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Beneath The Sophistication Of Buddhist Psychology Lies The Simplicity Of Compassion. We Can Touch Into This Compassion Whenever The Mind Is Quiet, Whenever We Allow The Heart To Open.

-Jack Kornfield

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Beneath The Sophistication Of

Jack Kornfield

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Beneath The Sophistication Of Buddhist Psychology Lies The Simplicity Of Compassion. We Can Touch Into This Compassion Whenever The Mind Is Quiet, Whenever We Allow The Heart To Open.

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When We Feel Anger Toward Someone, We Can Consider That They Are A Being Just Like Us, Who Has Faced Much Suffering In Life.

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In The West, There's A Myth That Freedom Means Free Expression-that To Follow All Desires Wherever They Take One Is True Freedom. In Fact, As One Serves The Mind, One Sees That Following Desires, Attractions, And Repulsions Is Not At All Freedom, But Is A Kind Of Bondage. A Mind Filled With Desires And Grasping Inevitably Entails Great Suffering. Freedom Is Not To Be Gained Through The Ability To Perform Certain External Actions. True Freedom Is An Inward State Of Being. Once It Is Attained, No Situation In The World Can Bind One Or Limit One's Freedom.

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In Buddhist Practice, The Outward And Inward Aspects Of Taking The One Seat Meet On Our Meditation Cushion.

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But Forgiveness Is The Act Of Not Putting Anyone Out Of Your Heart, Even Those Who Are Acting Out Of Deep Ignorance Or Out Of Confusion And Pain.

When We Come Into The Present, We Begin To Feel The Life Around Us Again, But We Also Encounter Whatever We Have Been Avoiding. We Must Have The Courage To Face Whatever Is Present - Our Pain, Our Desires, Our Grief, Our Loss, Our Secret Hopes Our Love - Everything That Moves Us Most Deeply.

True Emptiness Is Not Empty, But Contains All Things. The Mysterious And Pregnant Void Creates And Reflects All Possibilities. From It Arises Our Individuality, Which Can Be Discovered And Developed, Although Never Possessed Or Fixed.

Life Is So Hard, How Can We Be Anything But Kind?

What Is Truly A Part Of Our Spiritual Path Is That Which Brings Us Alive. If Gardening Brings Us Alive, That Is Part Of Our Path, If It Is Music, If It Is Conversation...we Must Follow What Brings Us Alive.

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The Work Of Your Heart, The Work Of Taking Time, To Listen, To Help, Is Also Your Gift To The Whole Of The World

Use Whatever Has Come To Awaken Patience, Understanding, And Love.

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Attention To The Human Body Brings Healing And Regeneration. Through Awareness Of The Body We Remember Who We Really Are.

Even The Most Exalted States And The Most Exceptional Spiritual Accomplishments Are Unimportant If We Cannot Be Happy In The Most Basic And Ordinary Ways, If We Cannot Touch One Another And The Life We Have Been Given With Our Hearts.

True Love Is Not For The Faint-hearted.

You Hold In Your Hand An Invitation: To Remember The Transforming Power Of Forgiveness And Loving Kindness. To Remember That No Matter Where You Are And What You Face, Within Your Heart Peace Is Possible.

There Are Several Different Kinds Of Painful Feelings That We Might Experience, And Learning To Distinguish And Relate To These Feelings Of Discomfort Or Pain Is An Important Part Of Meditation Practice, Because It Is One Of The Very First Things That We Open To As Our Practice Develops.

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Taking The One Seat Describes Two Related Aspects Of Spiritual Work. Outwardly, It Means Selecting One Practice And Teacher Among All The Possibilities, And Inwardly, It Means Having The Determination To Stick With That Practice Through Whatever Difficulties And Doubts Arise Until You Have Come To True Clarity And Understanding.

In This There Is No Judgment And No Blame, For We Seek Not To Perfect The World But To Perfect Our Love For What Is On This Earth.

In A Society That Almost Demands Life At Double Time, Speed And Addictions Numb Us To Our Own Experience. In Such A Society, It Is Almost Impossible To Settle Into Our Bodies Or Stay Connected With Our Hearts, Let Alone Connect With One Another Or The Earth Where We Live.

Equanimity Arises When We Accept The Way Things Are.

In Deep Self-acceptance Grows A Compassionate Understanding. As One Zen Master Said When I Asked If He Ever Gets Angry, 'of Course I Get Angry, But Then A Few Minutes Later I Say To Myself, 'what's The Use Of This,' And I Let It Go.'

