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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.

-Nhat Hanh

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Machine Thinking Is The

Nhat Hanh

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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.

In The Mountains Of Wisdom No Climbing Is In Vain.

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

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.

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.

For Things To Reveal Themselves To Us, We Need To Be Ready To Abandon Our Views About Them.

Happiness Is The Cessation Of Suffering.

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

If We Take The Time To Look Deeply, We See That Understanding And Compassion Arise From Suffering. Understanding Is The Understanding Of Suffering, And Compassion Is The Kind Of Energy That Can Transform Suffering. If Suffering Is Not There, We Have No Means To Cultivate Our Understanding And Our Compassion. This Is Something Quite Simple To See

The Present Moment Contains Past And Future. The Secret Of Transformation, Is In The Way We Handle This Very Moment.

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

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

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

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.]

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That Is Why Those Who Are Not Capable Of Being There In The Present Moment, They Don't Really Live Their Life - They Live Like Dead People.

You Do Not Suffer Because Things Are Impermanent. You Suffer Because Things Are Impermanent And You Think They Are Permanent.

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

Peace Is Every Step

Because You Are Alive, Everything Is Possible.

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.

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 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.

We Are Determined Not To Take As The Aim Of Our Life Fame, Profit, Wealth, Or Sensual Pleasure, Nor To Accumulate Wealth While Millions Are Hungry And Dying. We Are Committed To Living Simply And Sharing Our Time, Energy, And Material Resources With Those Who Are In Need.

Peace Ca N Exist Only In The Present Moment. It Is Rid Iculous To Say "wait Until I Fi Nish This, Then I Will Be Free To Live In Peace." What Is "this" ? A Diploma, A Job, A House, The Payment Of A Debt? If Yo U Th Ink That Way, Peace Wi Ll Never Come. There Is Always Another "th Is" That Wi Ll Fo Llow The Present One. If You Are Not Living In Peace At This Moment, You Will Never Be Able To . If You Truly Wa Nt To Be At Peace, You Must Be At Peace Right Now. Otherwise, There Is Only "the Hope Of Peace Some Day.

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.

You Need The Practice Of Mindfulness To Bring Your Mind Back To The Body And Establish Yourself In The Moment. If You Are Fully Present, You Need Only Make A Step Or Take A Breath In Order To Enter The Kingdom Of God. And Once You Have The Kingdom, You Don't Need To Run After Objects Of Your Craving, Like Power, Fame, Sensual Pleasure, And So On. Peace Is Possible. Happiness Is Possible.

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.

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.

The True Miracle Is Not Walking On Water Or Walking In Air, But Simply Walking On This Earth.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Transformations Is The Word. We Can Do The Work Of Transformation Only In The Present Moment

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

There Is A Time For Everything. There Is A Time When I Sit Down, I Concentrate Myself On The Problem Of My Bills, But I Would Not Worry Before That. One Thing At A Time.

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

Lack Of Understanding

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

Total Relaxation Is The Secret To Enjoying Sitting Meditation. I Sit With My Spine Upright, But Not Rigid; And I Relax All The Muscles In My Body.

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

Mindfulness Must Be Engaged. Once There Is Seeing, There Must Be Acting. Otherwise, What's The Use Of Seeing?

To Think In Terms Of Either Pessimism Or Optimism Oversimplifies The Truth. The Problem Is To See Reality As It Is.

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?

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

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

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

Waking Up This Morning, I Smile. Twenty-four Brand New Hours Are Before Me. I Vow To Live Fully In Each Moment And To Look At All Beings With Eyes Of Compassion.

If You Have The Chance To Be Exposed To A Loving, Understanding Environment Where The Seed Of Compassion, Loving Kindness, Can Be Watered Every Day, Then You Become A More Loving Person.

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

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

If You Can Feel That Mother Earth Is In You, And You Are Mother Earth, Then You Are Not Any Longer Afraid To Die Because The Earth Is Not Dying. Like A Wave Appears And Disappears And Appears Again.

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.

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 7 Factors Of Enlightenment: Mindfullness, Investigation Of Mental Objects, Energy, Joy, Tranquility, Concentration And Equanimity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Essence Of Nonviolence Is Love. Out Of Love And The Willingness To Act Selflessly, Strategies, Tactics, And Techniques For A Nonviolent Struggle Arise Naturally. Nonviolence Is Not A Dogma; It Is A Process.

In All The Practice Centers In The Tradition Of Plum Village Whenever The Phone Rings Or The Clock Chimes In The Dining Hall, People Stop Everything They Are Doing And Breathe Consciously, Releasing All Thinking And Any Tension.

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.

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

Those Who Are Without Compassion Cannot See What Is Seen With The Eyes Of Compassion.

‎"the Earth Is So Beautiful. We Are Beautiful Also. We Can Allow Ourselves To Walk Mindfully, Touching The Earth, Our Wonderful Mother, With Each Step. We Don't Need To Wish Our Friends, 'peace Be With You.' Peace Is Already With Them. We Only Need To Help Them Cultivate The Habit Of Touching Peace In Each Moment."-

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.

