Background Image

...

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

-Nhat Hanh

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

If You Are Capable

Nhat Hanh

...

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

Views: 4

Topic

More From Nhat Hanh

Sometimes When I Am Alone In My Room In The Dark, I Practice Smiling To Myself. I Do This To Be Kind To Myself, To Take Good Care Of Myself, To Love Myself. I Know That If I Cannot Take Care Of Myself, I Cannot Take Care Of Anyone Else.

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

Finding Yourself

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

Peace In Ourselves, Peace In The World.

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

But If We Have The Energy Of Compassion And Loving Kindness In Us, The People Around Us Will Be Influenced By Our Way Of Being And Living.

As You Embrace Your Pain, You Get Relief And You Find Out How To Handle That Emotion. And If You Know How To Handle The Fear, Then You Have Enough Insight In Order To Solve The Problem. The Problem Is To Not Allow That Anxiety To Take Over.

If You Establish Serenity And Happiness Inside Yourself, You Provide The World With A Solid Base Of Peace. If You Do Not Give Yourself Peace, How Can You Share It With Others? If You Do Not Begin Your Peace Work With Yourself, Where Will You Go To Begin It?

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

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.

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

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.

Walk As If You Are Kissing The Earth With Your Feet.

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.

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

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

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

I Hold My Face In My Two Hands. No, I Am Not Crying. I Hold My Face In My Two Hands To Keep The Loneliness Warm - Two Hands Protecting, Two Hands Nourishing, Two Hands Preventing My Soul From Leaving Me In Anger.

Each Time You Take A Mindful Step You Are Back In The Arms Of Mother Earth And Are Reminded Of Your True Sweet Home In The Here And Now.

You Practice Mindfulness, On The One Hand, To Be Calm And Peaceful. On The Other Hand, As You Practice Mindfulness And Live A Life Of Peace, You Inspire Hope For A Future Of Peace.

No Blame, No Reasoning, No Argument, Just Understanding. If You Understand, And You Show That You Understand, You Can Love, And The Situation Will Change.

The Therapist Does Not Treat Patients By Simply Giving Them Another Set Of Beliefs. He Or She Tries To Help Them See Which Kinds Of Ideas And Beliefs Have Led To Their Suffering. Many Patients Want To Get Rid Of Their Painful Feelings, But They Do Not Want To Get Rid Of Their Beliefs, The Viewpoints That Are The Very Roots Of Their Feelings.

Painful Feelings

I Have Lost My Smile, But Don't Worry. The Dandelion Has It.

To Meditate Means To Go Home To Yourself. Then You Know How To Take Care Of The Things That Are Happening Inside You, And You Know How To Take Care Of The Things That Happen Around You.

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

If We Are Peaceful, If We Are Happy, We Can Smile, And Everyone In Our Family, Our Entire Society, Will Benefit From Our Peace.

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?

Enlightenment, Peace, And Joy Will Not Be Granted By Someone Else. The Well Is Within Us, And If We Dig Deeply In The Present Moment, The Water Will Spring Forth.

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

If You Realize That The Other Person Is A Human Being Too, And You Have Exactly The Same Kind Of Spiritual Path, And Then The Two Can Become Good Practitioners. This Appears To Be Practical For Both.

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.

The Secret Of Buddhism Is To Remove All Ideas, All Concepts, In Order For The Truth To Have A Chance To Penetrate, To Reveal Itself.

The 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.

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.

Contemplate To See That Awakened People, While Not Being Enslaved By The Work Of Serving Living Beings, Never Abandon Their Work Of Serving Living Beings.

Freedom Is Not Given To Us By Anyone; We Have To Cultivate It Ourselves. It Is A Daily Practice... No One Can Prevent You From Being Aware Of Each Step You Take Or Each Breath In And Breath Out.

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

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

Inspirational Life

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.

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.

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

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.

Nothing Is More Precious Than Being In The Present Moment. Fully Alive, Fully Aware.

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.

Usually When We Hear Or Read Something New, We Just Compare It To Our Own Ideas. If It Is The Same, We Accept It And Say That It Is Correct. If It Is Not, We Say It Is Incorrect. In Either Case, We Learn Nothing.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Smile, Breathe And Go Slowly.

Breathing In, I Am Aware Of My Heart. Breathing Out, I Smile To My Heart And Know That My Heart Still Functions Normally. I Feel Grateful For My Heart.

People Normally Cut Reality Into Compartments, And So Are Unable To See The Interdependence Of All Phenomena. To See One In All And All In One Is To Break Through The Great Barrier Which Narrows One's Perception Of Reality.