For Most Of Us, Generosity Is A Quality That Must Be Developed. We Have To Respect That It Will Grow Gradually; Otherwise Our Spirituality Can Become Idealistic And Imitative, Acting Out The Image Of Generosity Before It Has Become Genuine.

In Opening We Can See How Many Times We Have Mistaken Small Identities And Fearful Beliefs For Our True Nature And How Limiting This Is. We Can Touch With Great Compassion The Pain From The Contracted Identities That We And Others Have Created In The World.

We Don't Know All The Reasons That Propel Us On A Spiritual Journey, But Somehow Our Life Compels Us To Go.

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Whenever We Forgive, In Small Ways At Home, Or In Great Ways Between Nations, We Free Ourselves From The Past.

You Awaken Your True Spirit By Way Of The Broken Heart: Ragged, Vulnerable, Fierce And Finally Compassionate. Chris Trod This Rough Way And Shows Honestly How It Can Be Done.

Beneath The Sophistication Of Buddhist Psychology Lies The Simplicity Of Compassion. We Can Touch Into This Compassion Whenever The Mind Is Quiet, Whenever We Allow The Heart To Open.

The Aim Of Spiritual Life Is To Awaken A Joyful Freedom, A Benevolent And Compassionate Heart In Spite Of Everything.

Those Who Are Awake Live In A State Of Constant Amazement.

The Things That Matter Most In Our Lives Are Not Fantastic Or Grand. They Are The Moments When We Touch One Another.

Through Practice, Gently And Gradually We Can Collect Ourselves And Learn How To Be More Fully With What We Do.

No Amount Of Outer Technology, No Amount Of Computers And Biotechnology And Nanotechnology Is Going To Stop The Continuation Of Warfare And Racism And Environmental Destruction. What's Called For On The Earth At This Time Is Really A Change Of Heart ... The Question Is Really Not The Future Of Humanity, But The Presence Of Eternity.

We Need A Repeated Discipline, A Genuine Training, In Order To Let Go Of Our Old Habits Of Mind And To Find And Sustain A New Way Of Seeing.

Without Being Aware Of It, You Take Many Things As Being Your Identity: Your Body, Your Race, Your Beliefs, Your Thoughts.

We Can Bring Our Spiritual Practice Into The Streets, Into Our Communities, When We See Each Realm As A Temple, As A Place To Discover That Which Is Sacred.

You Have To Accept The Way Things Are Before You Can Move On.

The Near Enemy Of Love Is Attachment. Attachment Masquerades As Love. It Says, “i Will Love This Person Because I Need Them.” Or, “i’ll Love You If You’ll Love Me Back. I’ll Love You, But Only If You Will Be The Way I Want.” This Isn’t Love At All - It Is Attachment - And Attachment Is Rigid, It Is Very Different From Love.

Whatever We Cultivate In Times Of Ease, We Gather As Strength For Times Of Change.

If You Can Sit Quietly After Difficult News; If In Financial Downturns You Remain Perfectly Calm; If You Can See Your Neighbors Travel To Fantastic Places Without A Twinge Of Jealousy; If You Can Happily Eat Whatever Is Put On Your Plate; You Can Fall Asleep After A Day Of Running Around Without A Drink Or A Pill; If You Can Always Find Contentment Just Where You Are: You Are Probably A Dog.

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Passing Moments

The First Level Of Practice Is Illuminated By The Qualities Of Courage And Renunciation.

In Sitting On The Meditation Cushion And Assuming The Meditation Posture, We Connect Ourselves With The Present Moment In This Body And On This Earth.

Yet I Knew That Spiritual Practice Is Impossible Without Great Dedication, Energy, And Commitment.

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We Are Awakened To The Profound Realization That The True Path To Liberation Is To Let Go Of Everything.

We Need A Warrior’s Heart That Lets Us Face Our Lives Directly, Our Pains And Limitations, Our Joys And Possibilities.

As We Step Out Of The Way New Things Are Born.

Our Ideas Of Self Are Created By Identification. The Less We Cling To Ideas Of Self, The Freer And Happier We Will Be.

To Let Go Does Not Mean To Get Rid Of. To Let Go Means To Let Be. When We Let Be With Compassion, Things Come And Go On Their Own.

Gratitude Is Confidence In Life Itself. In It, We Feel How The Same Force That Pushes Grass Through Cracks In The Sidewalk Invigorates Our Own Life.

