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

-Nhat Hanh

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From Time To Time,

Nhat Hanh

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

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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.

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.

To Be Loved Means To Be Recognized As Existing.

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

Peace In Every Step. The Shining Red Sun Is My Heart. Each Flower Smiles With Me. How Green, How Fresh All That Grows. How Cool The Wind Blows. Peace Is Every Step. It Turns The Endless Path To Joy.

Each Breath We Take, Each Step We Make, Each Smile We Realize, Is A Positive Contribution To Peace... A Necessary Step In The Direction Of Peace For The World.

I Have Arrived. I Am Home. My Destination Is In Each Step.

Every Day We Do Things, We Are Things That Have To Do With Peace. If We Are Aware Of Our Life..., Our Way Of Looking At Things, We Will Know Ohw To Make Peace Right In The Moment, We Are Alive.

Breathe In Deeply To Bring Your Mind Home To Your Body. Then Look At, Or Think Of, The Person Triggering This Emotion: With Mindfulness, You Can See That She Is Unhappy, That She Is Suffering. You Can See Her Wrong Perceptions. You Can See That She Is Not Beautiful When She Says Things That Are Unkind.

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

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.

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.

I Still Arrive, In Order To Laugh And To Cry, To Fear And To Hope. The Rhythm Of My Heart Is The Birth And Death Of All That Is Alive.

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

Be Peace, Don't Just Talk About It.

Walk So That Your Footprints Bear Only The Marks Of Peaceful Joy And Complete Freedom. To Do This You Have To Learn To Let Go. Let Go Of Your Sorrows, Let Go Of Your Worries. That Is The Secret Of Walking Meditation.

Walking Meditation

When Our Beliefs Are Based On Our Own Direct Experience Of Reality And Not On Notions Offered By Others, No One Can Remove These Beliefs From Us.

Freedom From Suffering Is A Great Happiness.

Great Happiness

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

You Would Not Cry If You Knew That By Looking Deeply Into The Rain You Would Still See The Cloud.

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

There Are Always Some People Who Are Ready To Embrace A Doctrine, A Notion, A Dogma, And They Miss The Real Teaching.

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.

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

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.

Compassion Is A Verb.

If You Do Not Know How To Take Care Of Yourself, And The Violence In You, Then You Will Not Be Able To Take Care Of Others. You Must Have Love And Patience Before You Can Truly Listen To Your Partner Or Child. If You Are Irritated You Cannot Listen. You Have To Know How To Breath Mindfully, Embrace Your Irritation And Transform It. Offer Only Understand And Compassion To Your Partner Or Child - This Is The True Practice Of Love.

Everything Inside And Around Us Wants To Reflect Itself In Us. We Don't Have To Go Anywhere To Obtain The Truth. We Only Need To Be Still And Things Will Reveal Themselves In The Still Water Of Our Heart.

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

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

I Am Inviting You To Go Deeper, To Learn And To Practice So That You Become Someone Who Has A Great Capacity For Being Solid, Calm, And Without Fear, Because Our Society Needs People Like You Who Have These Qualities, And Your Children, Our Children, Need People Like You, In Order To Go On, In Order To Become Solid, And Calm, And Without Fear.

Anger Is The Energy That People Use In Order To Act. But When You Are Angry, You Are Not Lucid, And You Might Do Wrong Things. That Is Why Compassion Is A Better Energy.

Training Is Needed In Order To Love Properly; And To Be Able To Give Happiness And Joy, You Must Practice Deep Looking Directed Toward The Other Person You Love. Because If You Do Not Understand This Person, You Cannot Love Properly. Understanding Is The Essence Of Love. If You Cannot Understand, You Cannot Love. That Is The Message Of The Buddha.

Letting Go Gives Us Freedom And Freedom Is The Only Condition For Happiness

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

Often, We Feel That We Need A Leader Outside Of Ourselves -a Buddha, A Gandhi, Or A Martin Luther King, Jr.- To Show The Way. But We Have The Buddha Inside Of Us. We Have Gandhi And King Inside Of Us As Well. We Are Interconnected. We Don't Need To Wait For Some Other Person To Be The Change We Want To See In The World

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

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.

