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Everything Is Material For The Seed Of Happiness, If You Look Into It With Inquisitiveness And Curiosity. The Future Is Completely Open, And We Are Writing It Moment To Moment. There Always Is The Potential To Create An Environment Of Blame -or One That Is Conducive To Loving-kindness.
-Pema Chodron
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Everything Is Material For

Pema Chodron
Everything Is Material For The Seed Of Happiness, If You Look Into It With Inquisitiveness And Curiosity. The Future Is Completely Open, And We Are Writing It Moment To Moment. There Always Is The Potential To Create An Environment Of Blame -or One That Is Conducive To Loving-kindness.
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Kindness
Writing
Curiosity
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The First Noble Truth Of The Buddha Is That When We Feel Suffering, It Doesn’t Mean That Something Is Wrong. What A Relief. Finally Somebody Told The Truth. Suffering Is Part Of Life, And We Don’t Have To Feel It’s Happening Because We Personally Made The Wrong Move. In Reality, However, When We Feel Suffering, We Think That Something Is Wrong. As Long As We’re Addicted To Hope, We Feel That We Can Tone Our Experience Down Or Liven It Up Or Change It Somehow, And We Continue To Suffer A Lot.
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The Most Fundamental Aggression To Ourselves, The Most Fundamental Harm We Can Do To Ourselves, Is To Remain Ignorant By Not Having The Courage And The Respect To Look At Ourselves Honestly And Gently.
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If Seeing That Other Person's Pain Brings Up Your Fear Or Anger Or Confusion (which Often Happens), Just Start Doing Tonglen For Yourself And All The Other People Who Are Stuck In The Very Same Way.
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Nothing In Its Essence Is One Way Or The Other.
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Instead Of Asking Ourselves, 'how Can I Find Security And Happiness?' We Could Ask Ourselves, 'can I Touch The Center Of My Pain? Can I Sit With Suffering, Both Yours And Mine, Without Trying To Make It Go Away? Can I Stay Present To The Ache Of Loss Or Disgrace-disapp Ointment In All Its Many Forms-and Let It Open Me?' This Is The Trick.
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All Ego Really Is, Is Our Opinions, Which We Take To Be Solid, Real, And The Absolute Truth About How Things Are.
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One Can Appreciate & Celebrate Each Moment — There’s Nothing More Sacred. There’s Nothing More Vast Or Absolute. In Fact, There’s Nothing More!
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It's Said That When We Die, The Four Elements - Earth, Air, Fire And Water - Dissolve One By One, Each Into The Other, And Finally Just Dissolve Into Space. But While We're Living, We Share The Energy That Makes Everything, From A Blade Of Grass To An Elephant, Grow And Live And Then Inevitably Wear Out And Die. This Energy, This Life Force, Creates The Whole World.
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There's Something Delicious About Finding Fault With Something. And That Can Be Including Finding Fault With One's Self, You Know?
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We're Afraid That This Anger Or Sorrow Or Loneliness Is Going To Last Forever... Instead, Acting It Out Is What Makes It Last.
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Share The Wealth. Be Generous With Your Joy. Give Away What You Most Want. Be Generous With Your Insights And Delights.
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If You Look Back At History Or You Look At Any Place In The World Where Religious Groups Or Ethnic Groups Or Racial Groups Or Political Groups Are Killing Each Other, Or Families Have Been Feuding For Years And Years, You Can See - Because You're Not Particularly Invested In That Particular Argument - That There Will Never Be Peace Until Somebody Softens What Is Rigid In Their Heart.
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Everything Is Fresh, The Essence Of Realization.
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Remember That This Is Not Something We Do Just Once Or Twice. Interrupting Our Destructive Habits And Awakening Our Heart Is The Work Of A Lifetime.
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If We Knew That Tonight We Were Going To Go Blind, We Would Take A Long, Last Real Look At Every Blade Of Grass, Every Cloud Formation, Every Speck Of Dust, Every Rainbow, Raindrop-everything.
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According To The Buddhist Belief, You Can Go On And On Indefinitely, So You See Your Life As Just A Brief Moment In Time.
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My Moods Are Continuously Shifting Like The Weather.
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Feelings Like Disappointment, Embarrassment, Irritation, Resentment, Anger, Jealousy, And Fear, Instead Of Being Bad News, Are Actually Very Clear Moments That Teach Us Where It Is That We're Holding Back.
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Better To Join In With Humanity Than To Set Ourselves Apart.
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We Can Put Our Whole Heart Into Whatever We Do; But If We Freeze Our Attitude Into For Or Against, We're Setting Ourselves Up For Stress. Instead, We Could Just Go Forward With Curiosity, Wondering Where This Experiment Will Lead. This Kind Of Open-ended Inquisitiveness Captures The Spirit Of Enthusiasm, Or Heroic Perseverance.