Even Socrates, Who Lived A Very Frugal And Simple Life, Loved To Go To The Market. When His Students Asked About This, He Replied, "i Love To Go And See All The Things I Am Happy Without.

Wherever You Are Is The Perfect Place To Awaken. This Moment Is The Exact Place To Practice Compassion And Loving Awareness. You Have All The Ingredients To Breathe And Find Freedom Just Where You Are.

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Though Outer Events May Be Difficult, The Key To Our Happiness Is How Our Mind Responds To Them.

We Must Especially Learn The Art Of Directing Mindfulness Into The Closed Areas Of Our Life.

We Each Have Been Betrayed. Let Yourself Picture And Remember The Many Ways This Is True. Feel The Sorrow You Have Carried From This Past. Now Sense That You Can Release This Burden Of Pain By Gradually Extending Forgiveness As Your Heart Is Ready.

With Growing Awareness, You Can See Where You're Caught Or Where You Suffer Or Where You Create Suffering. You Can Then Turn Toward The Difficulties That Arise In Your Life With Compassion, Bow, And Say, These Too Are Part Of Human Incarnation.

In This World There Are Two Great Sources Of Strength. One Rests With Those Who Are Not Afraid To Kill. The Other Rests With Those Who Are Not Afraid To Love.

In Spiritual Life There Is No Room For Compromise. Awakening Is Not Negotiable; We Cannot Bargain To Hold On To Things That Please Us While Relinquishing Things That Do Not Matter To Us. A Lukewarm Yearning For Awakening Is Not Enough To Sustain Us Through The Difficulties Involved In Letting Go. It Is Important To Understand That Anything That Can Be Lost Was Never Truly Ours, Anything That We Deeply Cling To Only Imprisons Us.

We Need To Learn How To Honor And Use A Practice For As Long As It Serves Us—which In Most Cases Is A Very Long Time—but To Look At It As Just That, A Vehicle, A Raft To Help Us Cross Through The Waters Of Doubt, Confusion, Desire, And Fear.

According To Buddhist Scriptures, Compassion Is The "quivering Of The Pure Heart" When We Have Allowed Ourselves To Be Touched By The Pain Of Life.

Letting Go Does Not Mean Not Caring About Things. It Means Caring About Them In A Flexible And Wise Way.

The Words Of The Buddha Offer This Truth: ∼ Hatred Never Ceases By Hatred But By Love Alone Is Healed.

What We Seek Is What We Are.

It Only Take A Few Minutes Of Meditation To Directly Realize We Are A River Of Sensations, Feelings, Thoughts, Perceptions. How Can We Navigate This Evanescent River Of Life Wisely? With Mindful Awareness And Love It Becomes Clear. You Can Fight Against The River Of Change, Or Use Its Wisdom To Teach You How To Graciously Move And Create And Flow With The Full Measure Of Joy And Sorrow, Gain And Loss, Praise And Blame That Make Up Every Human Incarnation.

Forgiveness Sees Wisely. It Willingly Acknowledges What Is Unjust, Harmful, And Wrong. It Bravely Recognizes Sufferings Of The Past, And Understands The Conditions That Brought Them About.forgiveness Honors The Heart's Greatest Dignity. Whenever We Are Lost, It Brings Us Back To The Ground Of Love.without Forgiveness Our Lives Are Chained, Forced To Carry The Sufferings Of The Past And Repeat Them With No Release.

Breathing Meditation Can Quiet The Mind, Open The Body, And Develop A Great Power Of Concentration.

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It Is Our Commitment To Wholeness That Matters, The Willingness To Unfold In Every Deep Aspect Of Our Being.

In The End, Forgiveness Simply Means Never Putting Another Person Out Of Our Heart.

The Basic Principle Of Spiritual Life Is That Our Problems Become The Very Place To Discover Wisdom And Love.

Every Individual Has A Unique Contribution.

The Awakened Heart And Mind Can Be Experienced As Clarity Itself, Pure Knowing.

We Have Only Now, Only This Single Eternal Moment Opening And Unfolding Before Us, Day And Night.

Without Integrity And Conscience We Lose Our Freedom.

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We Can Step Out Of Our Small Sense Of Self And Awaken To This Reality. One Of The Reasons People Get Confused About Freedom, Enlightenment, And Liberation Is Because This Awakened Consciousness Has Different Facets Or Different Dimensions, A Bit Like A Crystal. If You Hold This Luminous Crystal Up To The Light And Turn It, It Will Take A Beam Of White Light And Refract It Into The Many Colors Of The Spectrum.