Life Is Only Available In The Present Moment.

In The Past There Were People Who Were Not Rich But Contented With Their Living Style, Laughing And Happy All Day. But When The New Rich People Appear, People Look At Them And Ask Why Don't I Have A Life Like That Too, A Beautiful House, Car And Garden And They Abandon Their Values.

Our Appointment With Life Is In The Present Moment. If We Do Not Have Peace And Joy Right Now, When Will We Have Peace And Joy?

We All Need A Place That Is Safe And Wholesome Enough For Us To Return For Refuge. In Buddhism, That Refuge Is Mindfulness.

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.

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

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

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

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

When You Love Someone

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.

Happiness Is Available. Please Help Yourself To It.

Just Listen Be Peace.

The Best Way To Take Care Of The Future Is To Take Care Of The Present Moment.

Go Slowly, Breathe And Smile.

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

Peace Is Every Step

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

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

I Know That We Do Not Know Enough. 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.

An Oak Tree Is An Oak Tree. That Is All It Has To Do. If An Oak Tree Is Less Than An Oak Tree, Then We Are All In Trouble.

In Every Country In The World, Killing Human Beings Is Condemned. The Buddhist Precept Of Non-killing Extends Even Further, To Include All Living Beings.

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

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.

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

True Self Is Non-self, The Awareness That The Self Is Made Only Of Non-self Elements. There's No Separation Between Self And Other, And Everything Is Interconnected. Once You Are Aware Of That You Are No Longer Caught In The Idea That You Are A Separate Entity.

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.

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.

No Single Tradition Monopolizes The Truth. We Must Glean The Best Values Of All Traditions And Work Together To Remove The Tensions Between Traditions In Order To Give Peace A Chance.

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.

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.

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.

Breath Is The Bridge Which Connects Life To Consciousness, Which Unites Your Body To Your Thoughts. Whenever Your Mind Becomes Scattered, Use Your Breath As The Means To Take Hold Of Your Mind Again.

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.

Fear Keeps Us Focused On The Past Or Worried About The Future. If We Can Acknowledge Our Fear, We Can Realize That Right Now We Are Okay. Right Now, Today, We Are Still Alive, And Our Bodies Are Working Marvelously. Our Eyes Can Still See The Beautiful Sky. Our Ears Can Still Hear The Voices Of Our Loved Ones.

The Greatest Of All Miracles Is To Be Alive.

I Would Not Be Happy If I Could Not Become A Monk. They Call It The Beginner's Mind - The Deep Intention, The Deepest Desire That A Person May Have. And I Can Say That Until This Day, This Beginner's Mind Is Still Alive In Me.

In Order To Be Loved, We Have To Love, Which Means We Have To Understand.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Anger Is Like A Flame Blazing Up And Consuming Our Self-control, Making Us Think, Say, And Do Things That We Will Probably Regret Later.

Because Of Your Smile, You Make Life More Beautiful.

The Electron Is First Of All Your Concept Of The Electron.

Awareness Is A Mirror Reflecting The Four Elements. Beauty Is A Heart That Generates Love And A Mind That Is Open.

To Develop Understanding, You Have To Practice Looking At All Living Things With The Eyes Of Compassion.

‎we Have A Lamp Inside Us. The Oil Of That Lamp Is Our Breathing, Our Steps, And Our Peaceful Smile. Our Practice Is To Light Up The Lamp.

The Source Of A True Smile Is An Awakened Mind. Smiling Helps You Approach The Day With Gentleness And Understanding.

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.

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

What You Are Looking For Is Already In You...you Already Are Everything You Are Seeking.

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

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

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

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

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

In The Moment When We Are Able To Smile, To Look At Ourselves With Compassion, Our World Begins To Change.

When We Are Present, Life Is Also Present.

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.

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

We May Not Have Done Anything But When We Are Relaxed, When We Are Peaceful, When We Are Able To Smile And Not To Be Violent In The Way We Look At The System, At That Moment There Is A Change Already In The World.

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

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 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.

Before Practicing Meditation, We See That Mountains Are Mountains. When We Start To Practice, We See That Mountains Are No Longer Mountains. After Practicing A While, We See That Mountains Are Again Mountains. Now The Mountains Are Very Free. Our Mind Is Still With The Mountains, But It Is No Longer Bound To Anything.

