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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.

-Nhat Hanh

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No One Can Practice

Nhat Hanh

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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.

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Inspirational Life

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Great Happiness

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Peace And Happiness

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Positive Energy

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

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

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 Love Someone But Rarely Make Yourself Available To Him Or Her, That Is Not True Love.

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.

Looking Deeply Into The Wrong Perceptions, Ideas, And Notions That Are At The Base Of Our Suffering Is The Most Important Practice In Buddhist Meditation.

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True Love Always Brings Joy To Ourself And The One We Love. If Our Love Does Not Bring Joy To Both Of Us, It Is Not True Love.

Nonviolent Action, Born Of The Awareness Of Suffering And Nurtured By Love, Is The Most Effective Way To Confront Adversity.

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.

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When We Smile, The Muscles Around Our Mouth Are Stretched And Relaxed, Just Like Doing Yoga. Smiling Is Mouth Yoga. We Release The Tension From Our Face As We Smile. Others Who Run Into Us Notice It, Even Strangers, And Are Likely To Smile Back. It Is A Wonderful Chain Reaction That We Can Initiate, Touching The Joy In Anyone We Encounter. Smiling Is An Ambassador Of Goodwill.

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Thinking Negative

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

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

I Am Determined Not To Kill, Not To Let Others Kill, And Not To Condone Any Act Of Killing In The World, In My Thinking, And In My Way Of Life. We Cannot Support Any Act Of Killing; No Killing Can Be Justified. But Not To Kill Is Not Enough ... If In Your Thinking You Allow The Killing To Go On, You Also Break This Precept. We Must Be Determined Not To Condone Killing, Even In Our Minds.

What We Most Need To Do Is To Hear Within Us The Sound Of The Earth Crying.

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.

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.

During The Last 2,500 Years In Buddhist Monasteries, A System Of Seven Practices Of Reconciliation Has Evolved. Although These Techniques Were Formulated To Settle Disputes Within The Circle Of Monks, I Think They Might Also Be Of Use In Our Households And In Our Society.the First Practice Is Face-to-face-sitting.

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.

To Make Peace, Our Hearts Must Be At Peace With The World.

With Understanding, Those We Love Will Certainly Flower.

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

We Who Have Touched War Have A Duty To Bring The Truth About War To Those Who Have Not Had A Direct Experience Of It. We Are The Light At The Tip Of The Candle. It Is Really Hot, But It Has The Power Of Shining And Illuminating. If We Practice Mindfulness, We Will Know How To Look Deeply Into The Nature Of War And, With Our Insight, Wake People Up So That Together We Can Avoid Repeating The Same Horrors Again And Again.

Together We Can

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

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.

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.

Enlightenment Is Always There. Small Enlightenment Will Bring Great Enlightenment.

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

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.

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

Keeping Your Body Healthy Is An Expression Of Gratitude To The Whole Cosmos — The Trees, The Clouds, Everything.

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?

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

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.

Meditation Is, First Of All, A Tool For Surveying Our Territory So We Can Know What Is Going On. With The Energy Of Mindfulness, We Can Calm Things Down, Understand Them, And Bring Harmony Back To The Conflicting Elements Inside Us.

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.

As You Walk, You Touch The Ground Mindfully, And Every Step Can Bring You Solidity And Joy And Freedom. Freedom From Your Regret Concerning The Past, And Freedom From Your Fear About The Future.

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.

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.

Attachment To Views Is The Greatest Impediment To The Spiritual Path.

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.

The Greatest Of All Miracles Is To Be Alive.

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.

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

Peace Is Every Step

A Look Filled With Understanding, An Accepting Smile, A Loving Word, A Meal Shared In Warmth And Awareness Are The Things Which Create Happiness In The Present Moment. By Nourishing Awareness In The Present Moment, You Can Avoid Causing Suffering To Yourself And Those Around You. The Way You Look At Others, Your Smile, And Your Small Acts Of Caring Can Create Happiness. True Happiness Does Not Depend On Wealth Or Fame.

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.

Today Is The Most Important Day Of Our Lives.

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

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.

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.

Smile, Breathe And Go Slowly.

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

You Must Love In Such A Way That The Person You Love Feels Free.

Positive Thinking

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Letting Go Gives Us Freedom, And Freedom Is The Only Condition For Happiness. If, In Our Heart, We Still Cling To Anything - Anger, Anxiety, Or Possessions - We Cannot Be Free.

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.

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.

The Quality Of Our Life Depends On The Quality Of The Seeds That Lie Deep In Our Consciousness.

Spiritual Practice Is Not Just Sitting And Meditation. Practice Is Looking, Thinking, Touching, Drinking, Eating And Talking. Every Act, Every Breath, And Every Step Can Be Practice And Can Help Us To Become More Ourselves.

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 Reality Is Perceived In Its Nature Of Ultimate Perfection, The Practitioner Has Reached A Level Of Wisdom Called Non-discrimination Mind - A Wondrous Communion In Which There Is No Longer Any Distinction Made Between Subject And Object.

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.

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Alan Dershowitz

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