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Most Of Us Do Not Take These Situations As Teachings. We Automatically Hate Them. We Run Like Crazy. We Use All Kinds Of Ways To Escape - All Addictions Stem From This Moment When We Meet Our Edge And We Just Can't Stand It. We Feel We Have To Soften It, Pad It With Something, And We Become Addicted To Whatever It Is That Seems To Ease The Pain.
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Ordinarily We Are Swept Away By Habitual Momentum And Don't Interrupt Our Patterns Slightly. When We Feel Betrayed Or Disappointed, Does It Occur To Us To Practice?
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So Even If The Hot Loneliness Is There, And For 1.6 Seconds We Sit With That Restlessness When Yesterday We Couldn't Sit For Even One, That's The Journey Of The Warrior. (68)
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Feel The Wounded Heart That's Underneath The Addiction, Self-loathing, Or Anger.
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You Could Begin To Notice Whenever You Find Yourself Blaming Others Or Justifying Yourself. If You Spent The Rest Of Your Life Just Noticing That And Letting It Be A Way To Uncover The Silliness Of The Human Condition-the Tragic Yet Comic Drama That We All Continually Buy Into-you Could Develop A Lot Of Wisdom And A Lot Of Kindness As Well As A Great Sense Of Humor.
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Everything Is Material For The Seed Of Happiness, If You Look Into It With Inquisitiveness And Curiosity. The Future Is Completely Open, And We Are Writing It Moment To Moment. There Always Is The Potential To Create An Environment Of Blame -or One That Is Conducive To Loving-kindness.
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Like All Explorers, We Are Drawn To Discover What's Out There Without Knowing Yet If We Have The Courage To Face It.
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We Are Undoing A Pattern... It's The Human Pattern: We Project Onto The World A Zillion Possibilities Of Attaining Resolution.
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Next, Feel Your Heart, Literally Placing Your Hand On Your Chest If You Find That Helpful. This Is A Way Of Accepting Yourself Just As You Are In That Moment, A Way Of Saying, "this Is My Experience Right Now, And It's Okay." Then Go Into The Next Moment Without Any Agenda.
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Don't Worry About Achieving. Don't Worry About Perfection. Just Be There Each Moment As Best You Can. When You Realize You've Wandered Off Again, Simply Very Lightly Acknowledge That. This Light Touch Is The Golden Key To Reuniting With Our Openness.
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Loving Kindness Towards Ourselves Doesn't Mean Getting Rid Of Anything. It Means We Can Still Be Crazy After All These Years. We Can Still Be Angry After All These Years. We Can Still Be Timid Or Jealous Or Full Of Feelings Of Unworthiness. The Point Is Not To Try To Throw Ourselves Away And Become Something Better. It's About Befriending Who We Are Already.
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Sticking With Uncertainty Is How We Learn To Relax In The Midst Of Chaos, How We Learn To Be Cool When The Ground Beneath Us Suddenly Disappears. We Can Bring Ourselves Back To The Spiritual Path Countless Times Every Day Simply By Exercising Our Willingness To Rest In The Uncertainty Of The Present Moment—over And Over Again.
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When People Are Hurting, What They Really Need Is Someone Who Is Fully There For Them - Not Someone Who Is Condescending Or Officious. The Only Way For You To Be There For Them Is By Facing Your Fear Or Anger, Whatever Feelings Cause You To Shut Down.
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People
Feelings
What You Do For Yourself, You're Doing For Others, And What You Do For Others, You're Doing For Yourself.
Doing For Others
A Further Sign Of Health Is That We Don't Become Undone By Fear And Trembling, But We Take It As A Message That It's Time To Stop Struggling And Look Directly At What's Threatening Us.
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The Greatest Obstacle To Connecting With Our Joy Is Resentment.
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We Feel That We Have To Be Right So That We Can Feel Good... The Whole Right And Wrong Business Closes Us Down And Makes Our World Smaller.
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We Are Not Human Beings Having A Spiritual Experience, We Are Spiritual Beings Having A Human Experience And Infinite Love Is The Only Truth; Everything Else Is An Illusion.
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Suffering Begins To Dissolve When We Can Question The Belief Or The Hope That There's Anywhere To Hide.
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Times Are Difficult Globally; Awakening Is No Longer A Luxury Or An Ideal. It’s Becoming Critical. We Don’t Need To Add More Depression, More Discouragement, Or More Anger To What’s Already Here. It’s Becoming Essential That We Learn How To Relate Sanely With Difficult Times. The Earth Seems To Be Beseeching Us To Connect With Joy And Discover Our Innermost Essence. This Is The Best Way That We Can Benefit Others.
