Background Image

...

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.

-Nhat Hanh

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

If We Are At

Nhat Hanh

...

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.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Nhat Hanh

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

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

Smiling Is Very Important. If We Are Not Able To Smile, Then The World Will Not Have Peace. It Is Not By Going Out For A Demonstration Against Nuclear Missiles That We Can Bring About Peace. It Is With Our Capacity Of Smiling, Breathing, And Being Peace That We Can Make Peace.

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

Finding Yourself

We Need To Move Beyond The Idea Of 'environment' And Fall Back In Love With Mother Earth.

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

With Understanding, Those We Love Will Certainly Flower.

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.

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

Positive Thinking

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

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

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

In Order To Rally People, Governments Need Enemies... If They Do Not Have A Real Enemy, They Will Invent One In Order To Mobilize Us.

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.

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

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.

Usually, People Have A Tendency To Be Caught In The Worries Concerning The Future Or In The Regret Concerning The Past. There Is Some Kind Of Energy That Is Pushing Them To Run, And They Are Not Able To Establish Themselves In The Present Moment.

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.

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

We Will Not Just Say, "i Love Him Very Much," But Instead, "i Will Do Something So That He Will Suffer Less." The Mind Of Compassion Is Truly Present When It Is Effective In Removing Another Person's Suffering.

Fear Is Born From Ignorance. We Think That The Other Person Is Trying To Take Away Something From Us. But If We Look Deeply, We See That The Desire Of The Other Person Is Exactly Our Own Desire - To Have Peace, To Be Able To Have A Chance To Live.

Wherever We Are We Have The Capacity To Enjoy The Sunshine, The Presence Of Each Other And The Wonder Of Our Breathing.

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.

Freedom From Suffering Is A Great Happiness.

Great Happiness

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

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

To Condemn Someone To Death Is To Surrender; It Proves That You Failed. You Are Not Able To Change Him, To Change Her; You Have To Kill Him Or Her. You Surrender. ... You Only Demonstrate Your Lack Of Capacity, Your Helplessness. This Is Failure.

Through Your Love For Each Other, Through Learning The Art Of Making One Person Happy, You Learn To Express Your Love For The Whole Of Humanity And All Beings. Please Help Us Develop The Curriculum For The Institute For The Happiness Of One Person. Don't Wait Until We Open The School. You Can Begin Practicing Right Away.

You Have An Appointment With Life, An Appointment That Is In The Here And Now.

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.

Understanding Means Throwing Away Your Knowledge.

If You Are Motivated By Loving Kindness And Compassion, There Are Many Ways To Bring Happiness To Others Right Now, Starting With Kind Speech.

Wrong Perceptions Cannot Be Removed By Guns And Bombs. They Should Be Removed By Deep Listening, Compassionate Listening, And Loving Space.

A Teacher Cannot Give You The Truth The Truth Is Already In You You Only Need To Open Yourself – Body, Mind And Heart- So That His Or Her Teachings Will Penetrate Your Own Seeds Of Understanding And Enlightenment If You Let The Words Enter You, The Soil And The Seeds Will Do The Rest Of The Work

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.

When We Eat Mindfully, We Consume Exactly What We Need To Keep Our Bodies, Our Minds, And The Earth Healthy. When We Practice Like This, We Reduce Suffering For Ourselves And For Others.

We Try Many Ways To Be Awake, But Our Society Still Keeps Us Forgetful. Meditation Is To Help Us Remember.

Because You Are Alive, Everything Is Possible.

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?

Preventing War Is Much Better Than Protesting Against The War. Protesting The War Is Too Late.

When We Give Ourselves The Chance To Let Go Of All Our Tension, The Body's Natural Capacity To Heal Itself Can Begin To Work.

Many People Are Alive But Don't Touch The Miracle Of Being Alive.

