fear Is Born From Ignorance. We Think That The Other Person Is Trying To Take Away Something From Us. But If We Look Deeply, We See That The Desire Of The Other Person Is Exactly Our Own Desire - To Have Peace, To Be Able To Have A Chance To Live.

Let Us Fill Our Hearts With Our Own Compassion - Towards Ourselves And Towards All Living Beings.

People Normally Cut Reality Into Compartments, And So Are Unable To See The Interdependence Of All Phenomena. To See One In All And All In One Is To Break Through The Great Barrier Which Narrows One's Perception Of Reality.

Root Out The Violence In Your Life, And Learn To Live Compassionately And Mindfully. Seek Peace. When You Have Peace Within, Real Peace With Others Is Possible.

There Are Many, Many Christians Who Practice Buddhism, And They Become Better And Better Christians All The Time.

The Electron Is First Of All Your Concept Of The Electron.

If A Child Smiles, If An Adult Smiles, That Is Very Important. If In Our Daily Lives We Can Smile, If We Can Be Peaceful And Happy, Not Only We, But Everyone Will Profit From It. If We Really Know How To Live, What Better Way To Start The Day Than With A Smile? Our Smile Affirms Our Awareness And Determination To Live In Peace And Joy. The Source Of A True Smile Is An Awakened Mind.

Meditation Means To Look Deeply, To Touch Deeply, So We Can Realize We Are Already Home.

We Have To Understand In Order To Be Of Help. We All Have Pain, But We Tend To Suppress It, Because We Don't Want It To Come Up To Our Living Room. The Most Important Thing Is That We Need To Be Understood. We Need Someone To Be Able To Listen To Us And To Understand Us, Then We Will Suffer Less, But Everyone Is Suffering, And No One Wants To Listen. We Don't Know How To Express Ourselves So That People Can Understand. Because We Suffer So Much, The Way We Express Our Pain Hurts Other People, And They Don't Want To Listen.

If We Are Not Empty, We Become A Block Of Matter. We Cannot Breathe, We Cannot Think. To Be Empty Means To Be Alive, To Breathe In And To Breathe Out. We Cannot Be Alive If We Are Not Empty. Emptiness Is Impermanence, It Is Change. We Should Not Complain About Impermanence, Because Without Impermanence, Nothing Is Possible.

A Summer Breeze Can Be Very Refreshing; But If We Try To Put It In A Tin Can So We Can Have It Entirely To Ourselves, The Breeze Will Die. Our Beloved Is The Same. He Is Like A Breeze, A Cloud, A Flower. If You Imprison Him In A Tin Can, He Will Die. Yet Many People Do Just That. They Rob Their Loved One Of His Liberty, Until He Can No Longer Be Himself. They Live To Satisfy Themselves And Use Their Loved One To Help Them Fulfill That. That Is Not Loving; It Is Destroying.

To Be Beautiful Means To Be Yourself.you Don't Need To Be Accepted By Others. You Need To Accept Yourself. When You Are Born A Lotus Flower, Be A Beautiful Lotus Flower, Don't Try To Be A Magnolia Flower. If You Crave Acceptance And Recognition And Try To Change Yourself To Fit What Other People Want You To Be, You Will Suffer All Your Life. True Happiness And True Power Lie In Understanding Yourself, Accepting Yourself, Having Confidence In Yourself.

Each Time You Look At A Tangerine, You Can See Deeply Into It. You Can See Everything In The Universe In One Tangerine. When You Peel It And Smell It, It’s Wonderful. You Can Take Your Time Eating A Tangerine And Be Very Happy.

I Would Not Be Happy If I Had Not Become A Monk.

At First Glance, That Might Seem A Little Silly: Why Put So Much Stress On A Simple Thing? But That's Precisely The Point.

May All Beings Learn How To Nourish Themselves With Joy Each Day.

When You Call Me European, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Arab, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Black, I Say Yes. When You Call Me White, I Say Yes. Because I Am In You And You Are In Me. We Have To Inter-be With Everything In The Cosmos.

As Long As You Find Something Beautiful, Good, And True To Believe In And Abide By, You Have The Equivalent Of God In Your Life.

The Buddha Always Reminds Us That Our Afflictions, Including Our Fear And Our Desiring, Are Born From Our Ignorance. That Is Why In Order To Dissipate Fear, We Have To Remove Wrong Perception.

And Once We Have The Condition Of Peace And Joy In Us, We Can Afford To Be In Any Situation. Even In The Situation Of Hell, We Will Be Able To Contribute Our Peace And Serenity. The Most Important Thing Is For Each Of Us To Have Some Freedom In Our Heart, Some Stability In Our Heart, Some Peace In Our Heart. Only Then Will We Be Able To Relieve The Suffering Around Us.

Without Full Awareness Of Breathing, There Can Be No Development Of Meditative Stability And Understanding.

