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The Unawakened Mind Tends To Make War Against The Way Things Are. To Follow A Path With Heart, We Must Understand The Whole Process Of Making War Within Ourselves And Without, How It Begins And How It Ends. War’s Roots Are In Ignorance. Without Understanding We Can Easily Become Frightened By Life’s Fleeting Changes, The Inevitable Losses, Disappointments, The Insecurity Of Our Aging And Death. Misunderstanding Leads Us To Fight Against Life, Running From Pain Or Grasping At Security And Pleasures That By Their Nature Can Never Be Satisfying.

-Jack Kornfield

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The Unawakened Mind Tends

Jack Kornfield

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The Unawakened Mind Tends To Make War Against The Way Things Are. To Follow A Path With Heart, We Must Understand The Whole Process Of Making War Within Ourselves And Without, How It Begins And How It Ends. War’s Roots Are In Ignorance. Without Understanding We Can Easily Become Frightened By Life’s Fleeting Changes, The Inevitable Losses, Disappointments, The Insecurity Of Our Aging And Death. Misunderstanding Leads Us To Fight Against Life, Running From Pain Or Grasping At Security And Pleasures That By Their Nature Can Never Be Satisfying.

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Wisdom Says We Are Nothing. Love Says We Are Everything. Between These Two Our Life Flows.

There Are No Holy Places And No Holy People, Only Holy Moments, Only Moments Of Wisdom.

The Grief We Carry Is Part Of The Grief Of The World. Hold It Gently. Let It Be Honored. You Do Not Have To Keep It In Anymore. You Can Let Go Into The Heart Of Compassion; You Can Weep.

Even The Most Exalted States And The Most Exceptional Spiritual Accomplishments Are Unimportant If We Cannot Be Happy In The Most Basic And Ordinary Ways, If We Cannot Touch One Another And The Life We Have Been Given With Our Hearts.

It Is Not Enough To Know That Love And Forgiveness Are Possible. We Have To Find Ways To Bring Them To Life.

Love And Forgiveness

The Words Of The Buddha Offer This Truth: ∼ Hatred Never Ceases By Hatred But By Love Alone Is Healed.

Letting Go Does Not Mean Not Caring About Things. It Means Caring About Them In A Flexible And Wise Way.

We Must Look At Our Life Without Sentimentality, Exaggeration Or Idealism. Does What We Are Choosing Reflect What We Most Deeply Value?

In Opening We Can See How Many Times We Have Mistaken Small Identities And Fearful Beliefs For Our True Nature And How Limiting This Is. We Can Touch With Great Compassion The Pain From The Contracted Identities That We And Others Have Created In The World.

It Does Not Matter Whether You Have Religion Or Are An Agnostic Believe In Nothing, You Can Only Appreciate (without Knowing Or Understanding) The Mysteries Of Life.

To Become Mindful … Present … Is Really The Invitation To Work With The Joys And The Sorrows Of The World, And To Do So With This Gift, This Capacity Of Loving Awareness, Of Attention That Actually Can Be Present For The Whole Dance.

To Begin To Meditate Is To Look Into Our Lives With Interest In Kindness And Discover How To Be Wakeful And Free.

Equanimity Arises When We Accept The Way Things Are.

The Emotional Wisdom Of The Heart Is Simple. When We Accept Our Human Feelings, A Remarkable Transformation Occurs. Tenderness And Wisdom Arise Naturally And Spontaneously. Where We Once Sought Strength Over Others, Now Our Strength Becomes Our Own; Where We Once Sought To Defend Ourselves, We Laugh.

The Questions Asked At The End Of Lie Are Very Simple Ones: Did I Love Well? Did I Love The People Around Me, My Community, The Earth, In A Deep Way? And Perhaps, Did I Live Fully? Did I Offer Myself To Life?

The Independence And Rebelliousness Of Our Adolescence Offer Us Yet Another Quality Essential To Our Practice; The Insistence That We Find Out The Truth For Ourselves, Accepting No One's Word Above Our Own Experience.

It Is The Place Of Feeling That Binds Us Or Frees Us.

May You Know The Beauty Of Your Own True Nature.

