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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.

-Nhat Hanh

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The Problem That Faces

Nhat Hanh

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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.

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To Live In The Present Moment Is A Miracle. The Miracle Is Not To Walk On Water. The Miracle Is To Walk On The Green Earth In The Present Moment, To Appreciate The Peace And Beauty That Are Available Now.

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

Your True Home Is In The Here And The Now.

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 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.

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

Love Is The Capacity To Take Care, To Protect, To Nourish.

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

Peace Is Every Step

'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.

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

Usually, People Have A Tendency To Be Caught In The Worries Concerning The Future Or In The Regret Concerning The Past. There Is Some Kind Of Energy That Is Pushing Them To Run, And They Are Not Able To Establish Themselves In The Present Moment.

In Buddhism, We Speak Of Touching Nirvana With Our Own Body, In Christianity, You Can Also Touch The Kingdom Of God With Your Body, Right Here And Now. It Is Much Safer Than Placing Our Hope In The Future. If We Cling To The Idea Of Hope In The Future, We Might Not Notice The Peace And Joy That Are Available In The Present Moment. The Best Way To Take Care Of The Future Is To Take Care Of The Present Moment.

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

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.

We Need To Move Beyond The Idea Of 'environment' And Fall Back In Love With Mother Earth.

From Time To Time, To Remind Ourselves To Relax And Be Peaceful, We May Wish To Set Aside Some Time For A Retreat, A Day Of Mindfulness, When We Can Walk Slowly, Smile, Drink Tea With A Friend, Enjoy Being Together As If We Are The Happiest People On Earth.

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.

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.

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

Personal Growth

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

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.

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

Freedom From Suffering Is A Great Happiness.

Great Happiness

Being Rich Is An Obstacle To Loving. When You Are Rich, You Want To Continue To Be Rich, And So You End Up Devoting All Your Time, All Your Energy, In Your Daily Life To Stay Rich.

Hatred And Fear Blind Us. We No Longer See Each Other. We See Only The Faces Of Monsters, And That Gives Us The Courage To Destroy Each Other.

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.

If We Are Not Peaceful, If We Are Not Feeling Well In Our Skin, We Cannot Demonstrate Real Peace, And We Cannot Raise Our Children Well Either.

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 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."-

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

Go Back To The Breathing And Try To Be In That Moment Deeply. Because There Is A Possibility To Handle Every Kind Of Event And The Essential Is To Keep The Peace In Yourself.

Our Role As Gardeners Is To Choose, Plant And Tend The Best Seeds Within The Garden Of Our Consciousness. Learning To Look Deeply At Our Consciousness Is Our Greatest Gift And Our Greatest Need, For There Lie The Seeds Of Suffering And Of Love, The Very Roots Of Our Being, Of Who We Are. Mindfulness...is The Guide And The Practice By Which We Learn How To Use The Seeds Of Suffering To Nourish The Seeds Of Love.

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.

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.

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

Walking Meditation

When We Recognise The Virtues, The Talent, The Beauty Of Mother Earth, Something Is Born In Us, Some Kind Of Connection; Love Is Born.

The Fact Is That When You Make The Other Suffer, He Will Try To Find Relief By Making You Suffer More. The Result Is An Escalation Of Suffering On Both Sides.

The 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?

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

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

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.

Being Vegetarian Here Also Means That We Do Not Consume Dairy And Egg Products, Because They Are Products Of The Meat Industry. If We Stop Consuming, They Will Stop Producing. Only Collective Awakening Can Create Enough Determination For Action.

You Have Two Gardens: Your Own Garden And That Of Your Beloved. First, You Have To Take Care Of Your Own Garden And Master The Art Of Gardening. In Each One Of Us There Are Flowers And There Is Also Garbage. The Garbage Is The Anger, Fear, Discrimination, And Jealousy Within Us. If You Water The Garbage, You Will Strengthen The Negative Seeds. If You Water The Flowers Of Compassion, Understanding, And Love, You Will Strengthen The Positive Seeds. What You Grow Is Up To You.

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.

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

Through Your Love For Each Other, Through Learning The Art Of Making One Person Happy, You Learn To Express Your Love For The Whole Of Humanity And All Beings. Please Help Us Develop The Curriculum For The Institute For The Happiness Of One Person. Don't Wait Until We Open The School. You Can Begin Practicing Right Away.

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.

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.

