Background Image

...

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.

-Nhat Hanh

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Survival Means The Survival

Nhat Hanh

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Nhat Hanh

First, Let Us Light The Torch Of Our Awareness And Learn Again How To Drink Tea, Eat, Wash Dishes, Walk, Sit, Drive, And Work In Awareness. We Do Not Have To Be Swept Along By Circumstances. We Are Not Just A Leaf Or A Log In A Rushing River. With Awareness, Each Of Our Daily Acts Takes On A New Meaning, And We Discover That We Are More Than Machines, That Our Activities Are Not Just Mindless Repetitions. We Find That Life Is A Miracle, The Universe Is A Miracle, And We Too Are A Miracle.

Life Has Left Her Footprints On My Forehead. But I Have Become A Child Again This Morning. The Smile, Seen Through Leaves And Flowers, Is Back To Smooth Away The Wrinkles, As The Rains Wipe Away Footprints On The Beach. Again A Cycle Of Birth And Death Begins.

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

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

Personal Growth

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.

When You Say Something Really Unkind, When You Do Something In Retaliation Your Anger Increases. You Make The Other Person Suffer, And He Will Try Hard To Say Or To Do Something Back To Get Relief From His Suffering. That Is How Conflict Escalates.

You Have To Learn How To Help A Wounded Child While Still Practicing Mindful Breathing. You Should Not Allow Yourself To Get Lost In Action. Action Should Be Meditation At The Same Time.

I Clean This Teapot With The Kind Of Attention I Would Have Were I Giving The Baby Buddha Or Jesus A Bath.

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

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

It Is Possible That The Next Buddha Will Not Take The Form Of An Individual. The Next Buddha May Take The Form Of A Community -a Community Practicing Understanding And Loving Kindness, A Community Practicing Mindful Living. This May Be The Most Important Thing We Can Do For The Survival Of The Earth.

‎"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."-

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

Be Peace, Don't Just Talk About It.

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.

If You Think That Peace And Happiness Are Somewhere Else And You Run After Them, You Will Never Arrive.

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.

Breathe And You Dwell In The Here And Now, Breath And You See Impermanence Is Life.

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

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

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.

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

To Be Loved Means To Be Recognized As Existing.

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

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

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

My Actions Are My Only True Belongings.

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.

There May Be A Time When A Country Will Have To Wake Up From A Vision Of Happiness, When They Have To Realize That Theirs Is Not The Perfect Idea, That There Are Many Aspects That Do Not Correspond To The Reality Of What Is There, The Real Need And Aspirations Of The People.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Breath Is Aligned With Both Body And Mind And It Alone Can Bring Them Together.

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

Many Communist Government Officials Have A Rigid, Dictatorial Power, But They Live In Constant Suspicion And Fear Of Anything That Might Undermine The Power They Have.

Civilisations Have Been Destroyed Many Times, And This Civilisation Is No Different. It Can Be Destroyed. We Can Think Of Time In Terms Of Millions Of Years And Life Will Resume Little By Little. The Cosmos Operates For Us Very Urgently, But Geological Time Is Different.

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

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.

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

Every Morning, When We Wake Up, We Have Twenty-four Brand-new Hours To Live. What A Precious Gift!

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.

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.

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

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

Peace Is Every Step

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

Sometimes Your Joy Is The Source Of Your Smile, But Sometimes Your Smile Can Be The Source Of Your Joy.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Present Moment Is The Substance With Which The Future Is Made. Therefore, The Best Way To Take Care Of The Future Is To Take Care Of The Present Moment. What Else Can You Do?

As Children, Siddhartha And Jesus Both Realized That Life Is Filled With Suffering. The Buddha Became Aware At An Early Age That Suffering Is Pervasive. Jesus Must Have Had The Same Kind Of Insight, Because They Both Made Every Effort To Offer A Way Out. We, Too, Must Learn To Live In Ways That Reduce The World's Suffering.

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.

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

Silence Is Something That Comes From Your Heart, Not From Outside. Silence Doesn't Mean Not Talking And Not Doing Things; It Means That You Are Not Disturbed Inside. If You're Truly Silent, Then No Matter What Situation You Find Yourself In You Can Enjoy The Silence.