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All The Terrible Things We Do To Ourselves And Others From Alcoholism To Character Assignation To Abuse To Murder Come From One Cause: The Inability To Stay Present With An Uncomfortable Feeling In The Body And Seek Short-term Relief.
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Awareness Is The Key. Do We See The Stories That We're Telling Ourselves And Question Their Validity?
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It Isn't The Things That Happen To Us In Our Lives That Cause Us To Suffer, It's How We Relate To The Things That Happen To Us That Causes Us To Suffer.
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Ego Is Something That You Come To Know - Something That You Befriend By Not Acting Out Or By Repressing All The Feelings That You Feel.
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Wholeheartedly Do What It Takes To Awaken Your Clear-seeing Intelligence, But One Day At A Time, One Moment At A Time. If We Live That Way, We Will Benefit This Earth.
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Somehow, In The Process Of Trying To Deny That Things Are Always Changing, We Lose Our Sense Of The Sacredness Of Life. We Tend To Forget That We Are Part Of The Natural Scheme Of Things.
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The Peace That We Are Looking For Is Not Peace That Crumbles As Soon As There Is Difficulty Or Chaos. Whether We’re Seeking Inner Peace Or Global Peace Or A Combination Of The Two, The Way To Experience It Is To Build On The Foundation Of Unconditional Openness To All That Arises. Peace Isn’t An Experience Free Of Challenges, Free Of Rough And Smooth, It’s An Experience That’s Expansive Enough To Include All That Arises Without Feeling Threatened.
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Challenges
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The Happiness We Seek Cannot Be Found Through Grasping, Trying To Hold On To Things. It Cannot Be Found Through Getting Serious And Uptight About Wanting Things To Go In The Direction We Think Will Bring Happiness. We Are Always Taking Hold Of The Wrong End Of The Stick. The Point Is That The Happiness We Seek Is Already Here And It Will Be Found Through Relaxation And Letting Go Rather Than Through Struggle.
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To Put It Concisely, We Suffer When We Resist The Noble And Irrefutable Truth Of Impermanence And Death.
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Determination Means To Use Every Challenge You Meet As An Opportunity To Open Your Heart And Soften, Determined To Not Withdraw.
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Mean
The Truth You Believe And Cling To Makes You Unavailable To Hear Anything New.
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Just Pausing For Two To Three Breaths Is A Perfect Way To Stay Present. This Is A Good Use Of Our Life. Indeed, It Is An Excellent, Joyful Use Of Our Life. Instead Of Getting Better And Better At Avoiding, We Can Learn To Accept The Present Moment As If We Had Invited It, And Work With It Instead Of Against It, Making It Our Ally Rather Than Our Enemy.
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The Most Important Aspect Of Being On A Spiritual Path May Be To Just Keep Moving.
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Compassion Practice Is Daring. It Involves Learning To Relax And Allowing Ourselves To Move Gently Toward What Scares Us.
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Simply Be Present With Your Own Shifting Energies And With The Unpredictabilit Y Of Life As It Unfolds.
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Whatever Happens In Your Life, Joyful Or Painful, Do Not Be Swept Away By Reactivity. Be Patient With Yourself And Don't Lose Your Sense Of Perspective.
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Patient
Painful
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This Moving Away From Comfort And Security, This Stepping Out Into What Is Unknown, Uncharted And Shaky - That's Called Liberation.
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Sticking With That Uncertainty, Getting The Knack Of Relaxing In The Midst Of Chaos, Learning Not To Panic-this Is The Spiritual Path.
Spiritual
Knack
Panic
If You Aren't Feeding The Fire Of Anger Or The Fire Of Craving By Talking To Yourself, Then The Fire Doesn't Have Anything To Feed On.
Fire
Talking
Burning
Mindfulness Is Loving All The Details Of Our Lives, And Awareness Is The Natural Thing That Happens: Life Begins To Open Up, And You Realize That You're Always Standing At The Center Of The World.
Details
Mindfulness
World
Gloriousness And Wretchedness Need Each Other. One Inspires Us, The Other Softens Us.
Inspire
Needs
Wretchedness
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Crazy
Teaching
Self
All You Need To Know Is That The Future Is Wide Open And You Are About To Create It By What You Do.
Needs
Knows
Wide
The Most Difficult Times For Many Of Us Are The Ones We Give Ourselves.