The Purpose Of Spiritual Life Is Not To Create Some Special State Of Mind. A State Of Mind Is Always Temporary. The Purpose Is To Work Directly With The Most Primary Elements Of Our Body And Our Mind, To See The Ways We Get Trapped By Our Fears, Desires, And Anger, To Learn Directly Our Capacity For Freedom.

Use Whatever Has Come To Awaken Patience, Understanding, And Love.

As Surely As There Is A Voyage Away, There Is A Journey Home.

Our Ideas Of Self Are Created By Identification. The Less We Cling To Ideas Of Self, The Freer And Happier We Will Be.

In Our Charade With Ourselves We Pretend That Our War Is Not Really War. We Have Changed The Name Of The War Department To The Defense Department And Call A Whole Class Of Nuclear Missiles Peace Keepers!

To Bow To The Fact Of Our Life's Sorrows And Betrayals Is To Accept Them; And From This Deep Gesture We Discover That All Life Is Workable. As We Learn To Bow, We Discover That The Heart Holds More Freedom And Compassion Than We Could Imagine.

Of Course, You Play The Game Of Life Because You Got To Be Incarnated.

The Willingness To Empty Ourselves And Then Seek Our True Nature Is An Expression Of Great And Courageous Love.

No One Knows How This World Came Into Being. It Is A Creation Of Consciousness Itself. It's Extraordinary, A Mystery.

When I Sit With Students, I Do Not Just Want To Help Them Solve Their Problems. I Want To Find A Moment With Each Person Where Their Mind Stops And Their Eyes Open. I Want Us To Be Together As If We Were Lying In A Field On The Underside Of The Earth On A Clear Summer Night, Held Only By The Magnet Of Gravity, Looking Down Into A Bottomless Sea Of Stars. I Want Us To Remember Together The Beauty All Around Us.

According To Buddhist Scriptures, Compassion Is The "quivering Of The Pure Heart" When We Have Allowed Ourselves To Be Touched By The Pain Of Life.

Finding A Way To Extend Forgiveness To Ourselves Is One Of Our Most Essential Tasks. Just As Others Have Been Caught In Suffering, So Have We. If We Look Honestly At Our Life, We Can See The Sorrows And Pain That Have Led To Our Own Wrongdoing. In This We Can Finally Extend Forgiveness To Ourselves; We Can Hold The Pain We Have Caused In Compassion. Without Such Mercy, We Will Live Our Own Life In Exile.

The Task Is Not To Perfect Yourself, It's To Perfect Your Love.

Some Other People Think That Awakened Consciousness Is Really About Fullness Or Presence, Being Completely Present For Every Moment, But These Experiences Are Only One Of The Dimensions Of Awakened Consciousness. Understanding These Different Dimensions As Facets Of Awakening Can Help With The Confusion Surrounding The Different Spiritual Paths. They're Not Leading To Different Places, But Rather Reflect The Luminous And Liberated Aspects Of Consciousness Itself. These Qualities Are Not Far Away; In Fact, They Are Right Here.

The Work Of Your Heart, The Work Of Taking Time, To Listen, To Help, Is Also Your Gift To The Whole Of The World

This Life Is A Test-it Is Only A Test. If It Had Been An Actual Life, You Would Have Received Further Instructions On Where To Go And What To Do. Remember, This Life Is Only A Test.

True Emptiness Is Not Empty, But Contains All Things. The Mysterious And Pregnant Void Creates And Reflects All Possibilities. From It Arises Our Individuality, Which Can Be Discovered And Developed, Although Never Possessed Or Fixed.

Be Mindful Of Intention. Intention Is The Seed That Creates Our Future.

Religion And Philosophy Have Their Value, But In The End All We Can Do Is Open To Mystery And Live A Path With Heart

Without Being Aware Of It, You Take Many Things As Being Your Identity: Your Body, Your Race, Your Beliefs, Your Thoughts.

The Waves Do Keep Coming, So Learn To Surf.

Every Individual Has A Unique Contribution.

Buddhists Were Actually The First Cognitive-behavioral Therapists.

When We Let Go Of Our Battles And Open Our Hearts To Things As They Are, Then We Come To Rest In The Present Moment. This Is The Beginning And The End Of Spiritual Practice.

