Background Image

...

Civilisations Have Been Destroyed Many Times, And This Civilisation Is No Different. It Can Be Destroyed. We Can Think Of Time In Terms Of Millions Of Years And Life Will Resume Little By Little. The Cosmos Operates For Us Very Urgently, But Geological Time Is Different.

-Nhat Hanh

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Civilisations Have Been Destroyed

Nhat Hanh

...

Civilisations Have Been Destroyed Many Times, And This Civilisation Is No Different. It Can Be Destroyed. We Can Think Of Time In Terms Of Millions Of Years And Life Will Resume Little By Little. The Cosmos Operates For Us Very Urgently, But Geological Time Is Different.

Views: 82840

Topic

More From Nhat Hanh

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

In Modern Society Most Of Us Don't Want To Be In Touch With Ourselves; We Want To Be In Touch With Other Things Like Religion, Sports, Politics, A Book - We Want To Forget Ourselves. Anytime We Have Leisure, We Want To Invite Something Else To Enter Us, Opening Ourselves To The Television And Telling The Television To Come And Colonize Us.

The Only Answer To Fear Is More Understanding. And There Is No Understanding If There Is No Effort To Look More Deeply To See What Is There In Our Heart And In The Heart Of The Other Person.

If In Our Daily Life We Can Smile, If We Can Be Peaceful And Happy, Not Only We, But Everyone Will Profit From It. This Is The Most Basic Kind Of Peace Work.

Buddhism Is In Your Heart. Even If You Don't Have Any Temple Or Any Monks, You Can Still Be A Buddhist In Your Heart And Life.

Each Thought, Each Action In The Sunlight Of Awareness Becomes Sacred.

Walk And Touch Peace Every Moment. Walk And Touch Happiness Every Moment. Each Step Brings A Fresh Breeze. Each Step Makes A Flower Bloom. Kiss The Earth With Your Feet. Bring The Earth Your Love And Happiness. The Earth Will Be Safe When We Feel Safe In Ourselves.

If We Have Fear And Despair In Us, We Cannot Remove The Suffering In Society.

In One Sheet Of Paper, We See Everything Else, The Cloud, The Forest, The Logger. I Am, Therefore You Are. You Are, Therefore I Am. That Is The Meaning Of The Word "interbeing." We Interare.

The Greatest Of All Miracles Is To Be Alive.

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.

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

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.

Shallow Understanding Accompanies Poor Compassion; Great Understanding Goes With Great Compassion.

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.

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.

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.

We Should Be Able To Bring The Practice Of Meditation Hall Into Our Daily Lives. We Need To Discuss Among Ourselves How To Do It. Do You Practice Breathing Between Phone Calls? Do You Practice Smiling While Cutting Carrots? Do You Practice Relaxation After Hard Hours Of Work? These Are Practical Questions. If You Know How To Apply Meditation To Dinner Time, Leisure Time, Sleeping Time, It Will Penetrate Your Daily Life, And It Will Also Have A Tremendous Effect On Social Concerns.

When We Change Our Daily Lives - The Way We Think, Speak And Act - We Change The World.

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

If We Face Our Unpleasant Feelings With Care, Affection, And Nonviolence, We Can Transform Them Into A Kind Of Energy That Is Healthy And Has The Capacity To Nourish Us. By The Work Of Mindful Observation, Our Unpleasant Feelings Can Illuminate So Much For Us, Offering Us Insight And Understanding Into Ourselves And Society.

When We Say, "i Take Refuge In The Buddha," We Should Also Understand That "the Buddha Takes Refuge In Me," Because Without The Second Part The First Part Is Not Complete. The Buddha Needs Us For Awakening, Understanding, And Love To Be Real Things And Not Just Concepts. They Must Be Real Things That Have Real Effects On Life. Whenever I Say, "i Take Refuge In The Buddha," I Hear "the Buddha Takes Refuge In Me."

If We Take Something To Be The Truth, We May Cling To It So Much That When The Truth Comes And Knocks On Our Door, We Won't Want To Let It In.

When Another Person Makes You Suffer, It Is Because He Suffers Deeply Within Himself, And His Suffering Is Spilling Over. He Does Not Need Punishment; He Needs Help. That's The Message He Is Sending.

Earth Will Be Safe When We Feel In Us Enough Safety.

They Criticize The Silent Ones. They Criticize The Talkative Ones. They Criticize The Moderate Ones. There Is No One In The World Who Escapes Criticism.

Attachment To Views Is The Greatest Impediment To The Spiritual Path.

If You Touch One Thing With Deep Awareness, You Touch Everything.

