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As Children, Siddhartha And Jesus Both Realized That Life Is Filled With Suffering. The Buddha Became Aware At An Early Age That Suffering Is Pervasive. Jesus Must Have Had The Same Kind Of Insight, Because They Both Made Every Effort To Offer A Way Out. We, Too, Must Learn To Live In Ways That Reduce The World's Suffering.

-Nhat Hanh

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As Children, Siddhartha And

Nhat Hanh

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As Children, Siddhartha And Jesus Both Realized That Life Is Filled With Suffering. The Buddha Became Aware At An Early Age That Suffering Is Pervasive. Jesus Must Have Had The Same Kind Of Insight, Because They Both Made Every Effort To Offer A Way Out. We, Too, Must Learn To Live In Ways That Reduce The World's Suffering.

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We Need Enlightenment, Not Just Individually But Collectively, To Save The Planet.

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No Thought About The Past Or Future Can Pull You Away From Your Present Peace And Joy. The Universe Exists In This Present Moment. No Desire Can Pull You Away From This Present Peace, Not Even The Desire To Become A Buddha Or The Desire To Save All Beings. Know That To Become A Buddha And To Save All Beings Can Only Be Realized On The Foundation Of The Pure Peace Of The Present Moment.

Breath Is Aligned With Both Body And Mind And It Alone Can Bring Them Together.

One Hour Of Compassionate Deep Listening Can Bring About Transformation And Healing.

You Do Not Suffer Because Things Are Impermanent. You Suffer Because Things Are Impermanent And You Think They Are Permanent.

Before You Do Something To Help, Your Presence Already Can Bring Some Relief.

What We Most Need To Do Is To Hear Within Us The Sound Of The Earth Crying.

The First Thing I Learned Was That Even If You Have A Lot Of Money And Power And Fame, You Can Still Suffer Very Deeply.

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

When You Love Someone, The Best You Can Offer Is Your Presence.

When You Love Someone

Happiness Is The Cessation Of Suffering.

Our Notions About Happiness Entrap Us. We Forget That They Are Just Ideas. Our Idea Of Happiness Can Prevent Us From Actually Being Happy. We Fail To See The Opportunity For Joy That Is Right In Front Of Us When We Are Caught In A Belief That Happiness Should Take A Particular Form.

It Is Difficult To Explain To Children In The "overdeveloped" Nations That Not All Children In The World Have Such Beautiful And Nourishing Food. Awareness Of This Fact Alone Can Help Us Overcome Many Of Our Own Psychological Pains. Eventually Our Contemplation Can Help Us See How To Assist Those Who Need Our Help So Much.

There Is No Real Separation Between Self Or No-self. Anything You Do For Yourself You Do For The Society At The Same Time. And Anything You Do For Society You Do For Yourself Also.

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

We Are Here To Awaken From Our Illusion Of Separateness.

The Problem That Faces Us Is The Problem Of Awakening. What We Lack Is Not An Ideology Or Doctrine That Will Save The World. What We Lack Is Mindfulness Of What We Are, Of What Our Situation Really Is. We Need To Wake Up In Order To Rediscover Our Human Sovereignty. We Are Riding A Horse That Is Running Out Of Control. The Way Of Salvation Is A New Culture In Which Human Beings Are Encouraged To Rediscover Their Deepest Nature.

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.

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

The Most Precious Gift We Can Offer Others Is Our Presence.

We Talk About Social Service, Service To The People, Service To Humanity, Service To Others Who Are Far Away, Helping To Bring Peace To The World - But Often We Forget That It Is The Very People Around Us That We Must Live For First Of All. If You Cannot Serve Your Wife Or Husband Or Child Or Parent - How Are You Going To Serve Society? If You Cannot Make Your Own Child Happy, How Do You Expect To Be Able To Make Anyone Else Happy? If All Our Friends In The Peace Movement Or Of Service Communities Of Any Kind Do Not Love And Help Each Other, Whom Can We Love And Help?