Your Happiness And Suffering Depend On Your Actions And Not On My Wishes For You.

The Basic Principle Of Spiritual Life Is That Our Problems Become The Very Place To Discover Wisdom And Love.

There Are Many Ways Up The Mountain And Each Of Us Must Choose A Practice That Feels True To Our Heart.

There Are Many Good Forms Of Meditation Practice. A Good Meditation Practice Is Any One That Develops Awareness Or Mindfulness Of Our Body And Our Sense, Of Our Mind And Heart.

Meditation Practice

Even Time Is A Concept. In Reality We Are Always In The Eternal Present. The Past Is Just A Memory, The Future Just An Image Or Thought. All Our Stories About Past And Future Are Only Ideas, Arising In The Moment. Our Modern Culture Is So Tyrannized By Goals, Plans, And Improvement Schemes That We Constantly Live For The Future. But As Aldous Huxley Reminded Us In His Writings, "an Idolatrous Religion Is One In Which Time Is Substituted For Eternity...the Idea Of Endless Progress Is The Devil's Work, Even Today Demanding Human Sacrifice On An Enormous Scale.

Train Your Mind The Same Way You’d Train A Puppy: Be Patient, Be Consistent, And Have Some Fun Along The Way.

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No Matter How Difficult The Past, You Can Always Begin Again Today.

We Need A Warrior’s Heart That Lets Us Face Our Lives Directly, Our Pains And Limitations, Our Joys And Possibilities.

We Can Bring Our Spiritual Practice Into The Streets, Into Our Communities, When We See Each Realm As A Temple, As A Place To Discover That Which Is Sacred.

Nirvana Manifests As Ease, As Love, As Connectedness, As Generosity, As Clarity, As Unshakable Freedom. This Isn’t Watering Down Nirvana. This Is The Reality Of Liberation That We Can Experience, Sometimes In A Moment And Sometimes In Transformative Ways That Change Our Entire Life

An Honorable Spiritual Practice Recognizes The Losses We Have Suffered, Tells Our Story, And Sheds Our Tears To Free Us From The Past.

In All Practices And Traditions Of Freedom, We Find The Heart's Task To Be Quite Simple. Life Offers Us Just What It Offers, And Our Task Is To Bow To It, To Meet It With Understanding And Compassion.

True Love Is Not For The Faint-hearted.

How Did We Get Into This Funny-looking Body That Has A Hole At One End In Which We Regularly Stuff Dead Plants And Animals? It's Bizarre That We Got Here, Incarnated Into This World With These Bodies.

Nobody Knows Why They Were Born Or Where They Come From.

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Indifference Pretends To Create Peace, But It Is Based On Not Caring, A Silent Resignation. It Is A Movement Away, A Separation Fed By A Subtle Fear Of The Heart. We Pull Back, Believing That What Happens To Others Is Not Our Concern. Our Courage Leaves Us. Indifference Is A Misguided Way Of Defending Ourselves.

Compassion Arises Naturally As The Quivering Of The Heart In The Face Of Pain, Ours And Another's. True Compassion Is Not Limited By The Separateness Of Pity, Nor By The Fear Of Being Overwhelmed. When We Come To Rest In The Great Heart Of Compassion, We Discover A Capacity To Bear Witness To, Suffer With, And Hold Dear With Our Own Vulnerable Heart The Sorrows And Beauties Of The World.

At The End Of Our Life Our Questions Are Simple: Did I Live Fully? Did I Love Well?

Let Go Of The Battle. Breathe Quietly And Let It Be. Let Your Body Relax And Your Heart Soften. Open To Whatever You Experience Without Fighting.

A Second Quality Of Mature Sirituality Is Kindness. It Is Based On A Fundamental Notion Of Self-acceptance.

In This There Is No Judgment And No Blame, For We Seek Not To Perfect The World But To Perfect Our Love For What Is On This Earth.

Forgiveness Sees Wisely. It Willingly Acknowledges What Is Unjust, Harmful, And Wrong. It Bravely Recognizes Sufferings Of The Past, And Understands The Conditions That Brought Them About.forgiveness Honors The Heart's Greatest Dignity. Whenever We Are Lost, It Brings Us Back To The Ground Of Love.without Forgiveness Our Lives Are Chained, Forced To Carry The Sufferings Of The Past And Repeat Them With No Release.