Inside Every One Of Us Is A Garden, And Every Practitioner Has To Go Back To Their Garden And Take Care Of It. Maybe In The Past, You Left In Untended For A Long Time. You Should Know Exactly What Is Going On In Your Own Garden, And Try To Put Everything In Order. Restore The Beauty; Restore The Harmony In Your Garden. If It Is Well Tended, Many People Will Enjoy Your Garden.

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.

When We Are Angry, Our Anger Is Our Very Self. To Suppress Or Chase Away Our Anger Is To Suppress Or Chase Away Ourselves. When Anger Is Born, We Can Be Aware That Anger Is An Energy In Us, And We Can Change That Energy Into Another Kind Of Energy. If We Want To Transform It, First We Have To Know How To Accept It.

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?

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 Way Must Be In You; The Destination Also Must Be In You And Not Somewhere Else In Space Or Time. If That Kind Of Self-transformation Is Being Realized In You, You Will Arrive.

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

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

Every Moment Is A Moment Of Happiness.

Moments Of Happiness

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

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.

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.

Understanding Means Throwing Away Your Knowledge.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Find Joy And Peace In This Very Moment.

Sometimes It Is Better Not To Talk About Art By Using The Word "art". If We Just Act With Awareness And Integrity, Our Art Will Flower, And We Don't Have To Talk About It At All.

Most Of Us Experience A Life Full Of Wonderful Moments And Difficult Moments. But For Many Of Us, Even When We Are Most Joyful, There Is Fear Behind Our Joy.

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

The Buddha Called Suffering A Holy Truth, Because Our Suffering Has The Capacity Of Showing Us The Path To Liberation. Embrace Your Suffering And Let It Reveal To You The Way To Peace.

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

In Buddhism, There Are Three Gems: Buddha, The Awakened One; Dharma, The Way Of Understanding And Loving; And Sangha, The Community That Lives In Harmony And Awareness. The Three Are Interrelated, And At Times It Is Hard To Distinguish One From Another. In Everyone There Is The Capacity To Wake Up, To Understand, And To Love. So In Ourselves We Find Buddha, And We Also Find Dharma And Sangha.

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.

It Is Possible To Live Happily In The Here And Now. So Many Conditions Of Happiness Are Available-more Than Enough For You To Be Happy Right Now. You Don't Have To Run Into The Future In Order To Get More.

Inspirational Life

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.

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

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

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.

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

There Is No Birth, There Is No Death; There Is No Coming, There Is No Going; There Is No Same, There Is No Different; There Is No Permanent Self, There Is No Annihilation. We Only Think There Is.

Just Listen Be Peace.

There Is No Way To Happiness - Happiness Is The Way.

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.

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.

Anyone Can Practice Some Nonviolence, Even Soldiers. Some Army Generals, For Example, Conduct Their Operations In Ways That Avoid Killing Innocent People; This Is A Kind Of Nonviolence.

The Practice Of Peace And Reconciliation Is One Of The Most Vital And Artistic Of Human Actions.

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

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.

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.

The Most Important Thing That We Can Do For The Healing Of Our World Is To Hear Inside Ourselves, The Sounds Of The Earth Crying.

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.

Only Your Compassion And Your Loving Kindness Are Invincible, And Without Limit.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

At Any Moment, You Have A Choice, That Either Leads You Closer To Your Spirit Or Further Away From It.

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

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.

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

A Flower Is Not A Flower. It Is Made Only Of Non-flower Elements - Sunshine, Clouds, Time, Space, Earth, Minerals, Gardeners, And So On. A True Flower Contains The Whole Universe. If We Return Any One Of These Non-flower Elements To Its Source, There Will Be No Flower.

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

You Accept That This Civilisation Could Be Abolished And Life Will Begin Later On After A Few Thousand Years Because That Is Something That Has Happened In The History Of This Planet. When You Have Peace In Yourself And Accept, Then You Are Calm Enough To Do Something, But If You Are Carried By Despair There Is No Hope.

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.

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.

Walk So That Your Footprints Bear Only The Marks Of Peaceful Joy And Complete Freedom. To Do This You Have To Learn To Let Go. Let Go Of Your Sorrows, Let Go Of Your Worries. That Is The Secret Of Walking Meditation.

Walking Meditation

In True Dialogue, Both Sides Are Willing To Change.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

When You Love Someone

In True Love, You Attain Freedom.

Personal Growth

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.

To Educate People For Peace, We Can Use Words Or We Can Speak With Our Lives.

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

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

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

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

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.

Root Out The Violence In Your Life, And Learn To Live Compassionately And Mindfully. Seek Peace. When You Have Peace Within, Real Peace With Others Is Possible.