Love Is The Capacity To Take Care, To Protect, To Nourish. If You Are Not Capable Of Generatng That Kind Of Energy Toward Yourself - If You Are Not Capable Of Taking Care Of Yourself, Of Nourishing Yourself, Of Protecting Yourself - It Is Very Difficult To Take Care Of Another Person. In The Buddhist Teaching, It's Clear That To Love Oneself Is The Foundation Of The Love Of Other People. Love Is A Practice. Love Is Truly A Practice.

Each Second Of Life Is A Miracle

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.

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.

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

When We Change Our Daily Lives - The Way We Think, Speak And Act - We Change The World.

You Only Need To Walk In Mindfulness, Making Peaceful, Happy Steps On Our Planet. Breathe Deeply, And Enjoy Your Breathing. Be Aware That The Sky Is Blue And The Birds' Songs Are Beautiful. Enjoy Being Alive And You Will Help The Living Christ And The Living Buddha Continue For A Long, Long Time.

If You Touch One Thing With Deep Awareness, You Touch Everything.

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

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.

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.

As We Cultivate Peace And Happiness In Ourselves, We Also Nourish Peace And Happiness In Those We Love.

Peace And Happiness

Your Anger Is Like A Flower. In The Beginning You May Not Understand The Nature Of Your Anger, Or Why It Has Come Up. But If You Know How To Embrace It With The Energy Of Mindfulness, It Will Begin To Open. You May Be Sitting, Following Your Breathing, Or You May Be Practicing Walking Meditation To Generate The Energy Of Mindfulness And Embrace Your Anger. After Ten Or Twenty Minutes Your Anger Will Have To Open Herself To You, And Suddenly, You Will See The True Nature Of Your Anger. It May Have Arisen Just Because Of A Wrong Perception Or The Lack Of Skillfulness.

Walking Meditation

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

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

The Joy Of Life Is Born Of Concentration. When You Are Having A Cup Of Tea, The Value Of That Experience Depends On Your Concentration. You Have To Drink The Tea With 100 Percent Of Your Concentration.

The Practice Of Zen Is To Eat, Breathe, Cook, Carry Water, And Scrub The Toilet — To Infuse Every Act Of Body, Speech, And Mind — With Mindfulness, To Illuminate Every Leaf And Pebble, Every Heap Of Garbage, Every Path That Leads To Our Mind's Return Home.

The Healing Of Ourselves Is The Healing Of The Whole Nation. Society Is Only A Manifestation Of Our Collective Consciousness And Our Collective Consciousness Has A Lot Of Fear, Violence And Hatred In It. ... It Is Possible To Transform Our Heart...not Much Time Is Needed...(the Transformation Can Be Born) The Moment You Vow To Go In The Direction Of Peace And Service.

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

When You Feel Anger Arising, Remember To Return To Your Breathing And Follow It. The Other Person May See That You Are Practicing, And She May Even Apologize.

We Humans Have Lost The Wisdom Of Genuinely Resting And Relaxing. We Worry Too Much. We Don't Allow Our Bodies To Heal, And We Don't Allow Our Minds And Hearts To Heal.

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.]

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.

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

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.

The Teachings On Love Given By The Buddha Are Clear, Scientific, And Applicable... Love, Compassion, Joy, And Equanimity Are The Very Nature Of An Enlightened Person. They Are The Four Aspects Of True Love Within Ourselves And Within Everyone And Everything.

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

Live The Actual Moment. Only This Moment Is Life.

Live In The Moment

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

Compassion Is A Verb.

Freedom Is The Basic Condition For You To Touch Life, To Touch The Blue Sky, The Trees, The Birds, The Tea, And The Other Person.

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

Eating Together

Meditation Is Not To Avoid Society; It Is To Look Deep To Have The Kind Of Insight You Need To Take Action. To Think That It Is Just To Sit Down And Enjoy The Calm And Peace, Is Wrong.