Most People Discover That When Hate Is Gone, They Will Be Forced To Deal With Their Own Pain.

Finding A Way To Extend Forgiveness To Ourselves Is One Of Our Most Essential Tasks. Just As Others Have Been Caught In Suffering, So Have We. If We Look Honestly At Our Life, We Can See The Sorrows And Pain That Have Led To Our Own Wrongdoing. In This We Can Finally Extend Forgiveness To Ourselves; We Can Hold The Pain We Have Caused In Compassion. Without Such Mercy, We Will Live Our Own Life In Exile.

The Way I Treat My Body Is Not Disconnected From The Way I Treat My Family Or The Commitment I Have To Peace On Our Earth.

Train Your Mind The Same Way You’d Train A Puppy: Be Patient, Be Consistent, And Have Some Fun Along The Way.

Indifference Pretends To Create Peace, But It Is Based On Not Caring, A Silent Resignation. It Is A Movement Away, A Separation Fed By A Subtle Fear Of The Heart. We Pull Back, Believing That What Happens To Others Is Not Our Concern. Our Courage Leaves Us. Indifference Is A Misguided Way Of Defending Ourselves.

All Of Spiritual Practice Is A Matter Of Relationship: To Ourselves, To Others, To Life's Situations.

Know That The Freedom You Seek Can Be Found Right Here Where You Are.

May You Know The Beauty Of Your Own True Nature.

To Live Life Is To Make A Succession Of Errors. Understanding This Can Bring Us Great Ease And Forgiveness For Ourselves And Others.

In The End, Just Three Things Matter: How Well We Have Lived How Well We Have Loved How Well We Have Learned To Let Go

Samadhi Doesn’t Just Come Of Itself; It Takes Practice.

The Knowledge Of The Past Stays With Us. To Let Go Is To Release The Images And Emotions, The Grudges And Fears, The Clingings And Disappointments Of The Past That Bind Our Spirit.

Great Spiritual Traditions Are Used As A Means To Ripen Us, To Bring Us Face To Face With Our Life, And To Help Us To See In A New Way By Developing A Stillness Of Mind And A Strength Of Heart.

As Long As You Are Trying To Be Something Other Than What You Actually Are, Your Mind Wears Itself Out. But If You Say, 'this Is What I Am, It Is A Fact That I Am Going To Investigate And Understand,' Then You Can Go Beyond.

The Trouble Is That You Think You Have Time.

Procrastination

The Willingness To Empty Ourselves And Then Seek Our True Nature Is An Expression Of Great And Courageous Love.

What Brings The Karmic Result From The Patterns Of Our Actions Is Not Our Action Alone. As We Intend And Then Act, We Create [our] Karma: So Another Key To Understanding The Creation Of Karma Is Becoming Aware Of Intention. The Heart Is Our Garden, And Along With Each Action There Is An Intention That Is Planted Like A Seed. The Result Of The Patterns Of Our Karma Is The Fruit Of These Seeds.

Spiritual Life Doesn't Make You A Good Person; You Are A Good Person, You Are A Holy Being When You Are Born. What Spiritual Life Does Is Remind Us That This Is Who We Really Are.

There Is No Higher Happiness Than Peace.

When The Stories Of Our Life No Longer Bind Us, We Discover Within Them Something Greater. We Discover That Within The Very Limitations Of Form, Of Our Maleness And Femaleness, Of Our Parenthood And Our Childhood, Of Gravity On The Earth And The Changing Of The Seasons, Is The Freedom And Harmony We Have Sought For So Long. Our Individual Life Is An Expression Of The Whole Mystery, And In It We Can Rest In The Center Of The Movement, The Center Of All Worlds.

One Of The Essential Tasks For Living A Wise Life Is Letting Go. Letting Go Is The Path To Freedom. It Is Only By Letting Go Of The Hopes, The Fears, The Pain, The Past, The Stories That Have A Hold On Us That We Can Quiet Our Mind And Open Our Heart.

Buddhist Teachings Are Not A Religion, They Are A Science Of Mind.

Forgiveness Is Primarily For Our Own Sake, So That We No Longer Carry The Burden Of Resentment. But To Forgive Does Not Mean We Will Allow Injustice Again.

Religion And Philosophy Have Their Value, But In The End All We Can Do Is Open To Mystery And Live A Path With Heart

In Any Moment We Can Learn To Let Go Of Hatred And Fear. We Can Rest In Peace, Love, And Forgiveness. It Is Never Too Late. Yet To Sustain Love We Need To Develop Practices That Cultivate And Strengthen The Natural Compassion Within Us.