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

To Be Or Not To Be Is Not The Question. The Question Is Whether You Can Transcend These Notions.

Be Or Not To Be

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

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

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

The Reason We Might Lose Love Is Because We Are Always Looking Outside Of Us, Thinking That The Object Or Action Of Love Is Out There. That Is Why We Allow The Love, The Harmony, The Mature Understanding, To Slip Away From Ourselves.

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

Go Back And Take Care Of Yourself. Your Body Needs You, Your Feelings Need You, Your Perceptions Need You. Your Suffering Needs You To Acknowledge It. Go Home And Be There For All These Things.

In Zen Buddhism, The Greater Your Doubt, The Greater Will Be Your Enlightenment. That Is Why Doubt Can Be A Good Thing. If You Are Too Sure, If You Always Have Conviction, Then You May Be Caught In Your Wrong Perception For A Long Time.

Life Has Left Her Footprints On My Forehead. But I Have Become A Child Again This Morning. The Smile, Seen Through Leaves And Flowers, Is Back To Smooth Away The Wrinkles, As The Rains Wipe Away Footprints On The Beach. Again A Cycle Of Birth And Death Begins.

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.

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.

There Are Some People Who Eat An Orange But Don't Really Eat It. They Eat Their Sorrow, Fear, Anger, Past, And Future.

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

Anxiety Is The Illness Of Our Age. We Worry About Ourselves, Our Family, Our Friends, Our Work, And Our State Of The World. If We Allow Worry To Fill Our Hearts, Sooner Or Later We Will Get Sick.

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

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.

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

With Mindfulness, You Can Establish Yourself In The Present In Order To Touch The Wonders Of Life That Are Available In That Moment.

Mother Earth Is Very Talented. She Has Produced Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Great Beings.

Every One Of Us Needs A Home. The World Needs A Home. There Are So Many Young People Who Are Homeless. They May Have A Building To Live In, But They Are Homeless In Their Hearts. That Is Why The Most Important Practice Of Our Time Is To Give Each Person A Home.

You Carry Mother Earth Within You. She Is Not Outside Of You. Mother Earth Is Not Just Your Environment.

Live The Actual Moment. Only This Moment Is Life.

Live In The Moment

The Way We Live Our Daily Lives Is What Most Effects The Situation Of The World. If We Can Change Our Daily Lives, Then We Can Change Our Governments And Can Change The World. Our President And Governments Are Us. They Reflect Our Lifestyle And Our Way Of Thinking. The Way We Hold A Cup Of Tea, Pick Up The Newspaper Or Even Use Toilet Paper Are Directly Related To Peace.

To Be Beautiful Means To Be Yourself. You Don’t Need To Be Accepted By Others. You Need To Accept Yourself.

Your True Home Is In The Here And The Now.

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

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.

Life Is Filled With Suffering, But It Is Also Filled With Many Wonders, Like The Blue Sky, The Sunshine, The Eyes Of A Baby. To Suffer Is Not Enough. We Must Also Be In Touch With The Wonders Of Life. They Are Within Us And All Around Us, Everywhere, Any Time.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I Don't Have To Hate Any Person Because I Can Always Start Anew, I Can Always Reconcile.

Smile, Breathe, Go Slowly.

So If We Love Someone, We Should Train In Being Able To Listen. By Listening With Calm And Understanding, We Can Ease The Suffering Of Another Person. [true Love. A Practice For Awakening The Heart.]

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.

There Is No Enlightenment Outside Of Daily Life.

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

In The Mountains Of Wisdom No Climbing Is In Vain.

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

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

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

The Three Kinds Of Pride Are: (1) Thinking I Am Better Than The Other(s); (2) Thinking I Am Worse Than The Other(s); And (3) Thinking I Am Just As Good As The Other(s).

Every Thought You Produce, Anything You Say, Any Action You Do, It Bears Your Signature.

If We Are Not Happy, If We Are Not Peaceful, We Cannot Share Peace And Happiness With Others, Even Those We Love, Those Who Live Under The Same Roof. If We Are Peaceful, If We Are Happy, We Can Smile And Blossom Like A Flower, And Everyone In Our Family, Our Entire Society, Will Benefit From Our Peace.