When You Sit In A Café, With A Lot Of Music In The Background And A Lot Of Projects In Your Head, You're Not Really Drinking Your Coffee Or Your Tea. You're Drinking Your Projects, You're Drinking Your Worries. You Are Not Real, And The Coffee Is Not Real Either. Your Coffee Can Only Reveal Itself To You As A Reality When You Go Back To Your Self And Produce Your True Presence, Freeing Yourself From The Past, The Future, And From Your Worries. When You Are Real, The Tea Also Becomes Real And The Encounter Between You And The Tea Is Real. This Is Genuine Tea Drinking.

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.

Our Life Is A Manifestation, And We Can Very Well Make That Manifestation Beautiful And Meaningful And Have A Good Influence.

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.

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.

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!"

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

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

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

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.

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.

If We Are Not Fully Ourselves, Truly In The Present Moment, We Miss Everything.

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

Action Is Called Karma. And That's Your Continuation. When This Body Disintegrates, You Continue On With Your Actions. It's Like The Cloud In The Sky. When The Cloud Is No Longer In The Sky, It Hasn't Died. The Cloud Is Continued In Other Forms Like Rain Or Snow Or Ice.

To Meditate Does Not Mean To Fight With A Problem. To Meditate Means To Observe. Your Smile Proves It. It Proves That You Are Being Gentle With Yourself, That The Sun Of Awareness Is Shining In You, That You Have Control Of Your Situation. You Are Yourself, And You Have Acquired Some Peace.

Every Moment Is A Moment Of Happiness.

Moments Of Happiness

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

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.

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

Compassion Is A Verb.

People Kill And Are Killed Because They Cling Too Tightly To Their Own Beliefs And Ideologies. When We Believe That Ours Is The Only Faith That Contains The Truth, Violence And Suffering Will Surely Be The Result.

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

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

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

Understanding Means Throwing Away Your Knowledge.

When Your Mind Is Liberated, Your Heart Floods With Compassion.

If We Are Not Empty, We Become A Block Of Matter. We Cannot Breathe, We Cannot Think. To Be Empty Means To Be Alive, To Breathe In And To Breathe Out. We Cannot Be Alive If We Are Not Empty. Emptiness Is Impermanence, It Is Change. We Should Not Complain About Impermanence, Because Without Impermanence, Nothing Is Possible.

Are We Treating Our Body Kindly By The Way We Eat, By The Way We Drink, By The Way We Work? Are We Treating Ourselves With Enough Joy And Tenderness And Peace? Or Are We Feeding Ourselves With Toxins That We Get From The Market - The Spiritual, Intellectual, Entertainment Market?

Aware Of The Suffering Caused By The Destruction Of Life, I Am Committed To Cultivating Compassion And Learning Ways To Protect The Lives Of People, Animals, Plants, And Minerals. 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.

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.

Breathing In, I Calm Body And Mind. Breathing Out, I Smile. Dwelling In The Present Moment I Know This Is The Only Moment.

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.

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

Each Time You Look At A Tangerine, You Can See Deeply Into It. You Can See Everything In The Universe In One Tangerine. When You Peel It And Smell It, It’s Wonderful. You Can Take Your Time Eating A Tangerine And Be Very Happy.

'emptiness' Means Empty Of A Separate Self. It Is Full Of Everything, Full Of Life. The Word Emptiness Should Not Scare Us. It Is A Wonderful Word. To Be Empty Does Not Mean Non-existent. Emptiness Is The Ground Of Everything. Thanks To Emptiness, Everything Is Possible.

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

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.

By Listening With Calm And Understanding, We Can Ease The Suffering Of Another Person.

We Can Smile, Breathe, Walk, And Eat Our Meals In A Way That Allows Us To Be In Touch With The Abundance Of Happiness That Is Available. We Are Very Good At Preparing To Live, But Not Very Good At Living. We Know How To Sacrifice Ten Years For A Diploma, And We Are Willing To Work Very Hard To Get A Job, A Car, A House, And So On. But We Have Difficulty Remembering That We Are Alive In The Present Moment, The Only Moment There Is For Us To Be Alive. Every Breath We Take, Every Step We Make, Can Be Filled With Peace, Joy, And Serenity. We Need Only To Be Awake, Alive In The Present Moment.

It's Like Growing Lotus Flowers. You Cannot Grow Lotus Flowers On Marble. You Have To Grow Them On The Mud. Without Mud You Cannot Have Lotus Flowers. Without Suffering, You Have No Way To Learn How To Be Understanding And Compassionate.