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

With A Practice, We Can Always Remain Alive In The Present Moment. With Mindfulness, You Can Establish Yourself In The Present In Order To Touch The Wonders Of Life That Are Available In That Moment.

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.

By Taking A Look At Your Anger It Can Be Transformed Into The Kind Of Energy That You Need - Understanding And Compassion.

Compassion Is Our Most Important Practice. Understanding Brings Compassion. Understanding The Suffering That Living Beings Undergo Helps Liberate The Energy Of Compassion. And With That Energy You Know What To Do.

You Are Me, And I Am You. Isn't It Obvious That We "inter-are"? You Cultivate The Flower In Yourself, So That I Will Be Beautiful. I Transform The Garbage In Myself, So That You Will Not Have To Suffer.

Seek Peace. When You Have Peace Within, Real Peace With Others Will Be Possible.

You Are A Miracle, And Everything You Touch Could Be A Miracle.

It Is Said That God Has Created Man In His Own Image. But It May Be That Humankind Has Created God In The Image Of Humankind.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Meditation Is To Be Aware Of What Is Going On In Your Body, In Your Feelings, In Your Mind, And In The World.

All Violence Is Injustice. Responding To Violence With Violence Is Injustice, Not Only To The Other Person But Also To Oneself. Responding To Violence With Violence Resolves Nothing; It Only Escalates Violence, Anger And Hatred. It Is Only With Compassion That We Can Embrace And Disintegrate Violence. This Is True In Relationships Between Individuals As Well As In Relationships Between Nations.

The Organic Gardener Does Not Think Of Throwing Away The Garbage. She Knows That She Needs The Garbage. She Is Capable Of Transforming The Garbage Into Compost, So That The Compost Can Turn Into Lettuce, Cucumber, Radishes, And Flowers Again...with The Energy Of Mindfulness, You Can Look Into The Garbage And Say: I Am Not Afraid. I Am Capable Of Transforming The Garbage Back Into Love.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When Reality Is Perceived In Its Nature Of Ultimate Perfection, The Practitioner Has Reached A Level Of Wisdom Called Non-discrimination Mind - A Wondrous Communion In Which There Is No Longer Any Distinction Made Between Subject And Object.

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

I Am Determined Not To Kill, Not To Let Others Kill, And Not To Condone Any Act Of Killing In The World, In My Thinking, And In My Way Of Life. We Cannot Support Any Act Of Killing; No Killing Can Be Justified. But Not To Kill Is Not Enough ... If In Your Thinking You Allow The Killing To Go On, You Also Break This Precept. We Must Be Determined Not To Condone Killing, Even In Our Minds.

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.

Peace In Ourselves, Peace In The World.

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

We Humans Have Lost The Wisdom Of Genuinely Resting And Relaxing. We Worry Too Much. We Don't Allow Our Bodies To Heal, And We Don't Allow Our Minds And Hearts To Heal.

Compassion Is A Mind That Removes The Suffering That Is Present In The Other.

The Buddha Called Suffering A Holy Truth, Because Our Suffering Has The Capacity Of Showing Us The Path To Liberation. Embrace Your Suffering And Let It Reveal To You The Way To Peace.

Happiness Reveals Itself When We Are At Peace With Ourselves.

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.

Anyone Can Practice Some Nonviolence, Even Soldiers. Some Army Generals, For Example, Conduct Their Operations In Ways That Avoid Killing Innocent People; This Is A Kind Of Nonviolence.

Meditation Is Not To Avoid Society; It Is To Look Deep To Have The Kind Of Insight You Need To Take Action. To Think That It Is Just To Sit Down And Enjoy The Calm And Peace, Is Wrong.

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.

When You Suffer, You Can Look Deeply At Your Situation And Find The Many Blessings That Are Already Surrounding You. It Is Wonderful To Sit With A Pen And Paper And Write Down All The Conditions For Happiness That Are Already There, Already Available To You Right In This Moment.

Smile, Breathe, Go Slowly.

You Accept That This Civilisation Could Be Abolished And Life Will Begin Later On After A Few Thousand Years Because That Is Something That Has Happened In The History Of This Planet. When You Have Peace In Yourself And Accept, Then You Are Calm Enough To Do Something, But If You Are Carried By Despair There Is No Hope.

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.

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.

Freedom Is The Real Foundation Of Happiness.

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.

We Have To Look Deeply At Things In Order To See. When A Swimmer Enjoys The Clear Water Of The River, He Or She Should Also Be Able To Be The River.