One Of The Essential Tasks For Living A Wise Life Is Letting Go. Letting Go Is The Path To Freedom. It Is Only By Letting Go Of The Hopes, The Fears, The Pain, The Past, The Stories That Have A Hold On Us That We Can Quiet Our Mind And Open Our Heart.

Whatever Your Difficulties - A Devastated Heart, Financial Loss, Feeling Assaulted By The Conflicts Around You, Or A Seemingly Hopeless Illness - You Can Always Remember That You Are Free In Every Moment To Set The Compass Of Your Heart To Your Highest Intentions. In Fact, The Two Things That You Are Always Free To Do - Despite Your Circumstances - Are To Be Present And To Be Willing To Love.

It's Much Better To Become A Buddha Than A Buddhist.

Have Respect For Yourself, And Patience And Compassion. With These, You Can Handle Anything.

Respect Yourself

The Sufis Have A Saying: "praise Allah, And Tie Your Camel To A Post." This Brings Together Both Parts Of Practice: Pray, Yes, But Also Make Sure That You Do What Is Necessary In The World.

Taking The One Seat Describes Two Related Aspects Of Spiritual Work. Outwardly, It Means Selecting One Practice And Teacher Among All The Possibilities, And Inwardly, It Means Having The Determination To Stick With That Practice Through Whatever Difficulties And Doubts Arise Until You Have Come To True Clarity And Understanding.

Tending To Ourselves, We Tend The World. Tending The World, We Tend Ourselves.

A Factor That Greatly Supports The Opening Of Energy In Practice Is Exercise And Care Of The Physical Body.

Anger Shows Us Precisely Where We Are Stuck, Where Our Limits Are, Where We Cling To Beliefs And Fears.

Live In Joy, In Love, Even Among Those Who Hate.

There Is A Web Of Life Into Which We Are Born, From Which We Can Never Fall.

Through Practice, Gently And Gradually We Can Collect Ourselves And Learn How To Be More Fully With What We Do.

When The Stories Of Our Life No Longer Bind Us, We Discover Within Them Something Greater. We Discover That Within The Very Limitations Of Form, Of Our Maleness And Femaleness, Of Our Parenthood And Our Childhood, Of Gravity On The Earth And The Changing Of The Seasons, Is The Freedom And Harmony We Have Sought For So Long. Our Individual Life Is An Expression Of The Whole Mystery, And In It We Can Rest In The Center Of The Movement, The Center Of All Worlds.

Only A Deep Attention To The Whole Of Our Life Can Bring Us The Capacity To Love Well And Live Freely.

Capacity To Love

Forgiveness Does Not Mean That We Have To Continue To Relate To Those Who Have Done Us Harm. In Some Cases The Best Practice May Be To End Our Connection, To Never Speak To Or Be With A Harmful Person Again. Sometimes In The Process Of Forgiveness A Person Who Hurts Or Betrayed Us May Wish To Make Amends, But Even This Does Not Require Us To Put Ourselves In The Way Of Further Harm.

Do Not Doubt Your Own Basic Goodness. In Spite Of All Confusion And Fear, You Are Born With A Heart That Knows What Is Just, Loving, And Beautiful.

To Learn To Concentrate We Must Choose A Prayer Or Meditation And Follow This Path With Commitment And Steadiness, A Willingness To Work With Our Practice Day After Day, No Matter What Arises.

As We Learn To Bow, We Discover That The Heart Holds More Freedom And Compassion Than We Could Imagine.

The Near Enemy Of Love Is Attachment. Attachment Masquerades As Love. It Says, “i Will Love This Person Because I Need Them.” Or, “i’ll Love You If You’ll Love Me Back. I’ll Love You, But Only If You Will Be The Way I Want.” This Isn’t Love At All - It Is Attachment - And Attachment Is Rigid, It Is Very Different From Love.

When You Rest In Presence And Pure Awareness, Sometimes Everything Is Experienced As Love Because You're Connected With All That Is, And Love Is Simply The Nature Of Being.