Real Love Means Loving Kindness And Compassion, The Kind Of Love That Does Not Have Any Conditions.

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

‎"the Earth Is So Beautiful. We Are Beautiful Also. We Can Allow Ourselves To Walk Mindfully, Touching The Earth, Our Wonderful Mother, With Each Step. We Don't Need To Wish Our Friends, 'peace Be With You.' Peace Is Already With Them. We Only Need To Help Them Cultivate The Habit Of Touching Peace In Each Moment."-

To Be Loved Means To Be Recognized As Existing.

Happiness Is Not An Individual Matter.

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‎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.

To Be Spiritual Means To Be Solid, Calm, And Peaceful And To Be Able To Look Deeply Inside And Around Us.

When You Learn How To Suffer, You Suffer Much Less.

While Drinking, While Talking, While Writing, While Watering Our Garden, It's Always Possible To Practice Living In The Here And The Now.

There Are Many Levels Of Christianity. There Are Many Notions About God. To Believe That God Is A Person Is Just One Of The Notions Of God That You Can Find In Christianity. So, We Should Not Say That There Is One Christianity. There Are Many Christianities.

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Enlightenment Is Always There. Small Enlightenment Will Bring Great Enlightenment.

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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.

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

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

Transformations Is The Word. We Can Do The Work Of Transformation Only In The Present Moment

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Listening To And Understanding Our Inner Sufferings Will Resolve Most Of The Problems We Encounter.

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Go Slowly, Breathe And Smile.

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Most Of Your Suffering Comes From The Lack Of Understanding Of Yourself And Others.

Lack Of Understanding

Your True Home Is In The Here And The Now.

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The Present Moment Is The Substance With Which The Future Is Made. Therefore, The Best Way To Take Care Of The Future Is To Take Care Of The Present Moment. What Else Can You Do?

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

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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.

It Is Best If We Do Not Listen To Or Look At The Person Whom We Consider To Be The Cause Of Our Anger. Like A Fireman, We Have To Pour Water On The Blaze First And Not Waste Time Looking For The One Who Set The House On Fire. "breathing In, I Know That I Am Angry. Breathing Out, I Know That I Must Put All My Energy Into Caring For My Anger." So We Avoid Thinking About The Other Person, And We Refrain From Doing Or Saying Anything As Long As Our Anger Persists. If We Put All Our Mind Into Observing Our Anger, We Will Avoid Doing Any Damage That We May Regret Later.

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

My Actions Are My Only True Belongings.

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.

When You Understand The Roots Of Anger In Yourself And In The Other, Your Mind Will Enjoy True Peace, Joy And Lightness

We Are Looking For Happiness And Running After It In Such A Way That Creates Anger, Fear And Discrimination. So When You Attend A Retreat, You Have A Chance To Look At The Deep Roots Of This Pollution Of The Collective Energy That Is Unwholesome.

When You Have A Stomach Ache You Don't Tell Your Stomach To Go Away.

When You Say Something Really Unkind, When You Do Something In Retaliation Your Anger Increases. You Make The Other Person Suffer, And He Will Try Hard To Say Or To Do Something Back To Get Relief From His Suffering. That Is How Conflict Escalates.

Breathe In And Take One Step, And Focus All Your Attention On The Sole Of Your Foot. If You Have Not Arrived Fully, One Hundred Percent In The Here And The Now, Don't Take The Next Step.

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.

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

Mindfulness Helps You Go Home To The Present. And Every Time You Go There And Recognize A Condition Of Happiness That You Have, Happiness Comes.

Each Moment Is A Chance For Us To Make Peace With The World, To Make Peace Possible For The World, To Make Happiness Possible For The World.

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.

When We Have Anger In Us, We Suffer. When We Have Discrimination In Us, We Suffer. When We Have The Complex Of Superiority, We Suffer. When We Have The Complex Of Inferiority, We Suffer Also. So When We Are Capable Of Transforming These Negative Things In Us, We Are Free And Happiness Is Possible.

