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

-Nhat Hanh

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One Day I Saw

Nhat Hanh

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

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

‎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.

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

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

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.

The First Thing I Learned Was That Even If You Have A Lot Of Money And Power And Fame, You Can Still Suffer Very Deeply.

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.

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

Peace Is Every Step

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

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

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

Without Full Awareness Of Breathing, There Can Be No Development Of Meditative Stability And Understanding.

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

One Buddha Is Not Enough; We Need To Have Many Buddhas.

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

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.

Happiness Is Available. Please Help Yourself To It.

If You Have A Friend Who Suffers, You Have To Help Him.«my Dear Friend, You Are On Safe Ground. Everything Is Okay Now. Why Do You Continue To Suffer? Don't Go Back To The Past. It's Only A Ghost; It's Unreal». And Whenever We Recognize That These Are Only Movies And Pictures, Not Reality, We Are Free. That Is The Practice Of Mindfulness.

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.

Be Part Of The Miraculous Moment.

Your True Home Is In The Here And The Now.

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.

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

I Promise Myself That I Will Enjoy Every Minute Of The Day That Is Given Me To Live.

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

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.

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

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

If Our Love Is Only A Will To Possess, It Is Not Love.

Mindfulness Is The Miracle By Which We Master And Restore Ourselves.

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

Our Smile Will Bring Happiness To Us And To Those Around Us. Even If We Spend A Lot Of Money On Gifts For Everyone In Our Family, Nothing We Buy Could Give Them As Much Happiness As The Gift Of Our Awareness, Our Smile. And This Precious Gift Costs Nothing.

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.

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?

When Practiced To Its Fullest, Mindful Eating Turns A Simple Meal Into A Spiritual Experience, Giving Us A Deep Appreciation Of All That Went Into The Meal's Creation As Well A Deep Understanding Of The Relationship Between The Food On Our Table, Our Own Health, And Our Planet's Health.

In True Love, You Attain Freedom.

Personal Growth

Meditation Is Offering Your Genuine Presence To Yourself In Every Moment.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Silence Is Essential For Deep Transformation. It Allows The Practice Of Conscious Breathing To Become Deep And Effective. Like Still Water That Reflects Things As They Are, The Calming Silence Helps Us To See Things More Clearly, And Therefore, To Be In Deeper Contact With Ourselves And Those Around Us.

If We Are Too Busy, If We Are Carried Away Every Day By Our Projects, Our Uncertainty, Our Craving, How Can We Have The Time To Stop And Look Deeply Into The Situation-our Own Situation, The Situation Of Our Beloved One, The Situation Of Our Family And Of Our Community, And The Situation Of Our Nation And Of The Other Nations?

When We Are Present, Life Is Also Present.

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.

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.

We Need Enlightenment, Not Just Individually But Collectively, To Save The Planet. We Need To Awaken Ourselves. We Need To Practice Mindfulness If We Want To Have A Future, If We Want To Save Ourselves And The Planet.

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

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 Are Here To Awaken From Our Illusion Of Separateness.

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

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

Human Beings Are Innately Loving Beings. When We Fail To Love, It Is Because An Element Of Ignorance Has Intruded Into Our Experience, Submerging Our Natural Impulse To Love.

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

Guarding Knowledge Is Not A Good Way To Understand. Understanding Means To Throw Away Your Knowledge.

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

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

All Violence Is Injustice. Responding To Violence With Violence Is Injustice, Not Only To The Other Person But Also To Oneself. Responding To Violence With Violence Resolves Nothing; It Only Escalates Violence, Anger And Hatred. It Is Only With Compassion That We Can Embrace And Disintegrate Violence. This Is True In Relationships Between Individuals As Well As In Relationships Between Nations.

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

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

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.

Suffering Is Not Enough. Life Is Both Dreadful And Wonderful...how Can I Smile When I Am Filled With So Much Sorrow? It Is Natural--you Need To Smile To Your Sorrow Because You Are More Than Your Sorrow.

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

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.

I Am Committed To Cultivating Loving Speech And Deep Listening In Order To Bring Joy And Happiness To Others And Relieve Others Of Their Suffering.

I Realize That Many Elements Of The Buddhist Teaching Can Be Found In Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I Think If Buddhism Can Help, It Is The Concrete Methods Of Practice.