When We Shout At The Oak Tree, The Oak Tree Is Not Offended. When We Praise The Oak Tree, It Doesn't Raise Its Nose. We Can Learn The Dharma From The Oak Tree; Therefore, The Oak Tree Is Part Of Our Dharmakaya. We Can Learn From Everything That Is Around, That Is In Us.

Breathe And You Dwell In The Here And Now, Breath And You See Impermanence Is Life.

Deep Listening Is The Kind Of Listening That Can Help Relieve The Suffering Of Another Person. You Can Call It Compassionate Listening. You Listen With Only One Purpose: To Help Him Or Her To Empty His Heart.

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.

Each Moment You Are Alive Is A Gem. It Needs You To Breathe Gently For The Miracles To Be Displayed.

Inspirational Life

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Smile, Breathe And Go Slowly." - Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Monk, Author And Peace Activist.

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

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

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.

If You Look Deeply Into The Palm Of Your Hand, You Will See Your Parents And All Generations Of Your Ancestors. All Of Them Are Alive In This Moment. Each Is Present In Your Body. You Are The Continuation Of Each Of These People.

The Joy Of Life Is Born Of Concentration. When You Are Having A Cup Of Tea, The Value Of That Experience Depends On Your Concentration. You Have To Drink The Tea With 100 Percent Of Your Concentration.

No One Can Practice The Precepts Perfectly, Including The Buddha... Boiled Vegetables Contain Dead Bacteria. We Cannot Practice The First Precept Or Any Of The Precepts Perfectly. But Because Of The Real Danger In Our Society-alcoholism Has Destroyed So Many Families And Has Brought About Much Unhappiness-we Have To Do Something. We Have To Live In A Way That Will Eradicate That Kind Of Damage. That Is Why Even If You Can Be Very Healthy With One Glass Of Wine Every Week, I Still Urge You With All My Strength To Abandon That Glass Of Wine.

Peace Is Present Right Here And Now, In Ourselves And In Everything We Do And See. Every Breath We Take, Every Step We Take, Can Be Filled With Peace, Joy, And Serenity. The Question Is Whether Or Not We Are In Touch With It. We Need Only To Be Awake, Alive In The Present Moment.

It Is Possible To Live Happily In The Here And 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.

Inspirational Life

If I Am Incapable Of Washing Dishes Joyfully, If I Want To Finish Them Quickly So I Can Go And Have Dessert, I Will Be Equally Incapable Of Enjoying My Dessert. With The Fork In My Hand, I Will Be Thinking About What To Do Next, And The Texture And Flavor Of The Dessert, Together With The Pleasure Of Eating It, Will Be Lost. I Will Always Be Dragged Into The Future, Never Able To Live In The Present Moment.

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.

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.

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.

We Are Here To Awaken From Our Illusion Of Separateness.

If The People Who Hurt Us Have Anger Or Desperation Within Them Then They Suffer. When You See That Someone Suffers, You Might Be Motivated By A Desire To Help Him Not To Suffer Anymore.

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

The Root-word "buddha" Means To Wake Up, To Know, To Understand; And He Or She Who Wakes Up And Understands Is Call A Buddha. It Is As Simple As That. The Capacity To Wake Up, To Understand, And To Love Is Called Buddha Nature.

Your Anger Is Like A Flower. In The Beginning You May Not Understand The Nature Of Your Anger, Or Why It Has Come Up. But If You Know How To Embrace It With The Energy Of Mindfulness, It Will Begin To Open. You May Be Sitting, Following Your Breathing, Or You May Be Practicing Walking Meditation To Generate The Energy Of Mindfulness And Embrace Your Anger. After Ten Or Twenty Minutes Your Anger Will Have To Open Herself To You, And Suddenly, You Will See The True Nature Of Your Anger. It May Have Arisen Just Because Of A Wrong Perception Or The Lack Of Skillfulness.

Walking Meditation

Enlightenment For A Wave Is The Moment The Wave Realizes It Is Water. At That Moment, All Fear Of Death Disappears.

Without Collective Awakening The Catastrophe Will Come. I Think People In The Mass Media, Journalists, Film Makers And Others, You Can Contribute To The Collective Awakening If You Are Awake And Then Your Life Will Embody That Awakening.

A Bodhisattva Is Someone Who Has Compassion Within Himself Or Herself And Who Is Able To Make Another Person Smile Or Help Someone Suffer Less. Every One Of Us Is Capable Of This.

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.

Forgiveness Will Not Be Possible Until Compassion Is Born In Your Heart.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If We Are Free From Attachment, We Can Easily Recognize Ourselves In Other People, In Different Forms Of Manifestation, And Then We Don't Have To Suffer.