The Independence And Rebelliousness Of Our Adolescence Offer Us Yet Another Quality Essential To Our Practice; The Insistence That We Find Out The Truth For Ourselves, Accepting No One's Word Above Our Own Experience.

We Each Need To Make Our Lion's Roar - To Persevere With Unshakable Courage When Faced With All Manner Of Doubts And Sorrows And Fears - To Declare Our Right To Awaken.

No Matter What Situation We Find Ourselves In, We Can Always Set Our Compass To Our Highest Intentions In The Present Moment

Whatever Your Difficulties - A Devastated Heart, Financial Loss, Feeling Assaulted By The Conflicts Around You, Or A Seemingly Hopeless Illness - You Can Always Remember That You Are Free In Every Moment To Set The Compass Of Your Heart To Your Highest Intentions. In Fact, The Two Things That You Are Always Free To Do - Despite Your Circumstances - Are To Be Present And To Be Willing To Love.

There Are No Holy Places And No Holy People, Only Holy Moments, Only Moments Of Wisdom.

The Quieting Of Our Mind Is A Political Act.

When We Take The One Seat On Our Meditation Cushion We Become Our Own Monastery. We Create The Compassionate Space That Allows For The Arising Of All Things: Sorrows, Loneliness, Shame, Desire, Regret, Frustration, Happiness.

When You Rest In Presence And Pure Awareness, Sometimes Everything Is Experienced As Love Because You're Connected With All That Is, And Love Is Simply The Nature Of Being.

Meditation Is A Vehicle For Opening To The Truth Of This Impermanence On Deeper And Deeper Levels.

The Unawakened Mind Tends To Make War Against The Way Things Are.

We Can Easily Become Loyal To Our Suffering … But It's Not The End Of The Path.

Your Happiness And Suffering Depend On Your Actions And Not On My Wishes For You.

Compassion Arises Naturally As The Quivering Of The Heart In The Face Of Pain, Ours And Another's. True Compassion Is Not Limited By The Separateness Of Pity, Nor By The Fear Of Being Overwhelmed. When We Come To Rest In The Great Heart Of Compassion, We Discover A Capacity To Bear Witness To, Suffer With, And Hold Dear With Our Own Vulnerable Heart The Sorrows And Beauties Of The World.

Peace Requires Us To Surrender Our Illusions Of Control. We Can Love And Care For Others But We Cannot Possess Our Children, Lovers, Family, Or Friends. We Can Assist Them, Pray For Them, And Wish Them Well, Yet In The End Their Happiness And Suffering Depend On Their Thoughts And Actions, Not On Our Wishes.

We As Human Beings Have The Amazing Capacity To Be Reborn At Breakfast Everyday And Say, “this Is A New Day.”

Two Qualities Are At The Root Of All Meditation Development: Right Effort And Right Aim—arousing Effort To Aim The Mind Toward The Object.

Life Without Forgiveness Is Unbearable.

The Longing For Initiation Is Universal And For Modern Youth, It Is A Desperate Need. When Nothing Is Offered In The Way Of Spiritual Initiation To Prove One's Entry Into The World Of Men And Women, Initiation Happens Instead In The Road Or The Street, In Cars At High Speed, With Drugs, With Dangerous Sex, With Weapons. However Troubling, This Behavior Is Rooted In A Fundamental Truth; A Need To Grow.

Some Other People Think That Awakened Consciousness Is Really About Fullness Or Presence, Being Completely Present For Every Moment, But These Experiences Are Only One Of The Dimensions Of Awakened Consciousness. Understanding These Different Dimensions As Facets Of Awakening Can Help With The Confusion Surrounding The Different Spiritual Paths. They're Not Leading To Different Places, But Rather Reflect The Luminous And Liberated Aspects Of Consciousness Itself. These Qualities Are Not Far Away; In Fact, They Are Right Here.

When Our Identity Expands To Include Everything, We Find A Peace With The Dance Of The World. The Ocean Of Life Rises And Falls Within Us - Birth And Death, Joy And Pain, It Is All Ours, And Our Heart Is Full And Empty, Large Enough To Embrace It All.

To Undertake A Genuine Spiritual Path Is Not To Avoid Difficulties But To Learn The Art Of Making Mistakes Wakefully, To Bring Them To The Transformative Power Of Our Heart.