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.

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.

Until There Is Peace Between Religions, There Can Be No Peace In The World.

Personal Growth

Life Is Only Available In The Present Moment.

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.

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.

Be Yourself. Life Is Precious As It Is. All The Elements For Your Happiness Are Already Here. There Is No Need To Run, Strive, Search, Or Struggle. Just Be.

‎"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."-

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 Things Were Not Impermanent, Life Would Not Be Possible.

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.

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.

This Is A Very Important Practice. Live Your Daily Life In A Way That You Never Lose Yourself. When You Are Carried Away With Your Worries, Fears, Cravings, Anger, And Desire, You Run Away From Yourself And You Lose Yourself. The Practice Is Always To Go Back To Oneself.

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

We Have To Learn To Die In Every Moment In Order To Be Fully Alive.

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 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.

Artists Have To Show Us What Is Not Going Well Within The Person And Within The Society, Not Try To Cover It Up.

Be Peace, Don't Just Talk About It.

People Deal Too Much With The Negative, With What Is Wrong. Why Not Try And See Positive Things, To Just Touch Those Things And Make Them Bloom?

Thinking Negative

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

Meditation Is To Be Aware Of What Is Going On In Your Body, In Your Feelings, In Your Mind, And In The World.

I Do Not Watch Television. But I'm In Touch With The World. If Anything Really Important Happens, Someone Will Tell Me.

If The People Who Hurt Us Have Anger Or Desperation Within Them Then They Suffer. When You See That Someone Suffers, You Might Be Motivated By A Desire To Help Him Not To Suffer Anymore.

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

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.

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.

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

Inspirational Life

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.

There's No Way I Can Be Tossed Around Like A Bottle Slapped Here And There On The Waves.

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.

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

A Summer Breeze Can Be Very Refreshing; But If We Try To Put It In A Tin Can So We Can Have It Entirely To Ourselves, The Breeze Will Die. Our Beloved Is The Same. He Is Like A Breeze, A Cloud, A Flower. If You Imprison Him In A Tin Can, He Will Die. Yet Many People Do Just That. They Rob Their Loved One Of His Liberty, Until He Can No Longer Be Himself. They Live To Satisfy Themselves And Use Their Loved One To Help Them Fulfill That. That Is Not Loving; It Is Destroying.

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

A Real Love Letter Is Made Of Insight, Understanding, And Compassion. Otherwise It's Not A Love Letter. A True Love Letter Can Produce A Transformation In The Other Person, And Therefore In The World. But Before It Produces A Transformation In The Other Person, It Has To Produce A Transformation Within Us. Some Letters May Take The Whole Of Our Lifetime To Write.

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

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

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

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

Walking Meditation

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.

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

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.

With Negative Energy You Can Make The Positive Energy. A Flower Will Become Compost Someday, But If You Know How To Transform The Compost Back Into The Flower, Then You Don't Have To Worry. You Don't Have To Worry About Your Anger Because You Know How To Handle It - To Embrace, To Recognize, And To Transform It. So This Is What Is Possible.

Positive Energy

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

We Will Be More Successful In All Our Endeavors If We Can Let Go Of The Habit Of Running All The Time, And Take Little Pauses To Relax And Re-center Ourselves. And We'll Also Have A Lot More Joy In Living.

When You Drop Bombs On The Enemy, You Drop Those Same Bombs On Yourself, Your Own Country.

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

Smile, Breathe, Go Slowly.

A Bodhisattva Is Someone Who Has Compassion Within Himself Or Herself And Who Is Able To Make Another Person Smile Or Help Someone Suffer Less. Every One Of Us Is Capable Of This.

The Desire To Be A Free Person Is Very Worthwhile. To Be Free Means You Are No Longer The Victim Of Fear, Anger, Craving, Or Suspicion.

What Happens In The Present Moment? In The Present Moment, You Are Producing Thought, Speech, And Action. And They Continue In The World.

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

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

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

Dealing With Our Overweight - Or With Any Of Our Life's Difficulties, For That Matter - Is Not A Battle To Be Fought. Instead, We Must Learn How To Make Friends With Our Hardships And Challenges. They Are There To Help Us; They Are Natural Opportunities For Deeper Understanding And Transformation, Brining Us More Joy And Peace As We Learn To Work With Them.