We Need To Learn How To Honor And Use A Practice For As Long As It Serves Us—which In Most Cases Is A Very Long Time—but To Look At It As Just That, A Vehicle, A Raft To Help Us Cross Through The Waters Of Doubt, Confusion, Desire, And Fear.

What Brings The Karmic Result From The Patterns Of Our Actions Is Not Our Action Alone. As We Intend And Then Act, We Create [our] Karma: So Another Key To Understanding The Creation Of Karma Is Becoming Aware Of Intention. The Heart Is Our Garden, And Along With Each Action There Is An Intention That Is Planted Like A Seed. The Result Of The Patterns Of Our Karma Is The Fruit Of These Seeds.

As We Willingly Enter Each Place Of Fear, Each Place Of Deficiency And Insecurity In Ourselves, We Will Discover That Its Walls Are Made Of Untruths, Of Old Images Of Ourselves, Of Ancient Fears, Of False Ideas Of What Is Pure And What Is Not.

In Sitting On The Meditation Cushion And Assuming The Meditation Posture, We Connect Ourselves With The Present Moment In This Body And On This Earth.

Without Integrity And Conscience We Lose Our Freedom.

One Day Mara, The Buddhist God Of Ignorance And Evil, Was Traveling Through The Villages Of India With His Attendants. He Saw A Man Doing Walking Meditation Whose Face Was Lit Up In Wonder. The Man Had Just Discovered Something On The Ground In Front Of Him. Mara's Attendants Asked What That Was And Mara Replied, "a Piece Of Truth." "doesn't This Bother You When Someone Finds A Piece Of The Truth, O Evil One?" His Attendants Asked. "no," Mara Replied. "right After This They Usually Make A Belief Out Of It."

The Knowledge Of The Past Stays With Us. To Let Go Is To Release The Images And Emotions, The Grudges And Fears, The Clingings And Disappointments Of The Past That Bind Our Spirit.

In The West, There's A Myth That Freedom Means Free Expression-that To Follow All Desires Wherever They Take One Is True Freedom. In Fact, As One Serves The Mind, One Sees That Following Desires, Attractions, And Repulsions Is Not At All Freedom, But Is A Kind Of Bondage. A Mind Filled With Desires And Grasping Inevitably Entails Great Suffering. Freedom Is Not To Be Gained Through The Ability To Perform Certain External Actions. True Freedom Is An Inward State Of Being. Once It Is Attained, No Situation In The World Can Bind One Or Limit One's Freedom.

We Can Step Out Of Our Small Sense Of Self And Awaken To This Reality. One Of The Reasons People Get Confused About Freedom, Enlightenment, And Liberation Is Because This Awakened Consciousness Has Different Facets Or Different Dimensions, A Bit Like A Crystal. If You Hold This Luminous Crystal Up To The Light And Turn It, It Will Take A Beam Of White Light And Refract It Into The Many Colors Of The Spectrum.

Gratitude Is The Confidence In Life Itself... As Gratitude Grows It Gives Rise To Joy. We Experience The Courage To Rejoice In Our Own Good Fortune And In The Good Fortune Of Others... We Can Be Joyful For People We Love, For Moments Of Goodness, For Sunlight And Trees, And For The Very Breath Within Our Lungs. Like An Innocent Child, We Can Rejoice In Life Itself, In Being Alive.

Built On The Foundation Of Concentration Is The Third Aspect Of The Buddha’s Path Of Awakening: Clarity Of Vision And The Development Of Wisdom.

Meditation Takes Discipline, Just Like Learning How To Play Piano. If You Want To Learn How To Play The Piano, It Takes More Than A Few Minutes A Day, Once A While, Here And There. If You Really Want To Learn Any Important Skill, Whether It Is Playing Piano Or Meditation, It Grows With Perseverance, Patience, And Systematic Training.

It Is Our Commitment To Wholeness That Matters, The Willingness To Unfold In Every Deep Aspect Of Our Being.

Much Of Spiritual Life Is Self-acceptance, Maybe All Of It.

To Live Life Is To Make A Succession Of Errors. Understanding This Can Bring Us Great Ease And Forgiveness For Ourselves And Others.