Inspirational
Freedom
Giving
For Arousing Compassion, The Nineteenth-century Yogi Patrul Rinpoche Suggested Imagining Beings In Torment - An Animal About To Be Slaughtered, A Person Awaiting Execution. To Make It More Immediate, He Recommended Imagining Ourselves In Their Place. Particularly Painful Is His Image Of A Mother With No Arms Watching As A Raging River Sweeps Her Child Away. To Contact The Suffering Of Another Being Fully And Directly Is As Painful As Being In The Woman's Shoes.
Mother
Children
Animal
When We Are Willing To Stay Even A Moment With Uncomfortable Energy, We Gradually Learn Not To Fear It.
Energy
Moments
Uncomfortable
As We Learn To Have Compassion For Ourselves, The Circle Of Compassion For Others - What And Whom We Can Work With, And How - Becomes Wider.
Inspirational
Sympathy
Wisdom
"be Grateful To Everyone" Is About Making Peace With The Aspects Of Ourselves That We Have Rejected... If We Were To Make A List Of People We Don't Like - People We Find Obnoxious, Threatening, Or Worthy Of Contempt - We Would Discover Much About Those Aspects Of Ourselves That We Can't Face... Other People Trigger The Karma That We Haven't Worked Out.
Karma
Grateful
People
At The Root Of All The Harm We Cause Is Ignorance.
Ignorance
Roots
Causes
I Can't Overestimate The Importance Of Accepting Ourselves Exactly As We Are Right Now, Not As We Wish We Were Or Think We Ought To Be.
Thinking
Wish
Accepting
We Can Gradually Drop Our Ideals Of Who We Think We Ought To Be, Or Who We Think We Want To Be, Or Who We Think Other People Think We Want To Be Or Ought To Be.
Buddhism
Thinking
People
While We Are Sitting In Meditation, We Are Simply Exploring Humanity And All Of Creation In The Form Of Ourselves.
Meditation
Humanity
Sitting
We Can Stop Struggling With What Occurs And See Its True Face Without Calling It The Enemy. It Helps To Remember That Our Spiritual Practice Is Not About Accomplishing Anything - Not About Winning Or Losing - But About Ceasing To Struggle And Relaxing As It Is. That Is What We Are Doing When We Sit Down To Meditate. That Attitude Spreads Into The Rest Of Our Lives.
Spiritual
Attitude
Struggle
I Dedicate The Merit Of The Occasion To All Beings. This Gesture Of Universal Friendship Has Been Likened To A Drop Of Fresh Spring Water. If We Put It On A Rock In The Sunshine, It Will Soon Evaporate. If We Put It In The Ocean, However, It Will Never Be Lost. Thus The Wish Is Made That We Not Keep The Teachings To Ourselves But To Use Them To Benefit Others.
Spring
Ocean
Teaching
To Stay With That Shakiness-to Stay With A Broken Heart, With A Rumbling Stomach, With The Feeling Of Hopelessness And Wanting To Get Revenge-that Is The Path Of True Awakening. Sticking With That Uncertainty, Getting The Knack Of Relaxing In The Midst Of Chaos, Learning Not To Panic-this Is The Spiritual Path.
Broken Heart
Spiritual
Buddhist
Use What Seems Like Poison As Medicine. Use Your Personal Suffering As The Path To Compassion For All Beings.
Compassion
Medicine
Suffering
Life's Work Is To Wake Up, To Let The Things That Enter Your Life Wake You Up Rather Than Put You To Sleep.
Sleep
Wake Up
Wakes You
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Pain
Moving
Emotional
If We Pause And Breathe In And Out, Then We Can Have The Experience Of Timeless Presence, Of The Inexpressible Wisdom And Goodness Of Our Own Minds. We Can Look At The World With Fresh Eyes And Hear Things With Fresh Ears.
Eye
Mind
Looks
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Reality
Space
Feelings
When We Start Out On A Spiritual Path We Often Have Ideals We Think We're Supposed To Live Up To. We Feel We're Supposed To Be Better Than We Are In Some Way. But With This Practice You Take Yourself Completely As You Are. Then Ironically, Taking In Pain - Breathing It In For Yourself And All Others In The Same Boat As You Are Heightens Your Awareness Of Exactly Where You're Stuck.
Spiritual
Pain
Helping Others
The Way I Regard Those Who Hurt Me Today Will Affect How I Experience The World In The Future. In Any Encounter, We Have A Choice: We Can Strengthen Our Resentment Or Our Understanding And Empathy. We Can Widen The Gap Between Ourselves And Others Or Lessen It.
Hurt
Choices
Empathy
I Equate Ego With Trying To Figure Everything Out Instead Of Going With The Flow. That Closes Your Heart And Your Mind To The Person Or Situation That's Right In Front Of You, And You Miss So Much.