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

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

Positive Thinking

We Have The Statue Of Liberty On The East Coast. But In The Name Of Freedom, People Have Done A Lot Of Damage. I Think We Have To Build A Statue Of Responsibility On The West Coast In Order To Counterbalance. Because Liberty Without Responsibility Is Not True Liberty. We Are Not Free To Destroy.

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.

Each Second Of Life Is A Miracle

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

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

Some People Live As Though They Are Already Dead. There Are People Moving Around Us Who Are Consumed By Their Past, Terrified Of Their Future, And Stuck In Their Anger And Jealousy. They Are Not Alive; They Are Just Walking Corpses.

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.

Your Presence Is A Miracle.

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

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

Wisdom Is A Living Stream, Not An Icon To Be Preserved In A Museum. Only When A Practitioner Finds The Spring Of Wisdom In His Or Her Own Life Can It Flow To A Future Generation

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

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.

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.

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

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."

A Human Being Is Like A Television Set With Millions Of Channels.... We Cannot Let Just One Channel Dominate Us. We Have The Seed Of Everything In Us, And We Have To Recover Our Own Sovereignty.

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.

We Must Look Deeply Into The Nature Of Our Volition To See Whether It Is Pushing Us In The Direction Of Liberation From Suffering And Toward Peace And Compassion, Or In The Direction Of Affliction And Misery. What Is It That We Really Want Deep In Our Heart? Is It Money, Fame, Power? Or Is It Finding Inner Peace, Being Able To Live Life Fully And Enjoy The Present Moment?

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

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

Peace Is Every Step

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Due To Attachment, Anger, And Foolishness, I Have Committed Numberless Mistakes In Speech, Deed And Thought. I Bow My Head And Repent. I Vow From Today To Begin Anew, To Live Day And Night In Mindfulness, And Not To Repeat My Previous Mistakes.

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

Compassionate Listening Is To Help The Other Side Suffer Less. If We Realize That Other People Are The Same People As We Are, We Are No Longer Angry At Them.

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.

In Buddhism, Mindfulness Is The Key. Mindfulness Is The Energy That Sheds Light On All Things And All Activities, Producing The Power Of Concentration, Bringing Forth Deep Insight And Awakening. Mindfulness Is The Base Of Buddhist Practice

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.

Without Understanding, Your Love Is Not True Love. You Must Look Deeply In Order To See And Understand The Needs, Aspirations, And Suffering Of The One You 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.

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.

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 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

May We Awaken From The Dream That We Are Different.

Happiness Is The Cessation Of Suffering. Well-being.

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

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.

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.

If We Do Not Know How To Take Care Of Ourselves And To Love Ourselves, We Cannot Take Care Of The People We Love. Loving Oneself Is The Foundation For Loving Another Person.

The Seed Of Suffering In You May Be Strong, But Don't Wait Until You Have No More Suffering Before Allowing Yourself To Be Happy.

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

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

When You Have A Stomach Ache You Don't Tell Your Stomach To Go Away.

When You Begin To See That Your Enemy Is Suffering, That Is The Beginning Of Insight.

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.

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

We Are Here To Awaken From Our Illusion Of Separateness.

If In Our Daily Life We Can Smile, If We Can Be Peaceful And Happy, Not Only We, But Everyone Will Profit From It. This Is The Most Basic Kind Of Peace Work.

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

Every Path, Every Street In The World Is Your Walking Meditation Path.

Walking Meditation

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

When We Eat Mindfully, We Consume Exactly What We Need To Keep Our Bodies, Our Minds, And The Earth Healthy. When We Practice Like This, We Reduce Suffering For Ourselves And For Others.

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.

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

Finding Yourself

Everything Inside And Around Us Wants To Reflect Itself In Us. We Don't Have To Go Anywhere To Obtain The Truth. We Only Need To Be Still And Things Will Reveal Themselves In The Still Water Of Our Heart.

Because If The Manifestations That Happen In The Present Moment Are Beautiful And Good, Their Continuation In The Future Will Be Also Good And Beautiful.

Often, We Feel That We Need A Leader Outside Of Ourselves -a Buddha, A Gandhi, Or A Martin Luther King, Jr.- To Show The Way. But We Have The Buddha Inside Of Us. We Have Gandhi And King Inside Of Us As Well. We Are Interconnected. We Don't Need To Wait For Some Other Person To Be The Change We Want To See In The World

The Mind Can Go In A Thousand Directions, But On This Beautiful Path, I Walk In Peace. With Each Step, The Wind Blows. With Each Step, A Flower Blooms.

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

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Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

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