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

Interdependence

To Reconcile Conflicting Parties, We Must Have The Ability To Understand The Suffering Of Both Sides. If We Take Sides, It Is Impossible To Do The Work Of Reconciliation. And Humans Want To Take Sides. That Is Why The Situation Gets Worse And Worse. Are There People Who Are Still Available To Both Sides? They Need Not Do Much. They Need Do Only One Thing: Go To One Side And Tell All About The Suffering Endured By The Other Side, And Go To The Other Side And Tell All About The Suffering Endured By This Side. This Is Our Chance For Peace. But How Many Of Us Are Able To Do That?

Compassionate Listening Is To Help The Other Side Suffer Less. If We Realize That Other People Are The Same People As We Are, We Are No Longer Angry At Them.

The Miracle Is Not To Walk On Water, Or In The Air, Or On Burning Charcoal. The Miracle Is To Walk On Earth. You Breathe In, You Become Aware Of The Fact That You Are Alive. You Are Alive And You Are Walking On This Beautiful Planet. The Greatest Of Of All Miracles Is To Be Alive.

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

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.

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.

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

Let Us Fill Our Hearts With Our Own Compassion - Towards Ourselves And Towards All Living Beings.

Smile, Breathe, Go Slowly.

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.

Love Is The Capacity To Take Care, To Protect, To Nourish.

Go Slowly, Breathe And Smile.

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

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

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

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

Anyone Who Is Practicing Understanding And Compassion Can Exemplify True Power. Anyone Can Be A Buddha.

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

Life Is A Miracle, And Being Aware Of Simply This Can Already Make Us Very Happy.

In Buddhism, Mindfulness Is The Key. Mindfulness Is The Energy That Sheds Light On All Things And All Activities, Producing The Power Of Concentration, Bringing Forth Deep Insight And Awakening. Mindfulness Is The Base Of Buddhist Practice

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!"

I Would Not Look Upon Anger As Something Foreign To Me That I Have To Fight... I Have To Deal With My Anger With Care, With Love, With Tenderness, With Nonviolence.

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

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

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

Drink Your Tea Slowly And Reverently, As If It Is The Axis On Which The World Earth Revolves - Slowly, Evenly, Without Rushing Toward The Future.

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

Peace Is Every Step

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.

To Meditate Is To Be Aware Of What Is Going On - In Our Bodies, Our Feelings Our Minds, And In The World. When We Settle Into The Present Moment, We Can See The Beauties And Wonders Before Our Eyes.

May We Awaken From Forgetfulness And Realize Our True Home.

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.

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

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.

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

Contemplating The Bowl, It Is Possible To See The Interdependent Elements Which Give Rise To The Bowl.

Breathing In, I Am Aware That I Am Breathing In. Breathing Out, I Am Aware That I Am Breathing Out. Breathing In, I Am Grateful For This Moment. Breathing Out, I Smile. Breathing In, I Am Aware Of The Preciousness Of This Day. Breathing Out, I Vow To Live Deeply In This Day.

If We Know How To Create The Energy Of Love, Understanding, Compassion, And Beauty, Then We Can Contribute A Lot To The World.

Root Out The Violence In Your Life, And Learn To Live Compassionately And Mindfully. Seek Peace. When You Have Peace Within, Real Peace With Others Is Possible.

To Make Your Voice Heard Is Difficult. Sometimes We Have To Burn Ourselves In Order To Be Heard. It Is Out Of Compassion That You Do That. It Is The Act Of Love And Not Of Despair.

Most Of Us Experience A Life Full Of Wonderful Moments And Difficult Moments. But For Many Of Us, Even When We Are Most Joyful, There Is Fear Behind Our Joy.

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

Buddhism Teaches Us Not To Try To Run Away From Suffering. You Have To Confront Suffering. You Have To Look Deeply Into The Nature Of Suffering In Order To Recognize Its Cause, The Making Of The Suffering.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What Is Most Important Is To Find Peace And To Share It With Others. To Have Peace, You Can Begin By Walking Peacefully. Everything Depends On Your Steps.

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

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.

At First Glance, That Might Seem A Little Silly: Why Put So Much Stress On A Simple Thing? But That's Precisely The Point.