Harm No Person, Animal, Plant Or Mineral.

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.

Thanks To Impermanence, Everything Is Possible.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Infinite Possibilities

Happiness Is Not An Individual Matter.

Meditation Is Not To Escape From Society, But To Come Back To Ourselves And See What Is Going On. Once There Is Seeing, There Must Be Acting. With Mindfulness, We Know What To Do And What Not To Do To Help.

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?

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

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.

Mindful Time Spent With The Person We Love Is The Fullest Expression Of True Love And Real Generosity.

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.

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.

If You Have The Insight Of Non-self, If You Have The Insight Of Impermanence, You Should Make That Insight Into A Concentration That You Keep Alive Throughout The Day. Then What You Say, What You Think, And What You Do Will Then Be In The Light Of That Wisdom And You Will Avoid Making Mistakes And Creating Suffering.

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.

Every Breath We Take, Every Step We Make, Can Be Filled With Peace, Joy And Serenity.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 Be Beautiful Means To Be Yourself.you Don't Need To Be Accepted By Others. You Need To Accept Yourself. When You Are Born A Lotus Flower, Be A Beautiful Lotus Flower, Don't Try To Be A Magnolia Flower. If You Crave Acceptance And Recognition And Try To Change Yourself To Fit What Other People Want You To Be, You Will Suffer All Your Life. True Happiness And True Power Lie In Understanding Yourself, Accepting Yourself, Having Confidence In Yourself.

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

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.

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.

In April, We Cannot See Sunflowers In France, So We Might Say The Sunflowers Do Not Exist. But The Local Farmers Have Already Planted Thousands Of Seeds, And When They Look At The Bare Hills, They May Be Able To See The Sunflowers Already. The Sunflowers Are There. They Lack Only The Conditions Of Sun, Heat, Rain And July. Just Because We Cannot See Them Does Not Mean That They Do Not Exist.

You Who Are Journalists, Writers, Citizens, You Have The Right And Duty To Say To Those You Have Elected That They Must Practice Mindfulness, Calm And Deep Listening, And Loving Speech. This Is Universal Thing, Taught By All Religions.

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.

Do Not Live With A Vocation That Is Harmful To Humans And Nature. Do Not Invest In Companies That Deprive Others Of Their Chance To Live. Select A Vocation That Helps Realise Your Ideal Of Compassion.

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.

Smile, Breathe And Go Slowly.

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.

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.

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.

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

In English We Say 'we Are' But It's Proper To Say 'we Are Becoming' Because Things Are Becoming.

Loneliness Cannot Be Alleviated Just By The Coming Together Of Two Bodies, Unless There Is Also Good Communication, Understanding, And Loving Kindness.

To Dwell In The Here And Now Does Not Mean You Never Think About The Past Or Responsibly Plan For The Future. The Idea Is Simply Not To Allow Yourself To Get Lost In Regrets About The Past Or Worries About The Future. If You Are Firmly Grounded In The Present Moment, The Past Can Be An Object Of Inquiry, The Object Of Your Mindfulness And Concentration. You Can Attain Many Insights By Looking Into The Past. But You Are Still Grounded In The Present Moment.

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

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

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.

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

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.

One Included All, And All Were Contained In One.

Sometimes You Have A Flash Of Insight, But It's Not Strong Enough To Survive. Therefore In The Practice Of Buddhism, Samadhi Is The Power To Maintain Insight Alive In Every Moment, So That Every Speech, Every Word, Every Act Will Bear The Nature Of That Insight. It Is A Question Of Cleaning. And You Clean Better If You Are Surrounded By Those Who Are Practicing Exactly The Same.

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

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.

Please Don't Wait Until The Doctors Tell You That You Are Going To Have A Baby To Begin To Take Care Of It. It Is Already There. Whatever You Are, Whatever You Do, Your Baby Will Get It. Anything You Eat, Any Worries That Are On Your Mind Will Be For Him Or Her. Can You Tell Me That You Cannot Smile? Think Of The Baby, And Smile For Him, For Her, For The Future Generations. Please Don't Tell Me That A Smile And Your Sorrow Just Don't Go Together. It's Your Sorrow, But What About Your Baby? It's Not His Sorrow, Its Not Her Sorrow.

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

Words Can Travel Thousands Of Miles. May My Words Create Mutual Understanding And Love. May They Be As Beautiful As Gems, As Lovely As Flowers.

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

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.

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

Peace In Ourselves, Peace In The World.

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.

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

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).

In Buddhist Culture, Offering Food To The Monk Symbolizes The Action Of Goodness, And If You Have No Opportunity To Support The Practice Of Spirituality, Then You Are Somehow Left In The Realm Of Darkness.

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

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.

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

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

When We Speak, We Want To Say Something Sweet, But We Don't Say Something Sweet Because Something Is Ordering Us From Deep Down To Say Something Unkind. We Want To Open Our Hearts To People, But We Can't Do It, Because We Are Being Ordered Around By The Sufferings We Have Concealed Deep In Our Consciousness.