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

There Is A Story In Zen Circles About A Man And A Horse. The Horse Is Galloping Quickly, And It Appears That The Man On The Horse Is Going Somewhere Important. Another Man Standing Alongside The Road, Shouts, «where Are You Going?» And The First Man Replies, «i Don't Know! Ask The Horse!» This Is Also Our Story. We Are Riding A Horse, And We Don't Know Where We Are Going And We Can't Stop. The Horse Is Our Habit Energy Pulling Us Along, And We Are Powerless.

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

Walking Meditation

Though We All Have The Fear And The Seeds Of Anger Within Us, We Must Learn Not To Water Those Seeds And Instead Nourish Our Positive Qualities - Those Of Compassion, Understanding, And Loving Kindness.

If Love Is In Our Hearts, Every Thought, Word, And Deed Can Bring About A Miracle. Because Understanding Is The Very Foundation Of Love, Words And Actions That Emerge From Our Love Are Always Helpful.

Meditation Is Offering Your Genuine Presence To Yourself In Every Moment.

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.

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

Happiness And Suffering Support Each Other. To Be Is To Inter-be. It's Like The Left And The Right. If The Left Is Not There, The Right Cannot Be There. The Same Is True With Suffering And Happiness, Good And Evil.

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.

The Real Power Of The Buddha Was That He Had So Much Love. He Saw People Trapped In Their Notions Of Small Separate Self, Feeling Guilty Or Proud Of That Self, And He Offered Revolutionary Teachings That Resounded Like A Lion's Roar, Like A Great Rising Tide, Helping People To Wake Up And Break Free From The Prison Of Ignorance.

To Take Care Of The Environment, We Must First Take Care Of The Environmentalist.

When Your Mind Is Liberated, Your Heart Floods With Compassion.

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.

Simple Practices Like Conscious Breathing And Smiling Are Very Important. They Can Change Our Civilization.

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.

It Is My Conviction That There Is No Way To Peace - Peace Is The Way.

A Smile Can Change The Situation Of The World.

Find Joy And Peace In This Very Moment.

Silence Is Essential For Deep Transformation. It Allows The Practice Of Conscious Breathing To Become Deep And Effective. Like Still Water That Reflects Things As They Are, The Calming Silence Helps Us To See Things More Clearly, And Therefore, To Be In Deeper Contact With Ourselves And Those Around Us.

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 Things Were Not Impermanent, Life Would Not Be Possible.

Do Not Say That I'll Depart Tomorrow Because Even Today I Still Arrive. Look At Me: I Arrive In Every Second To Be A Bud On A Spring Branch, To Be A Tiny Bird Whose Wings Are Still Fragile, Learning To Sing In My New Nest, To Be A Caterpillar In The Heart Of A Flower, To Be A Jewel Hiding Itself In A Stone.

When We Have Peace, Then We Have A Chance To Save The Planet. But If We Are Not United In Peace, If We Do Not Practice Mindful Consumption, We Cannot Save Our Planet.

Meditation Can Help Us Embrace Our Worries, Our Fear, Our Anger; And That Is Very Healing. We Let Our Own Natural Capacity Of Healing Do The Work.

Enlightenment, Peace, And Joy Will Not Be Granted By Someone Else. The Well Is Within Us, And If We Dig Deeply In The Present Moment, The Water Will Spring Forth.

In Each Of Us Is A Seed Of Understanding. The Seed Is God.

We Fear That This Moment Will End, That We Won't Get What We Need, That We Will Lose What We Love, Or That We Will Not Be Safe. Often, Our Biggest Fear Is The Knowledge That One Day Our Bodies Will Cease Functioning. So Even When We Are Surrounded By All The Conditions For Happiness, Our Joy Is Not Complete.