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.

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.

Meditation Is Not Passive Sitting In Silence. It Is Sitting In Awareness, Free From Distraction, And Realizing The Clear Understanding That Arises From Concentration.

Meditation Practice

Even If We Cannot Be Completely Non-voilent, By Being Vegetarian We Are Going In The Direction Of Non-voilence

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

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.

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.

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 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.

In Every One Of Us There Are Good Seeds And Bad. We Have The Seed Of Brotherhood, Love, Compassion, Insight. But We Have Also The Seed Of Anger, Hate, Dissent.

Today, You Can Decide To Walk In Freedom. You Can Choose To Walk Differently. You Can Walk As A Free Person, Enjoying Every Step.

Through My Love For You, I Want To Express My Love For The Whole Cosmos, The Whole Of Humanity, And All Beings. By Living With You, I Want To Learn To Love Everyone And All Species. If I Succeed In Loving You, I Will Be Able To Love Everyone And All Species On Earth... This Is The Real Message Of Love.

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.

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

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

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

The Most Important Thing Is That We Need To Be Understood. We Need Someone To Be Able To Listen To Us And To Understand Us. Then We Will Suffer Less.

I Would Not Be Happy If I Had Not Become A Monk.

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.

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.

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

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.

Just Listen Be Peace.

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.

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

Mutual Understanding

Be Mindful 24 Hours A Day, Not Just During The One Hour You May Allot For Formal Meditation Or Reading Scripture And Reciting Prayers. Each Act Must Be Carried Out In Mindfulness.

Compassion Is A Verb.

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

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

With Understanding, Those We Love Will Certainly Flower.

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

Words And Thoughts Concerning Compassionate Action That Are Not Put Into Practice Are Like Beautiful Flowers That Are Colorful But Have No Fragrance.

Your Presence Is A Miracle.

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.

Doubt In My Tradition Is Something That Is Very Helpful. Because Of Doubt, You Can Thirst More And You Will Get A Higher Kind Of Proof.

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

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.

There Is A Paradise Of Form And Colors In The World. And Because You Have Eyes Still In Good Condition, You Can Get In Touch With The Paradise. So When I Become Aware Of My Eyes, I Touch One Of The Conditions Of Happiness. And When I Touch It, Happiness Comes.

'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.

In True Dialogue, Both Sides Are Willing To Change.

Thanks To Impermanence, Everything Is Possible.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Infinite Possibilities

When You Climb A Ladder And Arrive On The Sixth Step And You Think That Is The Highest, Then You Cannot Come To The Seventh. So The Technique Is To Abandon The Sixth In Order For The Seventh Step To Be Possible. And This Is Our Practice, To Release Our Views. The Practice Of Nonattachment To Views Is At The Heart Of The Buddhist Practice Of Meditation.

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.

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.

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

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

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

Positive Thinking

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Buddhism Is In Your Heart. Even If You Don't Have Any Temple Or Any Monks, You Can Still Be A Buddhist In Your Heart And Life.

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

Peace Is Every Step

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

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

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

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

The Past Is Gone, The Future Is Not Yet Here, And If We Do Not Go Back To Ourselves In The Present Moment, We Cannot Be In Touch With Life.

Live In The Moment

We Can Help Many People Suffer Less And Realize A Lot Of Happiness Without Being Rich Or Influential. If Love And Compassion Are In Out Hearts, Every Thought, Word, And Deed Can Bring About A Miracle

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

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

Freedom Is The Real Foundation Of Happiness.

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.

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.

To Live In The Present Moment Is A Miracle.

Live In The Present

Happiness Reveals Itself When We Are At Peace With Ourselves.

You Carry Mother Earth Within You. She Is Not Outside Of You. Mother Earth Is Not Just Your Environment. In That Insight Of Inter-being, It Is Possible To Have Real Communication With The Earth, Which Is The Highest Form Of Prayer.

If We Are At War With Our Parents, Our Family, Our Society, Or Our Church, There Is Probably A War Going On Inside Us Also, So The Most Basic Work For Peace Is To Return To Ourselves And Create Harmony Among The Elements Within Us - Our Feelings, Our Perceptions, And Our Mental States. That Is Why The Practice Of Meditation, Looking Deeply, Is So Important.

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.

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.

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

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

Loving 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.

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.

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