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

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

Thanks To Impermanence, Everything Is Possible.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Infinite Possibilities

The Other Person Has Wrong Perceptions About Himself And About Us. And We Have Wrong Perceptions About Ourselves And The Other Person. And That Is The Foundation For Violence And Conflict And War.

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.

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

If You Abandon The Present Moment, You Cannot Live The Moments Of Your Daily Life Deeply.

As We Cultivate Peace And Happiness In Ourselves, We Also Nourish Peace And Happiness In Those We Love.

Peace And Happiness

It Is Not A Matter Of Faith, It Is A Matter Of Practice

Anxiety, The Illness Of Our Time, Comes Primarily From Our Inability To Dwell In The Present Moment.

When It Comes To Health And Well-being, Regular Exercise Is About As Close To A Magic Potion As You Can Get.

May Our Heart's Garden Of Awakening Bloom With Hundreds Of Flowers.

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

Meditation Is To Get Insight, To Get Understanding And Compassion, And When You Have Them, You Are Compelled To Act.

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

Life Is Available Only In The Present Moment.

Wisdom And Joy Arise When You Learn To Exist Now Rather Than In The Nonexistent Past Or Future.

The Fact Is That When You Make The Other Suffer, He Will Try To Find Relief By Making You Suffer More. The Result Is An Escalation Of Suffering On Both Sides.

Freedom Is The Basic Condition For You To Touch Life, To Touch The Blue Sky, The Trees, The Birds, The Tea, And The Other Person.

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

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

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

Peace Is Every Step

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

Nirvana Is The Complete Silencing Of Concepts.

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

Happiness Is Not An Individual Matter. When You Are Able To Bring Relief, Or Bring Back The Smile To One Person, Not Only That Person Profits, But You Also Profit.

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

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

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

Changing Is Not Just Changing The Things Outside Of Us. First Of All We Need The Right View That Transcends All Notions Including Of Being And Non-being, Creator And Creature, Mind And Spirit. That Kind Of Insight Is Crucial For Transformation And Healing.

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

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

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

There Are So Many Things That Can Provide Us With Peace. Next Time You Take A Shower Or A Bath, I Suggest You Hold Your Big Toes In Mindfulness. We Pay Attention To Everything Except Our Toes. When We Hold Our Toes In Mindfulness And Smile At Them, We Will Find That Our Bodies Have Been Very Kind To Us. We Know That Any Cell In Our Toes Can Turn Cancerous, But Our Toes Have Been Behaving Very Well, Avoiding That Kind Of Problem. Yet, We Have Not Been Nice To Them At All. These Kinds Of Practices Can Bring Us Happiness.

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.

Our Own Life Has To Be Our Message.

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

Lack Of Understanding

Understanding And Love Are Not Two Separate Things, But Just One. To Develop Understanding, You Have To Practice Looking At All Living Beings With The Eyes Of Compassion. When You Understand, You Cannot Help But Love. And When You Love, You Naturally Act In A Way That Can Relieve The Suffering Of People.

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

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.

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

I Am In The Present. I Don't Think Of The Past. I Don't Think Of The Future.

At The Moment Of Waking Up, Before Getting Out Of Bed, Get In Touch With Your Breath

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.

In True Love, You Attain Freedom.

Personal Growth

If We Can Not Smile, We Cannot Help Other People To Smile.

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.

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

When We Look Deeply Into The Heart Of A Flower, We See Clouds, Sunshine, Minerals, Time, The Earth, And Everything Else In The Cosmos In It. Without Clouds There Could Be No Rain, And Without Rain There Would Be No Flower.

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.

When You Have A Toothache, You Think That Not Having A Toothache Will Make You Very Happy. But When You Don't Have A Toothache, Often You Are Still Not Happy. If You Practice Awareness, You Suddenly Become Very Rich, Very Very Happy.

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.