Letting Go Gives Us Freedom, And Freedom Is The Only Condition For Happiness. If, In Our Heart, We Still Cling To Anything - Anger, Anxiety, Or Possessions - We Cannot Be Free.

Do Not Live With A Vocation That Is Harmful To Humans And Nature. Do Not Invest In Companies That Deprive Others Of Their Chance To Live. Select A Vocation That Helps Realise Your Ideal Of Compassion.

True Love Always Brings Joy To Ourself And The One We Love. If Our Love Does Not Bring Joy To Both Of Us, It Is Not True Love.

Working For Peace In The Future Is To Work For Peace In The Present Moment.

The Roots Of War Are In The Way We Live Our Daily Lives -- The Way We Develop Our Industries, Build Up Our Society, And Consume Goods.

You Cannot Transmit Wisdom And Insight To Another Person. The Seed Is Already There. A Good Teacher Touches The Seed, Allowing It To Wake Up, To Sprout, And To Grow.

Our Capacity To Make Peace With Another Person And With The World Depends Very Much On Our Capacity To Make Peace With Ourselves.

Every Feeling Is A Field Of Energy. A Pleasant Feeling Is An Energy Which Can Nourish. Irritation Is A Feeling Which Can Destroy. Under The Light Of Awareness, The Energy Of Irritation Can Be Transformed Into And Energy Which Nourishes.

A Bodhisattva Doesn't Have To Be Perfect. Anyone Who Is Aware Of What Is Happening And Who Tries To Wake Up Other People Is A Bodhisattva. We Are All Bodhisattvas, Doing Our Best.

Today Is The Most Important Day Of Our Lives.

People Sacrifice The Present For The Future. But Life Is Available Only In The Present. That Is Why We Should Walk In Such A Way That Every Step Can Bring Us To The Here And The Now.

If We Take The Time To Look Deeply, We See That Understanding And Compassion Arise From Suffering. Understanding Is The Understanding Of Suffering, And Compassion Is The Kind Of Energy That Can Transform Suffering. If Suffering Is Not There, We Have No Means To Cultivate Our Understanding And Our Compassion. This Is Something Quite Simple To See

Artists Have To Show Us What Is Not Going Well Within The Person And Within The Society, Not Try To Cover It Up.

When You Drop Bombs On The Enemy, You Drop Those Same Bombs On Yourself, Your Own Country.

The Moment You Wake Up, Right Away, You Can Smile... You Are Aware That A New Day Is Beginning, That Life Is Offering You Twenty-four Brand New Hours To Live, And That That's The Most Precious Of Gifts.

Through My Love For You, I Want To Express My Love For The Whole Cosmos, The Whole Of Humanity, And All Beings. By Living With You, I Want To Learn To Love Everyone And All Species. If I Succeed In Loving You, I Will Be Able To Love Everyone And All Species On Earth... This Is The Real Message Of Love.

To Make Peace, Our Hearts Must Be At Peace With The World.

An Oak Tree Is An Oak Tree. That Is All It Has To Do. If An Oak Tree Is Less Than An Oak Tree, Then We Are All In Trouble.

No Blame, No Reasoning, No Argument, Just Understanding. If You Understand, And You Show That You Understand, You Can Love, And The Situation Will Change.

Silence Is Essential. We Need Silence Just As Much As We Need Air, Just As Much As Plants Need Light. If Our Minds Are Crowded With Words And Thoughts, There Is No Space For Us.

The Buddha Said That If We Know How To Look Deeply Into Our Suffering And Recognize What Feeds It, We Are Already On The Path Of Emancipation.

To Take Good Care Of Yourself And To Take Good Care Of Living Beings And Of The Environment Is The Best Way To Love God.

Fear Keeps Us Focused On The Past Or Worried About The Future. If We Can Acknowledge Our Fear, We Can Realize That Right Now We Are Okay. Right Now, Today, We Are Still Alive, And Our Bodies Are Working Marvelously. Our Eyes Can Still See The Beautiful Sky. Our Ears Can Still Hear The Voices Of Our Loved Ones.

Meditation Is Not To Escape From Society, But To Come Back To Ourselves And See What Is Going On. Once There Is Seeing, There Must Be Acting. With Mindfulness, We Know What To Do And What Not To Do To Help.

The Secret Of Buddhism Is To Remove All Ideas, All Concepts, In Order For The Truth To Have A Chance To Penetrate, To Reveal Itself.

Dealing With Our Overweight - Or With Any Of Our Life's Difficulties, For That Matter - Is Not A Battle To Be Fought. Instead, We Must Learn How To Make Friends With Our Hardships And Challenges. They Are There To Help Us; They Are Natural Opportunities For Deeper Understanding And Transformation, Brining Us More Joy And Peace As We Learn To Work With Them.