As We Willingly Enter Each Place Of Fear, Each Place Of Deficiency And Insecurity In Ourselves, We Will Discover That Its Walls Are Made Of Untruths, Of Old Images Of Ourselves, Of Ancient Fears, Of False Ideas Of What Is Pure And What Is Not.

You Need A Community. They Remind You When You Forget, And You Remind Them When They Forget.

This Life Is A Test-it Is Only A Test. If It Had Been An Actual Life, You Would Have Received Further Instructions On Where To Go And What To Do. Remember, This Life Is Only A Test.

Within The Mystery Of Life There Is The Infinite Darkness Of The Night Sky Lit By Distant Orbs Of Fire, The Cobbled Skin Of An Orange That Releases Its Fragrance To Our Touch, The Unfathomable Depths Of The Eyes Of Our Lover. No Creation Story, No Religious System Can Fully Describe Or Explain This Richness And Depth. Mystery Is So Every-present That No One Can Know For Certain What Will Happen One Hour From Now. “ It Does Not Matter Whether You Have Religion Or Are An Agnostic Believe In Nothing, You Can Only Appreciate (without Knowing Or Understanding) The Mysteries Of Life.

Each Moment Of Every Day Is New And Then It Vanishes. Where Is That Day? Where Is That Moment?

A Factor That Greatly Supports The Opening Of Energy In Practice Is Exercise And Care Of The Physical Body.

Refraining From False Speech: Speech From The Heart. Undertake For One Week Not To Gossip (positively Or Negatively) Or Speak About Anyone You Know Who Is Not Present With You (any Third Party).

Whatever You Believe Cosmologically, We All Know The Tears Of The World. We Each Carry A Certain Measure Of Those Tears In Our Hearts.

Within Each Of Us There Is A Silence As Vast As The Universe. We Long For It. We Can Return To It.

The Best Of Modern Therapy Is Much Like A Process Of Shared Meditation, Where Therapist And Client Sit Together, Learning To Pay Close Attention To Those Aspects And Dimensions Of The Self That The Client May Be Unable To Touch On His Or Her Own.

It Is The Basic Principle Of Spiritual Life That We Learn The Deepest Things In Unknown Territory. Often It Is When We Feel Most Confused Inwardly And Are In The Midst Of Our Greatest Difficulties That Something New Will Open. We Awaken Most Easily To The Mystery Of Life Through Our Weakest Side. The Areas Of Our Greatest Strength, Where We Are The Most Competent And Clearest, Tend To Keep Us Away From The Mystery.

The Questions Asked At The End Of Lie Are Very Simple Ones: Did I Love Well? Did I Love The People Around Me, My Community, The Earth, In A Deep Way? And Perhaps, Did I Live Fully? Did I Offer Myself To Life?

What Would We Have To Hold In Compassion To Be At Peace Right Now? What Would We Have To Let Go Of To Be At Peace Right Now?

Embodied Courage Chooses Not To Wait Until Illness Or Notice Of Death Demands Attention.

To Live In This Precious Animal Body On This Earth Is As Great A Part Of Spiritual Life As Anything Else.

We Need Courage And Strength, A Kind Of Warrior Spirit. But The Place For This Warrior Strength Is In The Heart. We Need Energy, Commitment, And Courage Not To Run From Our Life Nor To Cover It Over With Any Philosophy-mate Rial Or Spiritual. We Need A Warrior’s Heart That Lets Us Face Our Lives Directly, Our Pains And Limitations, Our Joys And Possibilities.

When We Let Go Of Yearning For The Future, Preoccupation With The Past, And Strategies To Protect The Present, There Is Nowhere Left To Go But Where We Are. To Connect With The Present Moment Is To Begin To Appreciate The Beauty Of True Simplicity.

Only In The Reality Of The Present Can We Love, Can We Awaken, Can We Find Peace And Understanding And Connection With Ourselves And The World.

Compassion Is Our Deepest Nature. It Arises From Our Interconnection With All Things.

Interconnection

It's Much Better To Become A Buddha Than A Buddhist.

If You Put A Spoonful Of Salt In A Cup Of Water It Tastes Very Salty. If You Put A Spoonful Of Salt In A Lake Of Fresh Water The Taste Is Still Pure And Clear. Peace Comes When Our Hearts Are Open Like The Sky, Vast As The Ocean.