If Things Were Not Impermanent, Life Would Not Be Possible.

When You Climb A Ladder And Arrive On The Sixth Step And You Think That Is The Highest, Then You Cannot Come To The Seventh. So The Technique Is To Abandon The Sixth In Order For The Seventh Step To Be Possible. And This Is Our Practice, To Release Our Views. The Practice Of Nonattachment To Views Is At The Heart Of The Buddhist Practice Of Meditation.

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 Love Someone, The Best Thing You Can Offer Is Your Presence. How Can You Love If You Are Not There?

Your Anxiety Is Your Baby. You Have To Take Care Of It. You Have To Go Back To Yourself, Recognize The Suffering In You, Embrace The Suffering, And You Get Relief. And If You Continue With Your Practice Of Mindfulness, You Understand The Roots, The Nature Of The Suffering, And You Know The Way To Transform It.

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.

Water Flows From High In The Mountains Water Runs Deep In The Earth Miraculously, Water Comes To Us, And Sustains All Life.

Find Joy And Peace In This Very Moment.

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.

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

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.

Live In Such A Way That You Embody True Peace, That You Can Be Peace In Every Moment Of Your Daily Life. It Is Possible For Everyone To Generate The Energy Of Peace In Every Step.

In True Love, You Attain Freedom.

Personal Growth

Meditation Is Not Meant To Help Us Avoid Problems Or Run Away From Difficulties. It Is Meant To Allow Positive Healing To Take Place. To Meditate Is To Learn How To Stop—to Stop Being Carried Away By Our Regrets About The Past, Our Anger Or Despair In The Present, Or Our Worries About The Future.

Suppose You Are Drinking A Cup Of Tea. When You Hold Your Cup, You May Like To Breathe In, To Bring Your Mind Back To Your Body, And You Become Fully Present. And When You Are Truly There, Something Else Is Also There - Life, Represented By The Cup Of Tea. In That Moment You Are Real, And The Cup Of Tea Is Real. You Are Not Lost In The Past, In The Future, In Your Projects, In Your Worries. You Are Free From All Of These Afflictions. And In That State Of Being Free, You Enjoy Your Tea. That Is The Moment Of Happiness, And Of Peace.

Suffering Is Not Enough. Life Is Both Dreadful And Wonderful...how Can I Smile When I Am Filled With So Much Sorrow? It Is Natural--you Need To Smile To Your Sorrow Because You Are More Than Your Sorrow.

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

When You Love Someone

I Am You And You Are Me; It Is Obvious We Inter-are.

Every Morning, When We Wake Up, We Have Twenty-four Brand-new Hours To Live. What A Precious Gift! We Have The Capacity To Live In A Way That These Twenty-four Hours Will Bring Peace, Joy, And Happiness To Ourselves And Others.

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

My Love For You

I Think, Therefore I Am ... Not Here.

Anger Is Like A Storm Rising Up From The Bottom Of Your Consciousness. When You Feel It Coming, Turn Your Focus To Your Breath.

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

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.

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.

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

Tolerance And Tranquility Are Two Characteristics Of True Love.

One Included All, And All Were Contained In One.

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.

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.

Every Morning, When We Wake Up, We Have Twenty-four Brand-new Hours To Live. What A Precious Gift!

While Washing Dishes One Should Be Washing The Dishes, Which Means That While Washing The Dishes One Should Be Completely Aware Of The Fact That One Is Washing Dishes.

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

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.

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

If You Are Capable Of Brushing Your Teeth In Mindfulness, Then You Will Be Able To Enjoy The Time When You Take A Shower, Cook Your Breakfast, Sip Your Tea.

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.

Machine Thinking Is The Opposite Of Mindfulness. If We're Really Engaged In Mindfulness When Walking Along The Path To The Village, Then We Will Consider The Act Of Each Step We Take As An Infinite Wonder, And A Joy Will Open Our Hearts Like A Flower, Enabling Us To Enter The World Of Reality.

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.

When We Are Present, Life Is Also Present.

The Present Moment Is The Only Moment Available To Us And It Is The Door To All Other Moments.

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.

Awareness Is Like The Sun. When It Shines On Things, They Are Transformed.

Live In The Moment

Every Word, Every Look, Every Action, And Every Smile Can Bring Happiness To Others.

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

Lack Of Understanding

Deep Listening Is The Kind Of Listening That Can Help Relieve The Suffering Of Another Person. You Can Call It Compassionate Listening. You Listen With Only One Purpose: To Help Him Or Her To Empty His Heart. Even If He Says Things That Are Full Of Wrong Perceptions, Full Of Bitterness, You Are Still Capable Of Continuing To Listen With Compassion. Because You Know That Listening Like That, You Give That Person A Chance To Suffer Less.