Usually, People Have A Tendency To Be Caught In The Worries Concerning The Future Or In The Regret Concerning The Past. There Is Some Kind Of Energy That Is Pushing Them To Run, And They Are Not Able To Establish Themselves In The Present Moment.

Mindful Time Spent With The Person We Love Is The Fullest Expression Of True Love And Real Generosity.

An Emotion Is Only An Emotion. It's Just A Small Part Of Your Whole Being. You Are Much More Than Your Emotion. An Emotion Comes, Stays For A While, And Goes Away, Just Like A Storm. If You're Aware Of That, You Won't Be Afraid Of Your Emotions.

It Is Possible That The Next Buddha Will Not Take The Form Of An Individual. The Next Buddha May Take The Form Of A Community -a Community Practicing Understanding And Loving Kindness, A Community Practicing Mindful Living. This May Be The Most Important Thing We Can Do For The Survival Of The Earth.

I Realize That Many Elements Of The Buddhist Teaching Can Be Found In Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I Think If Buddhism Can Help, It Is The Concrete Methods Of Practice.

If You Really Know How To Live, What Better Way To Start The Day Than With A Smile?

Peace Is Every Step

The Present Moment Contains Past And Future. The Secret Of Transformation, Is In The Way We Handle This Very Moment.

If We Chew Every Morsel Of Our Food, In That Way We Become Grateful, And When You Are Grateful, You Are Happy.

I Promise Myself That I Will Enjoy Every Minute Of The Day That Is Given Me To Live.

Feelings Come And Go Like Clouds In A Windy Sky. Conscious Breathing Is My Anchor.

Walking Meditation

The Kingdom Of God Is Available To You In The Here And The Now. But The Question Is Whether You Are Available To The Kingdom. Our Practice Is To Make Ourselves Ready For The Kingdom So That It Can Manifest In The Here And The Now. You Don't Need To Die In Order To Enter The Kingdom Of Heaven. In Fact, You Have To Be Truly Alive In Order To Do So.

If You Suffer And Make Your Loved Ones Suffer, There Is Nothing That Can Justify Your Desire.

As A Population, If A Large Number Of People Make Even Small Moves To Eat Less Meat And More Plant-based Foods, The Livestock Industry Will Shrink. Over Time, Farmers Will Find Other Crops To Support Their Livelihoods. Through Such Collective Awakening We Can Make A Difference In Our World.

The Bad Things, Don't Do Them. The Good Things, Try To Do Them. Try To Purify, Subdue Your Own Mind. That Is The Teaching Of All Buddhas.

Doubt In My Tradition Is Something That Is Very Helpful. Because Of Doubt, You Can Thirst More And You Will Get A Higher Kind Of Proof.

If You Get Angry Easily, It May Be Because The Seed Of Anger In You Has Been Watered Frequently Over Many Years, And Unfortunately You Have Allowed It Or Even Encouraged It To Be Watered.

When We Smile, The Muscles Around Our Mouth Are Stretched And Relaxed, Just Like Doing Yoga. Smiling Is Mouth Yoga. We Release The Tension From Our Face As We Smile. Others Who Run Into Us Notice It, Even Strangers, And Are Likely To Smile Back. It Is A Wonderful Chain Reaction That We Can Initiate, Touching The Joy In Anyone We Encounter. Smiling Is An Ambassador Of Goodwill.

Contemplate To See That Awakened People, While Not Being Enslaved By The Work Of Serving Living Beings, Never Abandon Their Work Of Serving Living Beings.

Your Breathing Should Flow Gracefully, Like A River, Like A Watersnake Crossing The Water, And Not Like A Chain Of Rugged Mountains Or The Gallop Of A Horse. To Master Our Breath Is To Be In Control Of Our Bodies And Minds. Each Time We Find Ourselves Dispersed And Find It Difficult To Gain Control Of Ourselves By Different Means, The Method Of Watching The Breath Should Always Be Used.

When We Eat Mindfully, We Consume Exactly What We Need To Keep Our Bodies, Our Minds, And The Earth Healthy. When We Practice Like This, We Reduce Suffering For Ourselves And For Others.

I Do Not Watch Television. But I'm In Touch With The World. If Anything Really Important Happens, Someone Will Tell Me.

We May Think Of Peace As The Absence Of War, That If The Great Powers Would Reduce Their Weapons Arsenals, We Could Have Peace. But If We Look Deeply Into The Weapons, We Will See Our Own Minds - Our Own Prejudices, Fears, And Ignorance.

You Are Like Fireworks. You Go Out Into Your Children, Your Friends, Your Society, And The Whole World.

We All Have The Seeds Of Love In Us.we Can Develop This Wonderful Source Of Energy, Nurturing The Unconditional Love That Does Not Expect Anything In Return.

Unconditional Love

Nonviolent Action, Born Of The Awareness Of Suffering And Nurtured By Love, Is The Most Effective Way To Confront Adversity.