In Mindfulness One Is Not Only Restful And Happy, But Alert And Awake. Meditation Is Not Evasion; It Is A Serene Encounter With Reality.

The Source Of Love Is Deep In Us And We Can Help Others Realize A Lot Of Happiness. One Word, One Action, One Thought Can Reduce Another Person’s Suffering And Bring That Person Joy.

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

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

Our Own Lives Are The Instruments With Which We Experiment With Truth.

If You're A Politician, You Might Want To Learn The Buddhist Way Of Negotiation. Restoring Communication And Bringing Back Reconciliation Is Clear And Concrete In Buddhism.

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

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

It Is Possible To Live Happily In The Here And The 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.

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

Walking Meditation

The Noble Eight-fold Path Is The Path Of Living In Awareness. Mindfulness Is The Foundation. By Practicing Mindfulness, You Can Develop Concentration, Which Enables You To Attain Understanding. Thanks To Right Concentration, You Realize Right Awareness, Thoughts, Speech, Action, Livelihood And Effort. The Understanding Which Develops Can Liberate You From Every Shackle Of Suffering And Give Birth To True Peace And Joy.

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

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.

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.

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

The Nectar Of Compassion Is So Wonderful. If You Are Committed To Keeping It Alive, Then You Are Protected. What The Other Person Says Will Not Touch Off The Anger And Irritation In You, Because Compassion Is The Real Antidote To Anger. Nothing Can Heal Anger Except Compassion. That Is Why The Practice Of Compassion Is A Very Wonderful Practice.

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.

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.

Being Vegetarian Here Also Means That We Do Not Consume Dairy And Egg Products, Because They Are Products Of The Meat Industry. If We Stop Consuming, They Will Stop Producing. Only Collective Awakening Can Create Enough Determination For Action.

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

When You Begin To See That Your Enemy Is Suffering, That Is The Beginning Of Insight.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Live Your Daily Life In A Way That You Never Lose Yourself

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.

Know That Life Can Only Be Found In The Present Moment.

Peace Is Every Step

Mindful Consumption Is The Object Of This Precept. We Are What We Consume. If We Look Deeply Into The Items That We Consume Every Day, We Will Come To Know Our Own Nature Very Well. We Have To Eat, Drink, Consume, But If We Do It Unmindfully, We May Destroy Our Bodies And Our Consciousness, Showing Ingratitude Toward Our Ancestors, Our Parents, And Future Generations.

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

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

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.

There Is No Enlightenment Outside Of Daily Life.

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

Walking Meditation

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.

The Practice Of Peace And Reconciliation Is One Of The Most Vital And Artistic Of Human Actions.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I Vow To Live Fully In Each Moment.

Morning Inspirational

One Day I Saw A Picture Of The Buddha On A Buddhist Magazine And He Was Sitting On The Grass, And He Was Sitting On The Grass, Very Peaceful, Smiling, And I Was Impressed. Around Me People Were Not Like That, So I Had The Desire To Be Someone Like Him. I Nourished That Kind Of Desire Until The Age Of Sixteen, When I Had The Permission From My Parents To Go And Ordain As A Buddhist Monk.

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.

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.

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

If We Believe That Tomorrow Will Be Better, We Can Bear A Hardship Today

In The Mountains Of Wisdom No Climbing Is In Vain.

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.

Happiness Reveals Itself When We Are At Peace With Ourselves.

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

Eating Together

Being Rich Is An Obstacle To Loving. When You Are Rich, You Want To Continue To Be Rich, And So You End Up Devoting All Your Time, All Your Energy, In Your Daily Life To Stay Rich.

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

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.

The Buddha Said, 'nothing Can Survive Without Food.' This Is A Very Simple And Very Deep Truth. Love And Hate Are Both Living Phenomena. If We Do Not Nourish Our Love, It Will Die And May Turn Into Hate. If We Want Love To Last, We Have To Nurture It And Give It Food Every Day. Hate Is The Same; If We Don't Feed It, It Cannot Survive.