Sometimes It Is Better Not To Talk About Art By Using The Word "art". If We Just Act With Awareness And Integrity, Our Art Will Flower, And We Don't Have To Talk About It At All.

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

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.

When You Are A Young Person, You Are Like A Young Creek, And You Meet Many Rocks, Many Obstacles And Difficulties On Your Way. You Hurry To Get Past These Obstacles And Get To The Ocean. But As The Creek Moves Down Through The Fields, It Becomes Larges And Calmer And It Can Enjoy The Reflection Of The Sky. It's Wonderful. You Will Arrive At The Sea Anyway So Enjoy The Journey. Enjoy The Sunshine, The Sunset, The Moon, The Birds, The Trees, And The Many Beauties Along The Way. Taste Every Moment Of Your Daily Life.

There Is The Mud, And There Is The Lotus That Grows Out Of The Mud. We Need The Mud In Order To Make The Lotus.

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

A Human Being Is Like A Television Set With Millions Of Channels.... We Cannot Let Just One Channel Dominate Us. We Have The Seed Of Everything In Us, And We Have To Recover Our Own Sovereignty.

The Way Must Be In You; The Destination Also Must Be In You And Not Somewhere Else In Space Or Time. If That Kind Of Self-transformation Is Being Realized In You, You Will Arrive.

Fearlessness Is Not Only Possible, It Is The Ultimate Joy. When You Touch Nonfear, You Are Free.

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.

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

The Only Way To Ease Our Fear And Be Truly Happy Is To Acknowledge Our Fear And Look Deeply At Its Source. Instead Of Trying To Escape From Our Fear, We Can Invite It Up To Our Awareness And Look At It Clearly And Deeply.

The More We See, The More We Understand. The More We Understand, The Easier It Is For Us To Have Compassion And Love. Understanding Is The Source Of Love. Understanding Is Love Itself. Understanding Is Another Name For Love; Love Is Another Name For Understanding.

When We Come To The Table, We Shouldn't Negotiate Right Away. We Should Spend Time Walking Together, Eating Together, Making Acquaintance, Telling Each Other About Our Own Suffering, Without Blame Or Condemnation. It Takes Maybe One, Two, Three Weeks To Do That. And If Communication And Understanding Are Possible, Negotiation Will Be Easier. So If I Am To Organize A Peace Negotiation, I Will Organize It In That Way.

Eating Together

It Is Possible To Live Twenty-four Hours A Day In A State Of Love. Every Movement, Every Glance, Every Thought, And Every Word Can Be Infused With Love.

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.

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.

When We Hug, Our Hearts Connect And We Know That We Are Not Separate Beings. Hugging With Mindfulness And Concentration Can Bring Reconciliation, Healing, Understanding, And Much Happiness.

You Can Practice Deep Listening In Order To Relieve The Suffering In Us, And In The Other Person. That Kind Of Listening Is Described As Compassionate Listening. You Listen Only For The Purpose Of Relieving Suffering In The Other Person.

Those Who Are Without Compassion Cannot See What Is Seen With The Eyes Of Compassion.

There Is No Birth, There Is No Death; There Is No Coming, There Is No Going; There Is No Same, There Is No Different; There Is No Permanent Self, There Is No Annihilation. We Only Think There Is.

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.

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

Before Practicing Meditation, We See That Mountains Are Mountains. When We Start To Practice, We See That Mountains Are No Longer Mountains. After Practicing A While, We See That Mountains Are Again Mountains. Now The Mountains Are Very Free. Our Mind Is Still With The Mountains, But It Is No Longer Bound To Anything.

People Kill And Are Killed Because They Cling Too Tightly To Their Own Beliefs And Ideologies. When We Believe That Ours Is The Only Faith That Contains The Truth, Violence And Suffering Will Surely Be The Result.