Heart
Missing
Ego
Ordinarily We Are Swept Away By Habitual Momentum. We Don't Interrupt Our Patterns Even Slightly. With Practice, However, We Learn To Stay With A Broken Heart, With A Nameless Fear, With The Desire For Revenge. Sticking With Uncertainty Is How We Learn To Relax In The Midst Of Chaos, How We Learn To Be Cool When The Ground Beneath Us Suddenly Disappears.
Revenge
Heart
Practice
The Root Of Suffering Is Resisting The Certainty That No Matter What The Circumstances, Uncertainty Is All We Truly Have.
Roots
Suffering
Matter
Every Moment Is Incredibly Unique And Fresh, And When We Drop Into The Moment, As Meditation Allows Us To Do, We Learn How To Truly Taste This Tender And Mysterious Life That We Share Together.
Unique
Meditation
Together
We Are Like Children Building A Sand Castle. We Embellish It With Beautiful Shells, Bits Of Driftwood, And Pieces Of Colored Glass. The Castle Is Ours, Off Limits To Others. We’re Willing To Attack If Others Threaten To Hurt It. Yet Despite All Our Attachment, We Know That The Tide Will Inevitably Come In And Sweep The Sand Castle Away. The Trick Is To Enjoy It Fully But Without Clinging, And When The Time Comes, Let It Dissolve Back Into The Sea.
Beautiful
Hurt
Children
It's Important To Remember, When We're Out There Aggressively Working For Reform, That, Even If Our Particular Issue Doesn't Get Resolved, We Are Adding Peace To The World. We Have To Do Our Best And At The Same Time Give Up All Hope Of Fruition.
Giving Up
Issues
Justice
Never Underestimate The Power Of Compassionately Recognizing What's Going On.
Underestimate
Recognizing
Never Underestimate
Since Death Is Certain And The Time Of Death Is Uncertain, What Is The Most Important Thing?
Important
Uncertain
Certain
If We Learn To Open Our Hearts, Anyone, Including The People Who Drive Us Crazy, Can Be Our Teacher.
Teacher
Inspirational Love
Peace
The Essence Of Generosity Is Letting Go. Pain Is Always A Sign That We Are Holding On To Something - Usually Ourselves.
Letting Go
Pain
Essence
At Least Once A Year, I Imagine That I Am About To Die. Looking Back As Truthfully As I Can At My Entire Life, I Give Full Attention To The Things I Wish Hadn’t Occurred. Recognizing These Mistakes Honestly But Without Self-recrimination, I Try To Rejoice In The Innate Wisdom That Allows Me To See So Bravely, And I Feel Compassion For How I So Frequently Messed Up. Then I Can Go Forward. The Future Is Wide Open, And What I Do With It Is Up To Me.
Mistake
Compassion
Self
Feeling Irritated, Restless, Afraid, And Hopeless Is A Reminder To Listen More Carefully.
Feelings
Irritated
Hopeless
When We Cling To Thoughts And Memories, We Are Clinging To What Cannot Be Grasped. When We Touch These Phantoms And Let Them Go, We May Discover A Space, A Break In The Chatter, A Glimpse Of Open Sky. This Is Our Birthright—the Wisdom With Which We Were Born, The Vast Unfolding Display Of Primordial Richness, Primordial Openness, Primordial Wisdom Itself. When One Thought Has Ended And Another Has Not Yet Begun, We Can Rest In That Space.
Memories
Sky
Space
Enlightenment Is A Direct Experience With Reality.
Reality
Enlightenment
Spirituality
No One Ever Tells Us To Stop Running Away From Fear...the Advice We Usually Get Is To Sweeten It Up, Smooth It Over, Take A Pill, Or Distract Ourselves, But By All Means Make It Go Away. (5)
Running
Mean
Advice
That Could Be Applied To Whatever You Feel. Maybe Anger Is Your Thing. You Just Go Out Of Control And You See Red, And The Next Thing You Know You're Yelling Or Throwing Something Or Hitting Someone. At That Time, Begin To Accept The Fact That That's "enraged Buddha." If You Feel Jealous, That's "jealous Buddha." If You Have Indigestion, That's "buddha With Heartburn." If You're Happy, "happy Buddha"; If Bored, "bored Buddha." In Other Words, Anything That You Can Experience Or Think Is Worthy Of Compassion; Anything You Could Think Or Feel Is Worthy Of Appreciation.