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

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

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

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

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

We May Think That Justice Is Everyone Being Equal, Having The Same Rights, Sharing The Same Kind Of Advantages, But Maybe We Have Not Had The Chance To Look At The Nature Of Justice In Terms Of No-self. That Kind Of Justice Is Based On The Idea Of Self, But It May Be Very Interesting To Explore Justice In Terms Of No-self.

We Need To Be Aware Of The Suffering, But Retain Our Clarity, Calmness And Strength So We Can Help Transform The Situation.

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

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.

Our Mind Is The Foundation Of All Our Actions, Whether They Are Actions Of Body, Speech, Or Mind, I.e., Thinking. Whatever We Think, Say, Or Do Arises From Our Mind. What Our Consciousness Consumes Becomes The Substance Of Our Life, So We Have To Be Very Careful Which Nutriments We Ingest.

You Are A Buddha, And So Is Everyone Else. I Didn't Make That Up. It Was The Buddha Himself Who Said So. He Said That All Beings Had The Potential To Become Awakened. To Practice Walking Meditation Is To Practice Living In Mindfulness. Mindfulness And Enlightenment Are One. Enlightenment Leads To Mindfulness And Mindfulness Leads To Enlightenment.

Walking Meditation

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.

Let Us Look At Wealth And Poverty. The Affluent Society And The Deprived Society Inter-are. The Wealth Of One Society Is Made Of The Poverty Of The Other. "this Is Like This, Because That Is Like That." Wealth Is Made Of Non-wealth Elements, And Poverty Is Made By Non-poverty Elements. [...] So We Must Be Careful Not To Imprison Ourselves In Concepts. The Truth Is That Everything Contains Everything Else. We Cannot Just Be, We Can Only Inter-be. We Are Responsible Fo Everything That Happens Around Us.

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 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.

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.

I Will Practice Coming Back To The Present Moment...not Letting Regrets And Sorrow Drag Me Back Into The Past Or Letting Anxieties, Fears, Or Cravings Pull Me Out.

When You Call Me European, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Arab, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Black, I Say Yes. When You Call Me White, I Say Yes. Because I Am In You And You Are In Me. We Have To Inter-be With Everything In The Cosmos.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Purpose Of A Vacation Is To Have The Time To Rest. But Many Of Us, Even When We Go On Vacation, Don't Know How To Rest. We May Even Come Back More Tired Than Before We Left.

Our Own Life Has To Be Our Message.

A Bodhisattva Doesn't Have To Be Perfect. Anyone Who Is Aware Of What Is Happening And Who Tries To Wake Up Other People Is A Bodhisattva. We Are All Bodhisattvas, Doing Our Best.

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.

Peace Is Present Right Here And Now, In Ourselves And In Everything.

Peace And Serenity

Peace Is Every Step

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.

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.

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

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

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

When We Have Anger In Us, We Suffer. When We Have Discrimination In Us, We Suffer. When We Have The Complex Of Superiority, We Suffer. When We Have The Complex Of Inferiority, We Suffer Also. So When We Are Capable Of Transforming These Negative Things In Us, We Are Free And Happiness Is Possible.

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

If A Child Smiles, If An Adult Smiles, That Is Very Important. If In Our Daily Lives We Can Smile, If We Can Be Peaceful And Happy, Not Only We, But Everyone Will Profit From It. If We Really Know How To Live, What Better Way To Start The Day Than With A Smile? Our Smile Affirms Our Awareness And Determination To Live In Peace And Joy. The Source Of A True Smile Is An Awakened Mind.

The Buddha Also Counseled The Monks And Nuns To Avoid Wasting Any Precious Time By Engaging In Idle Conversation, Oversleeping, Pursuing Fame And Recognition, Chasing After Desires, Spending Time With People Of Poor Character, And Being Satisfied With Only A Shallow Understanding Of The Teaching.

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.

Your Breathing Should Flow Gracefully, Like A River, Like A Watersnake Crossing The Water, And Not Like A Chain Of Rugged Mountains Or The Gallop Of A Horse. To Master Our Breath Is To Be In Control Of Our Bodies And Minds. Each Time We Find Ourselves Dispersed And Find It Difficult To Gain Control Of Ourselves By Different Means, The Method Of Watching The Breath Should Always Be Used.

Each Moment Is A Chance For Us To Make Peace With The World, To Make Peace Possible For The World, To Make Happiness Possible For The World.

How Do You Want To Create Peace, If There Is No Peace Inside Yourselves?

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.

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.

Trending Author

Christiaan Barnard

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Johannes Brahms

Benoit Mandelbrot

Category