As Long As We Think Our Lives Are Not Good Enough (materially), We Will Not Have Happiness. As Soon As We Realize Our Lives Are Good Enough, Happiness Immediately Appears. That Is The Practice Of Contentment.

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.

Once You Develop The Practice Of Smiling, You May Not Need A Reminder. You Will Smile As Soon As You Hear A Bird Singing Or See The Sunlight Streaming Through The Window.

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.

The More Compassionate You Are, The More Generous You Can Be. The More Generous You Are, The Move Loving Friendliness You Cultivate To Help The World.

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

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

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.

There Is No Enlightenment Outside Of Daily Life.

In True Love, You Attain Freedom.

Personal Growth

Working For Peace In The Future Is To Work For Peace In The Present Moment.

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

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.

If We Are Not Fully Ourselves, Truly In The Present Moment, We Miss Everything. When A Child Presents Himself To You With His Smile, If You Are Not Really There - Thinking About The Future Or The Past, Or Preoccupied With Other Problems - Then The Child Is Not Really There For You. The Technique Of Being Alive Is To Go Back To Yourself In Order For The Child To Appear Like A Marvellous Reality. Then You Can See Him Smile And You Can Embrace Him In Your Arms.

To Love Our Enemy Is Impossible. The Moment We Understand Our Enemy, We Feel Compassion Towards Him/her, And He/she Is No Longer Our Enemy.

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

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

Many Of Us Worry About The Situation Of The World . . . We Need To Remain Calm, To See Clearly. Meditation Is A Means To Be Aware, And To Try To Help.

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

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

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.

We Are Always Running, And It Has Become A Habit. We Struggle All The Time, Even During Our Sleep. We Are At War With Ourselves, And We Can Easily Start A War With Others.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's Like A Mother, When The Baby Is Crying, She Picks Up The Baby And She Holds The Baby Tenderly In Her Arms. Your Pain, Your Anxiety Is Your Baby. You Have To Take Care Of It. You Have To Go Back To Yourself, To Recognize The Suffering In You, Embrace The Suffering, And You Get A Relief.

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.

Buddhism Has To Do With Your Daily Life, With Your Suffering And With The Suffering Of The People Around You.

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

In Us, There Is A River Of Feelings, In Which Every Drop Of Water Is A Different Feeling, And Each Feeling Relies On All The Others For Its Existence. To Observe It, We Just Sit On The Bank Of The River And Identify Each Feeling As It Surfaces, Flows By, And Disappears.

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.

Because Of Your Smile, You Make Life More Beautiful.

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

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

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.

You Cannot Transmit Wisdom And Insight To Another Person. The Seed Is Already There. A Good Teacher Touches The Seed, Allowing It To Wake Up, To Sprout, And To Grow.

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.

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

Meditation Is Not An Escape From Life... But Preparation For Really Being In Life.

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.

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.

No Thought About The Past Or Future Can Pull You Away From Your Present Peace And Joy. The Universe Exists In This Present Moment. No Desire Can Pull You Away From This Present Peace, Not Even The Desire To Become A Buddha Or The Desire To Save All Beings. Know That To Become A Buddha And To Save All Beings Can Only Be Realized On The Foundation Of The Pure Peace Of The Present Moment.

It Is Difficult To Explain To Children In The "overdeveloped" Nations That Not All Children In The World Have Such Beautiful And Nourishing Food. Awareness Of This Fact Alone Can Help Us Overcome Many Of Our Own Psychological Pains. Eventually Our Contemplation Can Help Us See How To Assist Those Who Need Our Help So Much.

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.

People Have A Hard Time Letting Go Of Their Suffering. Out Of A Fear Of The Unknown, They Prefer Suffering That Is Familiar.

When We Walk Like (we Are Rushing), We Print Anxiety And Sorrow On The Earth. We Have To Walk In A Way That We Only Print Peace And Serenity On The Earth... Be Aware Of The Contact Between Your Feet And The Earth. Walk As If You Are Kissing The Earth With Your Feet.

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.

It's Wonderful To Be Alive And To Walk On Earth.

Life Is Only Available In The Present Moment.

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

Many People Think Excitement Is Happiness.... But When You Are Excited You Are Not Peaceful. True Happiness Is Based On Peace.

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

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.

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.

May We Awaken From The Dream That We Are Different.

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.

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.

The Terrorists, They Have The Wrong Perception. They Believe That The Other Group Is Trying To Destroy Them As A Religion, As A Civilization. So They Want To Abolish Us, To Kill Us Before We Can Kill Them. And The Antiterrorist May Think Very Much The Same Way - That These Are Terrorists And They Are Trying To Eliminate Us, So We Have To Eliminate Them First. Both Sides Are Motivated By Fear, By Anger, And By Wrong Perception.

We Have To Have Loving Speech. And If We Are Honest, If We Are True, Terrorists Will Open Their Hearts. Then We Practice Compassionate Listening, And We Can Learn So Much About Our Own Perception And Their Perception. Only After That Can We Help Remove Wrong Perception. That Is The Best Way, The Only Way, To Remove Terrorism.

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

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.

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?

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.

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Bernardo Bertolucci

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