The Practice Of Zen Is To Eat, Breathe, Cook, Carry Water, And Scrub The Toilet — To Infuse Every Act Of Body, Speech, And Mind — With Mindfulness, To Illuminate Every Leaf And Pebble, Every Heap Of Garbage, Every Path That Leads To Our Mind's Return Home.

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.

When Someone Does Not Know How To Handle His Own Suffering, One Allows It To Spill All Over The People Around Him Or Her. When You Suffer, You Make People Around You Suffer. That's Very Natural. This Is Why We Have To Learn How To Handle Our Suffering, So We Won't Spread It Everywhere.

I Am Determined Not To Kill, Not To Let Others Kill, And Not To Support Any Act Of Killing In The World, In My Thinking, And In My Way Of Life

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

Impermanence Is Very Important, Crucial For Life. That Is Why Instead Of Complaining About Impermanence You Have To Say "long Live Impermanence!"

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.

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

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.

If You Do Not Give Right Attention To The One You Love, It Is A Kind Of Killing. When You Are In The Car Together, If You Are Lost In Your Thoughts, Assuming You Already Know Everything About Her, She Will Slowly Die.

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

Your Presence Is A Miracle.

Some People Live As Though They Are Already Dead. There Are People Moving Around Us Who Are Consumed By Their Past, Terrified Of Their Future, And Stuck In Their Anger And Jealousy. They Are Not Alive; They Are Just Walking Corpses.

To Be Free, First Of All, Is To Be Free From Wrong Views That Are The Foundation Of All Kinds Of Suffering And Fear And Violence.

Don't Think You Have To Be Solemn To Meditate. To Meditate, Well, You Have To Smile A Lot.

Today Is The Most Important Day Of Our Lives.

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.

Many Communist Government Officials Have A Rigid, Dictatorial Power, But They Live In Constant Suspicion And Fear Of Anything That Might Undermine The Power They Have.

When We Recognise The Virtues, The Talent, The Beauty Of Mother Earth, Something Is Born In Us, Some Kind Of Connection; Love Is Born.

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

If We Are Too Busy, If We Are Carried Away Every Day By Our Projects, Our Uncertainty, Our Craving, How Can We Have The Time To Stop And Look Deeply Into The Situation-our Own Situation, The Situation Of Our Beloved One, The Situation Of Our Family And Of Our Community, And The Situation Of Our Nation And Of The Other Nations?

The Miracle Is To Walk On The Earth.

The Necessary Condition For The Existence Of Peace And Joy Is The Awareness That Peace And Joy Are Available.

Take My Hand. We Will Walk. We Will Only Walk. We Will Enjoy Our Walk Without Thinking Of Arriving Anywhere.

When You Produce Peace And Happiness In Yourself, You Begin To Realize Peace For The Whole World. With The Smile That You Produce In Yourself, With The Conscious Breathing You Establish Within Yourself, You Begin To Work For Peace In The World.

Maybe We Have Enough Technology To Save The Planet But It Is Not Enough Because The People Are Not Ready.

We Will Be More Successful In All Our Endeavors If We Can Let Go Of The Habit Of Running All The Time, And Take Little Pauses To Relax And Re-center Ourselves. And We'll Also Have A Lot More Joy In Living.

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.

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

Because You Are Alive, Everything Is Possible.

The Seed Of Suffering In You May Be Strong, But Don't Wait Until You Have No More Suffering Before Allowing Yourself To Be Happy.

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

When You Feel Anger Arising, Remember To Return To Your Breathing And Follow It. The Other Person May See That You Are Practicing, And She May Even Apologize.

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.

The Way You Speak To Others Can Offer Them Joy, Happiness, Self-confidence, Hope, Trust, And Enlightenment. Mindful Speaking Is A Deep Practice.

You Must Love In Such A Way That The Person You Love Feels Free.

Positive Thinking

The Teachings On Love Given By The Buddha Are Clear, Scientific, And Applicable... Love, Compassion, Joy, And Equanimity Are The Very Nature Of An Enlightened Person. They Are The Four Aspects Of True Love Within Ourselves And Within Everyone And Everything.

The Most Important Thing That We Can Do For The Healing Of Our World Is To Hear Inside Ourselves, The Sounds Of The Earth Crying.

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.

Trending Author

Siddhartha Mukherjee

Karen Carpenter

Philip Jose Farmer

Category