Appreciation
Jealous
Maturity
We Are One Blink Of An Eye Away From Being Fully Awake
Eye
Awakening
Blink
Not Causing Harm Requires Staying Awake. Part Of Being Awake Is Slowing Down Enough To Notice What We Say And Do. The More We Witness Our Emotional Chain Reactions And Understand How They Work, The Easier It Is To Refrain. It Becomes A Way Of Life To Stay Awake, Slow Down, And Notice.
Emotional
Down And
Way
It's Also Helpful To Realize That This Very Body That We Have, That's Sitting Right Here Right Now... With Its Aches And It Pleasures... Is Exactly What We Need To Be Fully Human, Fully Awake, Fully Alive.
Inspiring
Spiritual
Get Well
If We Begin To Get In Touch With Whatever We Feel With Some Kind Of Kindness, Our Protective Shells Will Melt, And We'll Find That More Areas Of Our Lives Are Workable. As We Learn To Have Compassion For Ourselves, The Circle Of Compassion For Others-what And Whom We Can Work With, And How-becomes Wider.
Kindness
Compassion
Circles
Meditation Is Not About Getting Out Of Ourselves Or Achieving Something Better. It Is About Getting In Touch With What You Already Are.
Meditation
Achieve
Something Better
As Buddhism Moved From One Culture To Another, It Always Adapted.
Buddhism
Culture
Adapted
We Think That By Protecting Ourselves From Suffering, We Are Being Kind To Ourselves. The Truth Is We Only Become More Fearful, More Hardened And More Alienated. We Experience Ourselves As Being Separate From The Whole. This Separateness Becomes Like A Prison For Us - A Prison That Restricts Us To Our Personal Hopes And Fears, And To Caring Only For The People Nearest To Us. Curiously Enough, If We Primarily Try To Shield Ourselves From Discomfort, We Suffer. Yet, When We Don't Close Off, When We Let Our Hearts Break, We Discover Our Kinship With All Beings.
Truth
Fear
Heart
Holding On To Anything Blocks Wisdom.
Block
Holding On
Things Falling Apart Is A Kind Of Testing And Also A Kind Of Healing.
Fall
Healing
Buddhism
The Difference Between Theism And Nontheism Is Not Whether One Does Or Does Not Believe In God. . . Theism Is A Deep-seated Conviction That There's Some Hand To Hold: If We Just Do The Right Things, Someone Will Appreciate Us And Take Care Of Us. . . Nontheism Is Relaxing With The Ambiguity And Uncertainty Of The Present Moment Without Reaching For Anything To Protect Ourselves.
Atheist
Buddhist
Believe
The Real Thing That We Renounce Is The Tenacious Hope That We Could Be Saved From Being Who We Are.
Real
Who We Are
Renounce
Patience Has Nothing To Do With Suppression. In Fact, It Has Everything To Do With A Gentle, Honest Relationship With Yourself.
Facts
Honest
Gentle
Instead Of Making Others Right Or Wrong, Or Bottling Up Right And Wrong In Ourselves, There's A Middle Way, A Very Powerful Middle Way...... Could We Have No Agenda When We Walk Into A Room With Another Person, Not Know What To Say, Not Make That Person Wrong Or Right? Could We See, Hear, Feel Other People As They Really Are? It Is Powerful To Practice This Way..... True Communication Can Happen Only In That Open Space.
Inspirational
Powerful
Communication
Remind Yourself, In Whatever Way Is Personally Meaningful, That It Is Not In Your Best Interest To Reinforce Thoughts And Feelings Of Unworthiness. Even If You've Already Taken The Bait And Feel The Familiar Pull Of Self-denigration, Marshal Your Intelligence, Courage, And Humor In Order To Turn The Tide. Ask Yourself: Do I Want To Strengthen What I'm Feeling Now? Do I Want To Cut Myself Off From My Basic Goodness? Remind Yourself That Your Fundamental Nature Is Unconditionally Open And Free.
Meaningful
Taken
Cutting
Deep Down In The Human Spirit, There Is A Reservoir Of Courage. It Is Always Available, Always Waiting To Be Discovered.
Waiting
Spirit
Humans
If You Work With Your Mind, That Will Alleviate All The Suffering That Seems To Come From The Outside.
Mind
Suffering
Alleviate
In Truth, There Is Enormous Space In Which To Live Our Everyday Lives.
Space
Everyday
Everyday Life
Anyone Who Stands On The Edge Of The Unknown, Fully In The Present Without Reference Point, Experiences Groundlessness. That's When Our Understanding Goes Deeper, When We Find That The Present Moment Is A Pretty Vulnerable Place And That This Can Be Completely Unnerving And Completely Tender At The Same Time.