When You Sit In A Café, With A Lot Of Music In The Background And A Lot Of Projects In Your Head, You're Not Really Drinking Your Coffee Or Your Tea. You're Drinking Your Projects, You're Drinking Your Worries. You Are Not Real, And The Coffee Is Not Real Either. Your Coffee Can Only Reveal Itself To You As A Reality When You Go Back To Your Self And Produce Your True Presence, Freeing Yourself From The Past, The Future, And From Your Worries. When You Are Real, The Tea Also Becomes Real And The Encounter Between You And The Tea Is Real. This Is Genuine Tea Drinking.

Be Mindful 24 Hours A Day, Not Just During The One Hour You May Allot For Formal Meditation Or Reading Scripture And Reciting Prayers. Each Act Must Be Carried Out In Mindfulness.

In Order To Rally People, Governments Need Enemies... If They Do Not Have A Real Enemy, They Will Invent One In Order To Mobilize Us.

Understanding Means Throwing Away Your Knowledge.

But If We Have The Energy Of Compassion And Loving Kindness In Us, The People Around Us Will Be Influenced By Our Way Of Being And Living.

The Amount Of Happiness That You Have Depends On The Amount Of Freedom You Have In Your Heart.

Awareness Is A Mirror Reflecting The Four Elements. Beauty Is A Heart That Generates Love And A Mind That Is Open.

We Must Look Deeply. When We Buy Something Or Consume Something, We May Be Participating In An Act Of Killing. This Precept [non-killing] Reflects Our Determination Not To Kill, Either Directly Or Indirectly, And Also To Prevent Others From Killing.

If You Have The Chance To Be Exposed To A Loving, Understanding Environment Where The Seed Of Compassion, Loving Kindness, Can Be Watered Every Day, Then You Become A More Loving Person.

We Do Not Have To Die To Enter The Kingdom Of Heaven, In Fact We Have To Be Fully Alive. When We Are Truly Alive We See That The Tree Is Part Of Heaven And We Are Also Part Of Heaven. The Whole Universe Is Conspiring To Reveal This To Us. Peace Is Available And When We Touch It Everything Becomes Real. We Become Ourselves, Fully Alive In The Present Moment.

You Have An Appointment With Life, An Appointment That Is In The Here And Now.

Tolerance And Tranquility Are Two Characteristics Of True Love.

If We Know How To Create The Energy Of Love, Understanding, Compassion, And Beauty, Then We Can Contribute A Lot To The World.

The Kingdom Of God Is Available To You In The Here And The Now. But The Question Is Whether You Are Available To The Kingdom.

It Is Possible To Live Happily In The Here And The Now. So Many Conditions Of Happiness Are Available - More Than Enough For You To Be Happy Right Now. You Don't Have To Run Into The Future In Order To Get More.

Every Step Taken In Mindfulness Brings Us One Step Closer To Healing Ourselves And The Planet.

Often We Tell Ourselves, "don't Just Sit There, Do Something!" But When We Practice Awareness, We Discover That The Opposite May Be More Helpful: "don't Just Do Something, Sit There!"

From Time To Time, To Remind Ourselves To Relax And Be Peaceful, We May Wish To Set Aside Some Time For A Retreat, A Day Of Mindfulness, When We Can Walk Slowly, Smile, Drink Tea With A Friend, Enjoy Being Together As If We Are The Happiest People On Earth.

We Are Determined Not To Take As The Aim Of Our Life Fame, Profit, Wealth, Or Sensual Pleasure, Nor To Accumulate Wealth While Millions Are Hungry And Dying. We Are Committed To Living Simply And Sharing Our Time, Energy, And Material Resources With Those Who Are In Need.

I Think Buddhism Should Open The Door Of Psychology And Healing To Penetrate More Easily Into The Western World.

The Raft Is Used To Cross The River. It Isn't To Be Carried Around On Your Shoulders. The Finger Which Points At The Moon Isn't The Moon Itself.

Our Role As Gardeners Is To Choose, Plant And Tend The Best Seeds Within The Garden Of Our Consciousness. Learning To Look Deeply At Our Consciousness Is Our Greatest Gift And Our Greatest Need, For There Lie The Seeds Of Suffering And Of Love, The Very Roots Of Our Being, Of Who We Are. Mindfulness...is The Guide And The Practice By Which We Learn How To Use The Seeds Of Suffering To Nourish The Seeds Of Love.

In Buddhism, We Talk Of Meditation As An Act Of Awakening, To Be Awake To The Fact That The Earth Is In Danger And Living Species Are In Danger.

Usually When We Hear Or Read Something New, We Just Compare It To Our Own Ideas. If It Is The Same, We Accept It And Say That It Is Correct. If It Is Not, We Say It Is Incorrect. In Either Case, We Learn Nothing.

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