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

In Buddhism, We Speak Of Touching Nirvana With Our Own Body, In Christianity, You Can Also Touch The Kingdom Of God With Your Body, Right Here And Now. It Is Much Safer Than Placing Our Hope In The Future. If We Cling To The Idea Of Hope In The Future, We Might Not Notice The Peace And Joy That Are Available In The Present Moment. The Best Way To Take Care Of The Future Is To Take Care Of The Present Moment.

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.

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.

Reconciliation Is A Deep Practice That We Can Do With Our Listening And Our Mindful Speech. To Reconcile Means To Bring Peace And Happiness To Nations, People, And Members Of Our Family.... In Order To Reconcile, You Have To Possess The Art Of Deep Listening.

Love Doesn't Have Any Color. Other People May Discriminate Against Us, But What Is More Important Is Whether We Discriminate Against Them. If We Don't Do That, We Are A Happier Person, And As A Happier Person, We Are In A Position To Help. And Anger, This Is Not A Help.

When You Plant Lettuce, If It Does Not Grow Well, You Don't Blame The Lettuce. You Look For Reasons It Is Not Doing Well. It May Need Fertilizer, Or More Water, Or Less Sun. You Never Blame The Lettuce. Yet If We Have Problems With Our Friends Or Family, We Blame The Other Person. But If We Know How To Take Care Of Them, They Will Grow Well, Like The Lettuce. Blaming Has No Positive Effect At All, Nor Does Trying To Persuade Using Reason And Arguments. That Is My Experience. No Blame, No Reasoning, No Argument, Just Understanding.

Positive Thinking

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.

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.

You Have To Learn How To Help A Wounded Child While Still Practicing Mindful Breathing. You Should Not Allow Yourself To Get Lost In Action. Action Should Be Meditation At The Same Time.

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

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

Science And Mindfulness Complement Each Other In Helping People To Eat Well And Maintain Their Health And Well-being.

Breathing In, I Calm Body And Mind. Breathing Out, I Smile. Dwelling In The Present Moment I Know This Is The Only Moment.

The Most Precious Gift We Can Offer Anyone Is Our Attention. When Mindfulness Embraces Those We Love, They Will Bloom Like Flowers.

Do We Need To Make A Special Effort To Enjoy The Beauty Of The Blue Sky? Do We Have To Practice To Be Able To Enjoy It? No, We Just Enjoy It. Each Second, Each Minute Of Our Lives Can Be Like This. Wherever We Are, Any Time, We Have The Capacity To Enjoy The Sunshine, The Presence Of Each Other, Even The Sensation Of Our Breathing. We Don't Need To Go To China To Enjoy The Blue Sky. We Don't Have To Travel Into The Future To Enjoy Our Breathing. We Can Be In Touch With These Things Right Now.

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.

Meditation Is To Be Aware Of What Is Going On - In Our Bodies, In Our Feelings, In Our Minds, And In The World. Each Day...children Die Of Hunger.... Yet The Sunrise Is Beautiful, And The Rose That Bloomed This Morning Along The Wall Is A Miracle. Life Is Both Dreadful And Wonderful. To Practice Meditation Is To Be In Touch With Both Aspects. Please Do Not Think We Must Be Solemn In Order To Meditate. In Fact, To Meditate Well, We Have To Smile A Lot.

There Are Many Ways To Calm A Negative Energy Without Suppressing Or Fighting It. You Recognize It, You Smile To It, And You Invite Something Nicer To Come Up And Replace It; You Read Some Inspiring Words, You Listen To A Piece Of Beautiful Music, You Go Somewhere In Nature, Or You Do Some Walking Meditation.

Walking Meditation

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

In The Moment When We Are Able To Smile, To Look At Ourselves With Compassion, Our World Begins To Change.

It Is Often Said That The Buddha's Teaching Is Only A Raft To Help You Cross The River, A Finger Pointing To The Moon. Don't Maistake The Finger For The Moon. The Raft Is Not The Shore. If We Cling To The Raft, If We Cling To The Finger, We Miss Everything. We Cannot, In The Name Of The Finger Or The Raft Kill Each Other. Human Life Is More Precious Than Any Ideology, Any Doctrine.