Understanding
Vulnerable
Moments
The Mind Is Very Wild. The Human Experience Is Full Of Unpredictability And Paradox, Joys And Sorrows, Successes And Failures. We Can't Escape Any Of These Experiences In The Vast Terrain Of Our Existence. It Is Part Of What Makes Life Grand-and It Is Also Why Our Minds Take Us On Such A Crazy Ride. If We Can Train Ourselves Through Meditation To Be More Open And More Accepting Toward The Wild Arc Of Our Experience, If We Can Lean Into The Difficulties Of Life And The Ride Of Our Minds, We Can Become More Settled And Relaxed Amid Whatever Life Brings Us.
Crazy
Meditation
Joy
When We Resist Change, It’s Called Suffering. But When We Can Completely Let Go And Not Struggle Against It, When We Can Embrace The Groundlessness Of Our Situation And Relax Into It’s Dynamic Quality, That’s Called Enlightenment
Letting Go
Struggle
Suffering
There's A Reason You Can Learn From Everything: You Have Basic Wisdom, Basic Intelligence, And Basic Goodness.
Words Of Wisdom
Intelligence
Reason
Difficult People Are The Greatest Teachers.
Teacher
People
Difficult
You Are The Sky. Everything Else - It’s Just The Weather.
Uplifting
Rainy Day
Sky
If You’re Aggressive In Your Dealings, That’s How You’ll Be Regarded In The World. You Might Smile And Give Generously, But If You Frequently Explode In Anger, People Never Feel Comfortable In Your Presence And You’ll Never Have Peace Of Mind.
People
Giving
Mind
Now Is The Only Time. How We Relate To It Creates The Future. In Other Words, If We're Going To Be More Cheerful In The Future, It's Because Of Our Aspiration And Exertion To Be Cheerful In The Present. What We Do Accumulates; The Future Is The Result Of What We Do Right Now.
Cheerful
Moments
Results
As Long As We're Caught Up In Always Looking For Certainty And Happiness, Rather Than Honoring The Taste And Smell And Quality Of Exactly What Is Happening, As Long As We're Always Running From Discomfort, We're Going To Be Caught In A Cycle Of Unhappiness And Discomfort, And We Will Feel Weaker And Weaker. This Way Of Seeing Helps Us Develop Inner Strength. And What's Especially Encouraging Is The View That Inner Strength Is Available To Us At Just The Moment When We Think That We've Hit The Bottom, When Things Are At Their Worst.
Strength
Happiness
Encouraging
Our Patterns Are Well Established, Seductive, And Comforting. Just Wanting For Them To Be Ventilated Isn't Enough. Those Of Us Who Struggle With This Know.
Karma
Struggle
Practice
We Can Spend Our Whole Lives Escaping From The Monsters Of Our Minds. (36)
Escaping
Mind
Monsters
Openness Doesn’t Come From Resisting Our Fears But Rather From Getting To Know Them Well.
Openness
Wells
Knows
How Will We Experience The World A Month, A Year, Or Five Years From Now? Will We Be Even Angrier, More Grasping And Fearful, Or Will Some Shift Have Occurred? This Depends Entirely On The Tendencies We Reinforce Today.
Motivational
Years
World
Many People Hope A Spiritual Practice Will Let Them Avoid What They Are Ashamed Of. But When You Hide Something From Yourself, You Are Going To Project It Onto Your World. You Continually Find It In Others And It Becomes The Source Of Prejudices And Dogmatic Views. On Top Of That, You Feel Bad About Yourself, Because You Aren't The Loving, Open-minded, "spiritual" Person You'd Like To Be.
Spiritual
Views
Practice
Being Fully Present Isn’t Something That Happens Once And Then You Have Achieved It; It’s Being Awake To The Ebb And Flow And Movement And Creation Of Life, Being Alive To The Process Of Life Itself.
Ebb And Flow
Movement
Alive
The Future Is Completely Open And We Are Writing It Moment To Moment.
Writing
Live In The Moment
Moments
One Way To Practice Staying Present Is To Simply Sit Still For A While And Listen. For One Minute, Listen To The Sounds Close To You. For One Minute, Listen To The Sounds At A Distance. Just Listen Attentively.
Buddhist
Distance
Practice
Discomfort Of Any Kind Becomes The Basis For Practice. We Breathe In Knowing Our Pain Is Shared.
Freedom
Pain
Practice
How Do We Cultivate The Conditions For Joy To Expand? We Train In Staying Present.
Joy
Staying
Train
One Of The Deepest Habitual Patterns That We Have Is To Feel That Now Is Not Enough.
Patterns
Enough
Feels
The Biggest Obstacle To Taking A Bigger Perspective On Life Is That Our Emotions Capture And Blind Us.