If You Are Truly Present And Know How To Take Care Of The Present Moment As Best You Can, You Are Doing Your Best For The Future Already.

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

Science And Mindfulness Complement Each Other In Helping People To Eat Well And Maintain Their Health And Well-being.

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

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.

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

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

Don't Think You Have To Be Solemn To Meditate. To Meditate, Well, You Have To Smile A Lot.

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.

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.

People Suffer Because They Are Caught In Their Views. As Soon As We Release Those Views, We Are Free And We Don't Suffer Anymore.

Changing Is Not Just Changing The Things Outside Of Us. First Of All We Need The Right View That Transcends All Notions Including Of Being And Non-being, Creator And Creature, Mind And Spirit. That Kind Of Insight Is Crucial For Transformation And Healing.

You Are Like A Candle. Imagine You Are Sending Light Out All Around You. All Your Words, Thoughts And Actions Are Going In Many Directions. If You Say Something Kind, Your Kind Words Go In Many Directions, And You Yourself Go With Them. We Are ...transforming And Continuing In A Different Form At Every Moment.

The Kingdom Of God Is Available To You In The Here And The Now. But The Question Is Whether You Are Available To The Kingdom.

Recognize That It Is Not Really Possible To Steadily Help Others When We Ourselves Are Not In Good Physical, Mental, Or Emotional State. We May Be Able To Carry On For A While, But Sooner Or Later We End Up Feeling Depleted, Discouraged, Or Weak. We Cannot Keep On Giving When We Are Running On An Empty Tank. We Need To Be Solid.

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

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

Life Is Only Available In The Present Moment.

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

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

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

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

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

I Know That We Do Not Know Enough. We Have To Continue To Learn. We Have To Be Open. And We Have To Be Ready To Release Our Knowledge In Order To Come To A Higher Understanding Of Reality.

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

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.

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

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).

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Essence Of Love And Compassion Is Understanding, The Ability To Recognize The Physical, Material, And Psychological Suffering Of Others, To Put Ourselves "inside The Skin" Of The Other. We "go Inside" Their Body, Feelings, And Mental Formations, And Witness For Ourselves Their Suffering. Shallow Observation As An Outsider Is Not Enough To See Their Suffering. We Must Become One With The Subject Of Our Observation. When We Are In Contact With Another's Suffering, A Feeling Of Compassion Is Born In Us. Compassion Means, Literally, "to Suffer With."

If You Are A Poet, You Will See Clearly That There Is A Cloud Floating In This Sheet Of Paper. Without A Cloud, There Will Be No Rain; Without Rain, The Trees Cannot Grow; And Without Trees, We Cannot Make Paper. The Cloud Is Essential For The Paper To Exist. If The Cloud Is Not Here, The Sheet Of Paper Cannot Be Here Either. So We Can Say That The Cloud And The Paper Inter-are.

Tolerance And Tranquility Are Two Characteristics Of True Love.

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 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.

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.

We Fear That This Moment Will End, That We Won't Get What We Need, That We Will Lose What We Love, Or That We Will Not Be Safe. Often, Our Biggest Fear Is The Knowledge That One Day Our Bodies Will Cease Functioning. So Even When We Are Surrounded By All The Conditions For Happiness, Our Joy Is Not Complete.

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.

Look Deeply; I Arrive In Every Second To Be A Bud On A Spring Branch ... To Be A Jewel Hiding Itself In A Stone.

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.

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

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 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.

If We Can Not Smile, We Cannot Help Other People To Smile.

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.

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.

The Present Moment Is Filled With Joy And Happiness. If You Are Attentive, You Will See It. (21)

Eating Mindfully Is A Most Important Practice Of Meditation. We Can Eat In A Way That We Restore The Cookie Of Our Childhood. The Present Moment Is Filled With Joy And Happiness. If You Are Attentive, You Will See It.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Lack Of Understanding

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?

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

We Know How To Sacrifice Ten Years For A Diploma, And We Are Willing To Work Hard To Get A Job, A Car, A House, And So On. But We Have Difficulty Remembering That We Are Alive In The Present Moment, The Only Moment There Is For Us To Be Alive.