In Spiritual Life There Is No Room For Compromise. Awakening Is Not Negotiable; We Cannot Bargain To Hold On To Things That Please Us While Relinquishing Things That Do Not Matter To Us. A Lukewarm Yearning For Awakening Is Not Enough To Sustain Us Through The Difficulties Involved In Letting Go. It Is Important To Understand That Anything That Can Be Lost Was Never Truly Ours, Anything That We Deeply Cling To Only Imprisons Us.

You Are The Mystery Incarnating Itself, And It's Beautiful When You Remember. It's Also Painful And Awesome And It Contains Unbearable Beauty And Unfathomable Pain - The Ocean Of Tears And Galaxy Of Bliss. I Don't Say That Lightly, But It's What We Have.

We Are Awakened To The Profound Realization That The True Path To Liberation Is To Let Go Of Everything.

We Can Easily Become Loyal To Our Suffering … But It's Not The End Of The Path.

As We Step Out Of The Way New Things Are Born.

Live In Joy, Luminosity, And Peace Even Among The Troubles Of The World. Remember Who You Are.

Remember Who You Are

We Can Struggle With What Is. We Can Judge And Blame Others Or Ourselves. Or We Can Accept What Cannot Be Changed. Peace Comes From An Honorable And Open Heart Accepting What Is True. Do We Want To Remain Stuck? Or To Release The Fearful Sense Of Self And Rest Kindly Where We Are?

Grant That I Have Enough Suffering That My Heart Really Opens To The Great Compassion Of This World, That I Be Given Enough So That I Don't Wall Myself Off From The World, That It Breaks Down The Heart And The Separation And The Ego And The Fear, And It Lets Me Touch The Nectar, The Milk Of Kindness Itself, Of Something Greater.

Everything That Has A Beginning Has An Ending. Make Your Peace With That And All Will Be Well.

You Hold In Your Hand An Invitation: To Remember The Transforming Power Of Forgiveness And Loving Kindness. To Remember That No Matter Where You Are And What You Face, Within Your Heart Peace Is Possible.

Acceptance Does Not Mean Inaction. We May Need To Respond, Strongly At Times...from A Peaceful Center We Can Respond Instead Of React. Unconscious Reactions Create Problems. Considered Responses Bring Peace. With A Peaceful Heart Whatever Happens Can Be Met With Wisdom...peace Is Not Weak; It Is Unshakable.

In This World There Are Two Great Sources Of Strength. One Rests With Those Who Are Not Afraid To Kill. The Other Rests With Those Who Are Not Afraid To Love.

We Can Bring A Heart Of Understanding And Compassion To A World That Needs It So Much.

Wherever You Are Is The Perfect Place To Awaken. This Moment Is The Exact Place To Practice Compassion And Loving Awareness. You Have All The Ingredients To Breathe And Find Freedom Just Where You Are.

Peace Requires Us To Surrender Our Illusions Of Control. We Can Love And Care For Others But We Cannot Possess Our Children, Lovers, Family, Or Friends. We Can Assist Them, Pray For Them, And Wish Them Well, Yet In The End Their Happiness And Suffering Depend On Their Thoughts And Actions, Not On Our Wishes.

Peace Requires Us To Surrender Our Illusions Of Control.

Illusion Of Control

To Let Go Does Not Mean To Get Rid Of. To Let Go Means To Let Be. When We Let Be With Compassion, Things Come And Go On Their Own.

The Things That Matter Most In Our Lives Are Not Fantastic Or Grand. They Are The Moments When We Touch One Another.

Part Of Spiritual And Emotional Maturity Is Recognizing That It's Not Like You're Going To Try To Fix Yourself And Become A Different Person. You Remain The Same Person, But You Become Awakened.

We Need Courage And Strength, A Kind Of Warrior Spirit. But The Place For This Warrior Strength Is In The Heart. We Need Energy, Commitment, And Courage Not To Run From Our Life Nor To Cover It Over With Any Philosophy-mate Rial Or Spiritual. We Need A Warrior’s Heart That Lets Us Face Our Lives Directly, Our Pains And Limitations, Our Joys And Possibilities.