When Attachment Arises In The Place Of Love, It Sees The Other As Separate; It Grasps And Needs. Attachment Is Conditional; It Seeks Control And It Fear Loss. Ask Your Heart If Attachment Has Replaced Love. If We Speak To Our Heart, It Will Always Tell Us The Truth.

Knowledge And Achievements Matter Little If We Do Not Yet Know How To Touch The Heart Of Another And Be Touched.

Letting Go Is Not The Same As Aversion, Struggling To Get Rid Of Something. We Cannot Genuinely Let Go Of What We Resist. What We Resist And Fear Secretly Follows Us Even As We Push It Away. To Let Go Of Fear Or Trauma, We Need To Acknowledge Just How It Is. We Need To Feel It Fully And Accept That It Is So. It Is As It Is. Letting Go Begins With Letting Be.

To Become Mindful … Present … Is Really The Invitation To Work With The Joys And The Sorrows Of The World, And To Do So With This Gift, This Capacity Of Loving Awareness, Of Attention That Actually Can Be Present For The Whole Dance.

The Focusing Of Attention On The Breath Is Perhaps The Most Universal Of The Many Hundreds Of Meditation Subjects Used Worldwide.

The Heart Is Like A Garden. It Can Grow Compassion Or Fear, Resentment Or Love. What Seeds Will You Plant There?

There Are Many Good Forms Of Meditation Practice. A Good Meditation Practice Is Any One That Develops Awareness Or Mindfulness Of Our Body And Our Sense, Of Our Mind And Heart.

Meditation Practice

Part Of Spiritual And Emotional Maturity Is Recognizing That It's Not Like You're Going To Try To Fix Yourself And Become A Different Person. You Remain The Same Person, But You Become Awakened.

A Second Quality Of Mature Sirituality Is Kindness. It Is Based On A Fundamental Notion Of Self-acceptance.

Ours Is A Society Of Denial That Conditions Us To Protect Ourselves From Any Direct Difficulty And Discomfort. We Expend Enormous Energy Denying Our Insecurity, Fighting Pain, Death And Loss And Hiding From The Basic Truths Of The Natural World And Of Our Own Nature.

Look At Every Path Closely And Deliberately. Try It As Many Times As You Think Necessary. Then Ask Yourself And Yourself Alone One Question. This Question Is One That Only A Very Old Man Asks. My Benefactor Told Me About It Once When I Was Young. And My Blood Was Too Vigorous For Me To Understand It. Now I Do Understand It. I Will Tell You What It Is: Does This Path Have A Heart? If It Does, The Path Is Good. If It Doesn't, It Is Of No Use.

As We Follow A Genuine Path Of Practice, Our Sufferings May Seem To Increase Because We No Longer Hide From Them Or From Ourselves. When We Do Not Follow The Old Habits Of Fantasy And Escape, We Are Left Facing The Actual Problems And Contradictions Of Our Life.

We Can Always Begin Again.

Do Not Doubt Your Own Basic Goodness. In Spite Of All Confusion And Fear, You Are Born With A Heart That Knows What Is Just, Loving, And Beautiful.

The Only Way To Live Is By Accepting Each Minute As An Unrepeatable Miracle.

Every Individual In The World Has A Unique Contribution.

Live In Joy, Luminosity, And Peace Even Among The Troubles Of The World. Remember Who You Are.

Remember Who You Are

...spiritual Opening Is Not A Withdrawal To Some Imagined Realm Or Safe Cave. It Is Not A Pulling Away, But A Touching Of All The Experience Of Life With Wisdom And With A Heart Of Kindness, Without Any Separation.

Every Facet, Every Department Of Your Mind, Is To Be Programmed By You. And Unless You Assume Your Rightful Responsibility, And Begin To Program Your Own Mind, The World Will Program It For You.

The Wholeness And Freedom We Seek Is Our True Nature, Who We Really Are.

How Did We Get Into This Funny-looking Body That Has A Hole At One End In Which We Regularly Stuff Dead Plants And Animals? It's Bizarre That We Got Here, Incarnated Into This World With These Bodies.

Refraining From Stealing: Care With Material Goods. Undertake For One Week To Act On Every Single Thought Of Generosity That Arises Spontaneously In Your Heart.

One Day Mara, The Buddhist God Of Ignorance And Evil, Was Traveling Through The Villages Of India With His Attendants. He Saw A Man Doing Walking Meditation Whose Face Was Lit Up In Wonder. The Man Had Just Discovered Something On The Ground In Front Of Him. Mara's Attendants Asked What That Was And Mara Replied, "a Piece Of Truth." "doesn't This Bother You When Someone Finds A Piece Of The Truth, O Evil One?" His Attendants Asked. "no," Mara Replied. "right After This They Usually Make A Belief Out Of It."