The Situation The Earth Is In Today Has Been Created By Unmindful Production And Unmindful Consumption. We Consume To Forget Our Worries And Our Anxieties. Tranquilising Ourselves With Over-consumption Is Not The Way.

The Heart Of The Matter Is Always Our Oneness With Divine Spirit, Our Union With All Life.

Inside Every One Of Us Is A Garden, And Every Practitioner Has To Go Back To Their Garden And Take Care Of It. Maybe In The Past, You Left In Untended For A Long Time. You Should Know Exactly What Is Going On In Your Own Garden, And Try To Put Everything In Order. Restore The Beauty; Restore The Harmony In Your Garden. If It Is Well Tended, Many People Will Enjoy Your Garden.

With Understanding, Those We Love Will Certainly Flower.

Mindfulness Practices Enhance The Connection Between Our Body, Our Mind And Everything Else That Is Around Us. Mindful Living Is The Key To Understanding Our Struggles With Weight And To Empowering Us To Control Our Weight.

Loneliness Cannot Be Alleviated Just By The Coming Together Of Two Bodies, Unless There Is Also Good Communication, Understanding, And Loving Kindness.

Our Walking Is Not A Means To An End. We Walk For The Sake Of Walking.

If We Practice Mindfulness, We Always Have A Place To Be When We Are Afraid.

I Do Many Kinds Of Work, And If You Forbid Me From Binding Books, From Gardening, From Writing Poetry, From Practicing Walking Meditation, From Teaching Children, I Will Be Very Unhappy. To Me, Work Is Pleasant. Pleasant Or Unpleaseant Depends On Our Way Of Looking.

If You Find Yourself In Some Difficulty, Step Aside, And Allow Buddha To Take Your Place. The Buddha Is In You.

Finding Yourself

Anger And Hatred Are The Materials From Which Hell Is Made.

Sometimes You Have A Flash Of Insight, But It's Not Strong Enough To Survive. Therefore In The Practice Of Buddhism, Samadhi Is The Power To Maintain Insight Alive In Every Moment, So That Every Speech, Every Word, Every Act Will Bear The Nature Of That Insight. It Is A Question Of Cleaning. And You Clean Better If You Are Surrounded By Those Who Are Practicing Exactly The Same.

Loving Ourselves Means Loving Our Community. When We Are Capable Of Loving Ourselves, Nourishing Ourselves Properly, Not Intoxicating Ourselves, We Are Already Protecting And Nourishing Society.

Listening Is A Very Deep Practice. You Have To Empty Yourself. You Have To Leave Space In Order To Listen Especially To People We Think Are Our Enemies - The Ones We Believe Are Making Our Situation Worse. When You Have Shown Your Capacity For Listening And Understanding, The Other Person Will Begin To Listen To You, And You Have A Change To Tell Him Or Her Of Your Pain, And It's Your Turn To Be Healed. This Is The Practice Of Peace.

Each Minute We Spend Worrying About The Future And Regretting The Past Is A Minute We Miss In Our Appointment With Life - A Missed Opportunity To Engage Life And To See That Each Moment Gives Us The Chance To Change For The Better, To Experience Peace And Joy.

In Order To Heal Others, We First Need To Heal Ourselves. And To Heal Ourselves, We Need To Know How To Deal With Ourselves.

As Long As We Think Our Lives Are Not Good Enough (materially), We Will Not Have Happiness. As Soon As We Realize Our Lives Are Good Enough, Happiness Immediately Appears. That Is The Practice Of Contentment.

It's Like A Mother, When The Baby Is Crying, She Picks Up The Baby And She Holds The Baby Tenderly In Her Arms. Your Pain, Your Anxiety Is Your Baby. You Have To Take Care Of It. You Have To Go Back To Yourself, To Recognize The Suffering In You, Embrace The Suffering, And You Get A Relief.