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.

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.

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

Though We All Have The Fear And The Seeds Of Anger Within Us, We Must Learn Not To Water Those Seeds And Instead Nourish Our Positive Qualities - Those Of Compassion, Understanding, And Loving Kindness.

With Mindfulness, You Can Establish Yourself In The Present In Order To Touch The Wonders Of Life That Are Available In That Moment.

The Most Precious Gift We Can Offer Anyone Is Our Attention. When Mindfulness Embraces Those We Love, They Will Bloom Like Flowers.

If I Am Incapable Of Washing Dishes Joyfully, If I Want To Finish Them Quickly So I Can Go And Have Dessert, I Will Be Equally Incapable Of Enjoying My Dessert. With The Fork In My Hand, I Will Be Thinking About What To Do Next, And The Texture And Flavor Of The Dessert, Together With The Pleasure Of Eating It, Will Be Lost. I Will Always Be Dragged Into The Future, Never Able To Live In The Present Moment.

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

Live In The Moment

Your Presence Is A Miracle.

Forgiveness Will Not Be Possible Until Compassion Is Born In Your Heart.

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

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

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

Painful Feelings

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.

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

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

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

When You Look Deeply Into Your Anger, You Will See That The Person You Call Your Enemy Is Also Suffering. As Soon As You See That, The Capacity Of Accepting And Having Compassion For Them Is There.

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.

When We Look Deeply Into The Heart Of A Flower, We See Clouds, Sunshine, Minerals, Time, The Earth, And Everything Else In The Cosmos In It. Without Clouds There Could Be No Rain, And Without Rain There Would Be No Flower.

Happiness Is The Cessation Of Suffering.

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

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

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.

When You Look At The Sun During Your Walking Meditation, The Mindfulness Of The Body Helps You To See That The Sun Is In You; Without The Sun There Is No Life At All And Suddenly You Get In Touch With The Sun In A Different Way.

Our Joy, Peace And Happiness Depend Very Much On Our Practice Of Recognizing And Transforming Habit Energies. There Are Positive Habit Energies That We Have To Cultivate, And Negative Habit Energies That We Have To Recognize, Embrace And Transform. The Energy With Which We Do These Things Is Mindfulness.

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

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

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

We Should Be Able To Bring The Practice Of Meditation Hall Into Our Daily Lives. We Need To Discuss Among Ourselves How To Do It. Do You Practice Breathing Between Phone Calls? Do You Practice Smiling While Cutting Carrots? Do You Practice Relaxation After Hard Hours Of Work? These Are Practical Questions. If You Know How To Apply Meditation To Dinner Time, Leisure Time, Sleeping Time, It Will Penetrate Your Daily Life, And It Will Also Have A Tremendous Effect On Social Concerns.

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

We Ourselves Need Love; It's Not Only Society, The World Outside, That Needs Love. But We Can't Expect That Love To Come From Outside Of Us. We Should Ask The Question Whether We Are Capable Of Loving Ourselves As Well As Others.

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

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.

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.

Training Is Needed In Order To Love Properly; And To Be Able To Give Happiness And Joy, You Must Practice Deep Looking Directed Toward The Other Person You Love. Because If You Do Not Understand This Person, You Cannot Love Properly. Understanding Is The Essence Of Love. If You Cannot Understand, You Cannot Love. That Is The Message Of The Buddha.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Reason We Might Lose Love Is Because We Are Always Looking Outside Of Us, Thinking That The Object Or Action Of Love Is Out There. That Is Why We Allow The Love, The Harmony, The Mature Understanding, To Slip Away From Ourselves.

Be Angry, It's Okay. To Be Angry, That Is Very Human. And To Learn How To Smile At Your Anger And Make Peace With Your Anger Is Very Nice.

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.

May All Beings Learn How To Nourish Themselves With Joy Each Day.

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

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

"i Am Breathing In And Liberating My Mind. I Am Breathing Out And Liberating My Mind." One Practices Like This.

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

Positive Thinking

Trending Author

Robert Foster Bennett

Richard K. Morgan

Category