With Mindfulness, We Are Learning To Observe In A New Way, With Balance And A Powerful Disidentification.

The Path Of Awakening Begins With A Step The Buddha Called Right Understanding.

It Is Hard To Imagine A World Without Forgiveness. Without Forgiveness Life Would Be Unbearable. Without Forgiveness Our Lives Are Chained, Forced To Carry The Sufferings Of The Past And Repeat Them With No Release.

If Grief Or Anger Arises, Let There Be Grief Or Anger. This Is The Buddha In All Forms,sun Buddha, Moon Buddha, Happy Buddha, Sad Buddha. It Is The Universe Offering All Things To Awaken And Open Our Heart.

Even Time Is A Concept. In Reality We Are Always In The Eternal Present. The Past Is Just A Memory, The Future Just An Image Or Thought. All Our Stories About Past And Future Are Only Ideas, Arising In The Moment. Our Modern Culture Is So Tyrannized By Goals, Plans, And Improvement Schemes That We Constantly Live For The Future. But As Aldous Huxley Reminded Us In His Writings, "an Idolatrous Religion Is One In Which Time Is Substituted For Eternity...the Idea Of Endless Progress Is The Devil's Work, Even Today Demanding Human Sacrifice On An Enormous Scale.

When Repeated Difficulties Do Arise, Our First Spiritual Approach Is To Acknowledge What Is Present, Naming, Softly Saying 'sadness, Sadness', Or 'remembering, Remembering', Or Whatever.

We Need Energy, Commitment, And Courage Not To Run From Our Life Nor To Cover It Over With Any Philosophy—material Or Spiritual.

Weigh The True Advantages Of Forgiveness And Resentment To The Heart. Then Choose.

The Person Who Betrayed You Is Sunning Themselves On A Beach In Hawaii And You're Knotted Up In Hatred. Who Is Suffering?

No Amount Of Meditation, Yoga, Diet, And Reflection Will Make All Of Our Problems Go Away, But We Can Transform Our Difficulties Into Our Practice Until Little By Little They Guide Us On Our Way.

No One Knows How This World Came Into Being. It Is A Creation Of Consciousness Itself. It's Extraordinary, A Mystery.

Thich Nhat Hanh Has The Ability To Express Some Of The Most Profound Teachings Of Interdependence And Emptiness I've Ever Heard. With The Eloquence Of A Poet, He Holds Up A Sheet Of Paper And Teaches Us That The Rain Cloud And The Tree And The Logger Who Cut The Tree Down Are All There In The Paper. He's Been One Of The Most Significant Carriers Of The Lamp Of The Dharma To The West That We Have Had.

I Used To Think That To Become Free You Had To Practice Like A Samurai Warrior, But Now I Understand That You Have To Practice Like A Devoted Mother Of A Newborn Child. It Takes The Same Energy But Has A Completely Different Quality. It's Compassion And Presence Rather Than Having To Defeat The Enemy In Battle.

If Your Compassion Does Not Include Yourself, It Is Incomplete.

The Sufis Have A Saying: "praise Allah, And Tie Your Camel To A Post." This Brings Together Both Parts Of Practice: Pray, Yes, But Also Make Sure That You Do What Is Necessary In The World.

You Are The Mystery Incarnating Itself, And It's Beautiful When You Remember. It's Also Painful And Awesome And It Contains Unbearable Beauty And Unfathomable Pain - The Ocean Of Tears And Galaxy Of Bliss. I Don't Say That Lightly, But It's What We Have.

Since Death Will Take Us Anyway, Why Live Our Life In Fear? Why Not Die In Our Old Ways And Be Free To Live?

Peace Requires Us To Surrender Our Illusions Of Control.

Illusion Of Control

An Honorable Spiritual Practice Recognizes The Losses We Have Suffered, Tells Our Story, And Sheds Our Tears To Free Us From The Past.

The Grief We Carry Is Part Of The Grief Of The World. Hold It Gently. Let It Be Honored. You Do Not Have To Keep It In Anymore. You Can Let Go Into The Heart Of Compassion; You Can Weep.

As Desire Abates, Generosity Is Born. When We Are Connected And Present, What Else Is There To Do But Give?

To Begin To Meditate Is To Look Into Our Lives With Interest In Kindness And Discover How To Be Wakeful And Free.

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