Be Peace, Don't Just Talk About It.

Because Of Your Smile, You Make Life More Beautiful.

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

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?

To Abandon The Present In Order To Look For Things In The Future Is To Throw Away The Substance And Hold Onto The Shadow.

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

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.

When We Are Angry, Our Anger Is Our Very Self. To Suppress Or Chase Away Our Anger Is To Suppress Or Chase Away Ourselves. When Anger Is Born, We Can Be Aware That Anger Is An Energy In Us, And We Can Change That Energy Into Another Kind Of Energy. If We Want To Transform It, First We Have To Know How To Accept It.

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

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.

Leaves Are Usually Looked Upon As The Children Of The Tree. Yes, They Are Children Of The Tree, Born From The Tree, But They Are Also Mothers Of The Tree. The Leaves Combine Raw Sap, Water, And Minerals, With Sunshine And Gas, And Convert It Into A Variegated Sap That Can Nourish The Tree. In This Way, The Leaves Become The Mother Of The Tree. We Are All Children Of Society, But We Are Also Mothers. We Have To Nourish Society. If We Are Uprooted From Society, We Can Not Trasform It Into A More Liveable Place For Us And Our Children.

Scientists Tell Us That We Have Enough Technology To Save Our Planet. . . . Yet We Don't Take Advantage Of This New Technology. . . . The Technological Has To Work Hand-in-hand With The Spiritual. Our Spiritual Life Is The Element That Can Bring About The Energies Of Peace, Calm, Brotherhood, Understanding, And Compassion. Without That, Our Planet Doesn't Stand A Chance.

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

Human Beings Are Not Our Enemy. Our Enemy Is Not The Other Person. Our Enemy Is The Violence, Ignorance, And Injustice In Us And In The Other Person. When We Are Armed With Compassion And Understanding, We Fight Not Against Other People, But Against The Tendency To Invade, To Dominate, And To Exploit.

If You Come To Plum Village In The Summertime, You See Many Lotus Flowers. Without The Mud The Lotus Flowers Cannot Grow. You Cannot Separate Lotus Flowers From The Mud. It Is The Same With Understanding And Love. These Are Two Kinds Of Flowers That Grow On The Ground Of Suffering

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

Live In The Moment

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.

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

If Every Day You Practice Walking And Sitting Meditation And Generate The Energy Of Mindfulness And Concentration And Peace, You Are A Cell In The Body Of The New Buddha. This Is Not A Dream But Is Possible Today And Tomorrow.

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.

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.

To Live In The Present Moment Is A Miracle.

Live In The Present

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

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

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

The Miracle Is To Walk On The Earth.

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.

Whenever Anger Comes Up, Take Out A Mirror And Look At Yourself. When You Are Angry, You Are Not Very Beautiful.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Because If The Manifestations That Happen In The Present Moment Are Beautiful And Good, Their Continuation In The Future Will Be Also Good And Beautiful.

Reconciliation Is To Understand Both Sides; To Go To One Side And Describe The Suffering Being Endured By The Other Side, And Then Go To The Other Side And Describe The Suffering Being Endured By The First Side.

Mutual Understanding

Compassion Is A Verb.

Real Peace Is Not In Power, Money, Or Weapons, But In Deep Inner Peace.

Deep Listening Helps Us To Recognize The Existence Of Wrong Perceptions In The Other Person And Wrong Perceptions In Us.

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?

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.

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.

If You Are A Poet, You Will See Clearly That There Is A Cloud Floating In This Sheet Of Paper? ?to Be? Is To Inter-be. We Cannot Just Be By Ourselves Alone. We Have To Inter-be With Every Other Thing. This Sheet Of Paper Is, Because Everything Else Is.

Your True Home Is In The Here And The Now.

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.

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.

When The Energy Of Compassion And Love Touches Us, Healing Establishes Itself.

Follow Your Breathing, Dwell Mindfully On Your Steps, And Soon You Will Find Your Balance.

Trending Author

John Drinkwater

Category