Feelings, Whether Of Compassion Or Irritation, Should Be Welcomed, Recognized, And Treated On An Absolutely Equal Basis; Because Both Are Ourselves. The Tangerine I Am Eating Is Me. The Mustard Greens I Am Planting Are Me. I Plant With All My Heart And Mind. I Clean This Teapot With The Kind Of Attention I Would Have Were I Giving The Baby Buddha Or Jesus A Bath. Nothing Should Be Treated More Carefully Than Anything Else. In Mindfulness, Compassion, Irritation, Mustard Green Plant, And Teapot Are All Sacred.

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

Each Second Of Life Is A Miracle

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

We Have More Possibilities Available In Each Moment Than We Realize.

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

Tolerance And Tranquility Are Two Characteristics Of True Love.

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

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

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

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.

My Actions Are My Only True Belongings.

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.

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

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

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

To Think In Terms Of Either Pessimism Or Optimism Oversimplifies The Truth. The Problem Is To See Reality As It Is. A Pessimistic Attitude Can Never Create The Calm And Serene Smile Which Blossoms On The Lips Of Bodhisattvas And All Those Who Obtain The Way.

As A Human Being, You Have The Right To Get Angry; But As A Practitioner, You Do Not Have The Right To Stop Practicing.

When You Love Someone, You Want To Share Everything With Him Or Her. So It Is Your Duty To Say, "i Suffer And I Want You To Know" - And He Will, She Will, Appreciate It.

When You Love Someone

Choose To Be In Touch With What Is Wonderful, Refreshing, And Healing Within Yourself And Around You.

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.

The Moment You Understand The Importance Of Loving Yourself, You Will Stop Hurting Others.

Loving Yourself

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

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.

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.

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.

The Seven Factors Of Awakening Are Mindfulness, Investigation Of Phenomena, Diligence, Joy, Ease, Concentration, And Letting Go.

When You Enter Deeply Into This Moment, You See The Nature Of Reality, And This Insight Liberates You From Suffering And Confusion. Peace Is Already There To Some Extent: The Problem Is Whether We Know How To Touch It.

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

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

In The Light Of Interbeing, Peace And Happiness In Your Daily Life Means Peace And Happiness In The World.

We Really Have To Understand The Person We Want To Love. If Our Love Is Only A Will To Possess, It Is Not Love. If We Only Think Of Ourselves, If We Know Only Our Own Needs And Ignore The Needs Of The Other Person, We Cannot Love.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

We Are Often Sad And Suffer A Lot When Things Change, But Change And Impermanence Have A Positive Side. Thanks To Impermanence, Everything Is Possible. Life Itself Is Possible... If Your Daughter Is Not Impermanent, She Cannot Grow Up To Become A Woman. Then Your Grandchildren Would Never Manifest.

To Be A Monk Is To Have Time To Practice For Your Transformation And Healing. And After That To Help With The Transformation And Healing Of Other People.

Many Of Us Have Been Running All Our Lives. Practice Stopping.

Reality Is Reality. It Transcends Every Concept. There Is No Concept Which Can Adequately Describe It, Not Even The Concept Of Interdependence.

Interdependence

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

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

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

Meditation Is Not To Get Out Of Society, To Escape From Society, But To Prepare For A Reentery Into Society.

Our Smile Affirms Our Awareness And Determination To Live In Peace And Joy.

The Greatest Of All Miracles Is To Be Alive.

Every Day We Touch What Is Wrong, And, As A Result, We Are Becoming Less And Less Healthy. That Is Why We Have To Learn To Practice Touching What Is Not Wrong—inside Us And Around Us. When We Get In Touch With Our Eyes, Our Heart, Our Liver, Our Breathing, And Our Non-toothache And Really Enjoy Them, We See That The Conditions For Peace And Happiness Are Already Present.

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

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.

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

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

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

You Are Like A Candle. Imagine You Are Sending Light Out All Around You. All Your Words, Thoughts And Actions Are Going In Many Directions. If You Say Something Kind, Your Kind Words Go In Many Directions, And You Yourself Go With Them. We Are ...transforming And Continuing In A Different Form At Every Moment.

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.

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

Sometimes Your Joy Is The Source Of Your Smile, But Sometimes Your Smile Can Be The Source Of Your Joy.

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.

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William F. Buckley, Jr.

King Edward VIII

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