Only Your Compassion And Your Loving Kindness Are Invincible, And Without Limit.

In Buddhist Culture, Offering Food To The Monk Symbolizes The Action Of Goodness, And If You Have No Opportunity To Support The Practice Of Spirituality, Then You Are Somehow Left In The Realm Of Darkness.

When You Hold A Child In Your Arms, Or Hug Your Mother, Or Your Husband, Or Your Friend, If You Breathe In And Out Three Times, Your Happiness Will Be Multiplied At Least Tenfold.

Do Not Say That I'll Depart Tomorrow Because Even Today I Still Arrive.

Peace Is Every Step

You Must Be Completely Awake In The Present To Enjoy The Tea.

You Can Use Your Life In A Very Useful And Intelligent Way. You Can Very Well Transform That Negative Energy Into A Positive Energy That Empowers You And Makes Life Meaningful.

Your Presence Is A Miracle.

By Listening With Calm And Understanding, We Can Ease The Suffering Of Another Person.

The Wave Does Not Need To Die To Become Water. She Is Already Water.

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?

The Purpose Of A Vacation Is To Have The Time To Rest. But Many Of Us, Even When We Go On Vacation, Don't Know How To Rest. We May Even Come Back More Tired Than Before We Left.

Around Us, Life Bursts With Miracles, A Glass Of Water, A Ray Of Sunshine, A Leaf, A Caterpillar, A Flower, Laughter, Raindrops.

Happiness Is Available. Please Help Yourself To It.

If We Are Not Peaceful, If We Are Not Feeling Well In Our Skin, We Cannot Demonstrate Real Peace, And We Cannot Raise Our Children Well Either.

There Is A Paradise Of Form And Colors In The World. And Because You Have Eyes Still In Good Condition, You Can Get In Touch With The Paradise. So When I Become Aware Of My Eyes, I Touch One Of The Conditions Of Happiness. And When I Touch It, Happiness Comes.

Nothing Is More Precious Than Being In The Present Moment. Fully Alive, Fully Aware.

Do Not Avoid Contact With Suffering Or Close Your Eyes Before Suffering. Do Not Lose Awareness Of The Existence Of Suffering In The Life Of The World. Find Ways To Be With Those Who Are Suffering By All Means, Including Personal Contact And Visits, Images, Sounds. By Such Means, Awaken Yourself And Others To The Reality Of Suffering In The World.

Breathing In, I Know I Am Breathing In. Breathing Out, I Know I Am Breathing Out.

The Healing Of Ourselves Is The Healing Of The Whole Nation. Society Is Only A Manifestation Of Our Collective Consciousness And Our Collective Consciousness Has A Lot Of Fear, Violence And Hatred In It. ... It Is Possible To Transform Our Heart...not Much Time Is Needed...(the Transformation Can Be Born) The Moment You Vow To Go In The Direction Of Peace And Service.

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

People Usually Consider Walking On Water Or In Thin Air A Miracle. But I Think The Real Miracle Is Not To Walk Either On Water Or In Thin Air, But To Walk On Earth. Every Day We Are Engaged In A Miracle Which We Don't Even Recognize: A Blue Sky, White Clouds, Green Leaves, The Black, Curious Eyes Of A Child -- Our Own Two Eyes. All Is A Miracle.

We Need Enlightenment, Not Just Individually But Collectively, To Save The Planet. We Need To Awaken Ourselves. We Need To Practice Mindfulness If We Want To Have A Future, If We Want To Save Ourselves And The Planet.

When We Come Into Contact With The Other Person, Our Thoughts And Actions Should Express Our Mind Of Compassion, Even If That Person Says And Does Things That Are Not Easy To Accept. We Practice In This Way Until We See Clearly That Our Love Is Not Contingent Upon The Other Person Being Lovable.

To Think In Terms Of Either Pessimism Or Optimism Oversimplifies The Truth. The Problem Is To See Reality As It Is.

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