Perspective
Emotion
Obstacles
There's Nothing More Important On Our Spiritual Path Than Developing Gentleness To Oneself.
Spiritual
Important
Path
The Third Noble Truth Says That The Cessation Of Suffering Is Letting Go Of Holding On To Ourselves.
Letting Go
Suffering
Noble
Awareness Is The Key. Do We See The Stories That We're Telling Ourselves And Question Their Validity? When We Are Distracted By Strong Emotion, Do We Remember That It Is Our Path? Can We Feel The Emotion And Breathe It Into Our Hearts For Ourselves And Everyone Else? If We Can Remember To Experiment Like This Even Occasionally, We Are Training As A Warrior. And When We Can't Practice When Distracted But Know We Can't, We Are Still Training Well. Never Underestimate The Power Of Compassionately Recognizing What's Going On.
Strong
Heart
Warrior
Compassion Starts With Making Friends With Ourselves.
Compassion
Making Friends
As Buddhism Moved To The West, One Of The Big Characteristics Was The Strong Place Of Women. That Didn't Exist In The Countries Of Origin. It's Just A Sign Of Our Culture.
Country
Strong
Buddhism
Nobody Else Can Really Begin To Sort Out For You What To Accept And What To Reject In Terms Of What Wakes You Up And What Makes You Fall Asleep. No One Else Can Really Sort Out For You What To Accept - What Opens Up Your World - And What To Reject - What Seems To Keep You Going Round And Round In Some Kind Of Repetitive Misery.
Fall
World
Wakes You
Constantly Apply Cheerfulness, If For No Other Reason Than Because You Are On This Spiritual Path. Have A Sense Of Gratitude To Everything, Even Difficult Emotions, Because Of Their Potential To Wake You Up.
Spiritual
Gratitude
Wakes You
If Your Everyday Practice Is Open To All Your Emotions, To All The People You Meet, To All The Situations You Encounter, Without Closing Down, Trusting That You Can Do That - Then That Will Take You Are Far As You Can Go. And Then You'll Understand All The Teachings That Anyone Has Ever Taught.
Love
Teaching
Practice
Welcome The Present Moment As If You Had Invited It. Why? Because It Is All We Ever Have.
Acceptance
Curiosity
Welcome
Although It Is Embarrassing And Painful, It Is Very Healing To Stop Hiding From Yourself. It Is Healing To Know All The Ways That You’re Sneaky, All The Ways That You Hide Out, All The Ways That You Shut Down, Deny, Close Off, Criticize People, All Your Weird Little Ways. You Can Know All Of That With Some Sense Of Humor And Kindness. By Knowing Yourself, You’re Coming To Know Humanness Altogether. We Are All Up Against These Things. We Are All In This Together.
Kindness
Healing
Knowing
We Don't Experience The World Fully Unless We Are Willing To Give Everything Away.
Giving
World
Willing
When You Have Made Good Friends With Yourself, Your Situation Will Be More Friendly Too.
Good Friend
Friendly
Made
Lean Into The Sharp Points And Fully Experience Them. The Essence Of Bravery Is Being Without Self-deception. Wisdom Is Inherent In (understanding) Emotions.
Self
Essence
Bravery
If Your Mind Is Expansive And Unfettered, You Will Find Yourself In A More Accommodating World, A Place That's Endlessly Interesting And Alive. That Quality Isn't Inherent In The Place But In Your State Of Mind.
Interesting
Finding Yourself
Mind
The Ego Seeks To Divide And Separate. Spirit Seeks To Unify And Heal.
Ego
Spirit
Heal
The Trick Is To Keep Exploring And Not Bail Out, Even When We Find Out That Something Is Not What We Thought.
Bail
Exploration
Tricks
The Buddha Taught That Flexibility And Openness Bring Strength And That Running From Groundlessness Weakens Us And Brings Pain. But Do We Understand That Becoming Familiar With The Running Away Is The Key? Openness Doesn't Come From Resisting Our Fears But From Getting To Know Them Well
Running
Pain
Keys
The More Neurosis The More Wisdom.
Neurosis
While We Are Sitting In Meditation, We Are Simply Exploring Humanity And All Of Creation In The Form Of Ourselves. We Can Become The World's Greatest Experts On Anger, Jealousy, And Self-deprecatio N, As Well As On Joyfulness, Clarity, And Insight. Everything That Human Beings Feel, We Feel. We Can Become Extremely Wise And Sensitive To All Of Humanity And The Whole Universe Simply By Knowing Ourselves, Just As We Are.
Wise
Self
Knowing
Only To The Extent That We Expose Ourselves Over And Over To Annihilation Can That Which Is Indestructible In Us Be Found.
Life
Determination
Commitment
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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