Two Qualities Are At The Root Of All Meditation Development: Right Effort And Right Aim—arousing Effort To Aim The Mind Toward The Object.

The Person Who Betrayed You Is Sunning Themselves On A Beach In Hawaii And You're Knotted Up In Hatred. Who Is Suffering?

The Ends Do Not Justify The Means. If Our Actions Will Bring Harm To Others, Even In The Service Of Some 'good,' They Are Almost Certainly Deluded. If Our Actions Do Not Come From A Kind Heart, From Loving Courage And Compassion, They Are Deluded. If They Are Based On A Distinction Between 'us' And 'them,' They Stem From Delusion. Only To The Extent That We Act From The Wisdom Of No Separation, Understanding How We Are Woven Together, Will Our Intention Bring Benefit.

Everyone And Everything Is In Some Degree Or Other Our Teacher.

Yet I Knew That Spiritual Practice Is Impossible Without Great Dedication, Energy, And Commitment.

Whatever We Cultivate In Times Of Ease, We Gather As Strength For Times Of Change.

What We Seek Is What We Are.

Since Death Will Take Us Anyway, Why Live Our Life In Fear? Why Not Die In Our Old Ways And Be Free To Live?

Every Facet, Every Department Of Your Mind, Is To Be Programmed By You. And Unless You Assume Your Rightful Responsibility, And Begin To Program Your Own Mind, The World Will Program It For You.

Weigh The True Advantages Of Forgiveness And Resentment To The Heart. Then Choose.

No Amount Of Meditation, Yoga, Diet, And Reflection Will Make All Of Our Problems Go Away, But We Can Transform Our Difficulties Into Our Practice Until Little By Little They Guide Us On Our Way.

It Only Take A Few Minutes Of Meditation To Directly Realize We Are A River Of Sensations, Feelings, Thoughts, Perceptions. How Can We Navigate This Evanescent River Of Life Wisely? With Mindful Awareness And Love It Becomes Clear. You Can Fight Against The River Of Change, Or Use Its Wisdom To Teach You How To Graciously Move And Create And Flow With The Full Measure Of Joy And Sorrow, Gain And Loss, Praise And Blame That Make Up Every Human Incarnation.

The Unawakened Mind Tends To Make War Against The Way Things Are.

When We Take Time To Quiet Ourselves, We Can All Sense That Our Life Could Be Lived With Greater Compassion And Greater Weakness.

Meet This Transient World With Neither Grasping Nor Fear, Trust The Unfolding Of Life, And You Will Attain True Serenity.

Where We Tended To Be Judgmental, We Became More Judgmental Of Ourselves In Our Spiritual Practice.

In A Society That Almost Demands Life At Double Time, Speed And Addictions Numb Us To Our Own Experience. In Such A Society, It Is Almost Impossible To Settle Into Our Bodies Or Stay Connected With Our Hearts, Let Alone Connect With One Another Or The Earth Where We Live.

When We Let Go Of Yearning For The Future, Preoccupation With The Past, And Strategies To Protect The Present, There Is Nowhere Left To Go But Where We Are. To Connect With The Present Moment Is To Begin To Appreciate The Beauty Of True Simplicity.

I Used To Think That To Become Free You Had To Practice Like A Samurai Warrior, But Now I Understand That You Have To Practice Like A Devoted Mother Of A Newborn Child. It Takes The Same Energy But Has A Completely Different Quality. It's Compassion And Presence Rather Than Having To Defeat The Enemy In Battle.

To Let Go In The Deepest Recesses Of The Heart, To Release All Struggle And Wanting, Leads Us To That Knowing Which Is Timeless.

No Matter What Situation We Find Ourselves In, We Can Always Set Our Compass To Our Highest Intentions In The Present Moment

As We Encounter New Experiences With A Mindful And Wise Attention, We Discover That One Of Three Things Will Happen To Our New Experience: It Will Go Away, It Will Stay The Same, Or It Will Get More Intense. Whatever Happens Does Not Really Matter.

New Experiences

A Bulging Portfolio Of Spiritual Experiences Matters Little If It Does Not Have The Power To Sustain Us Through The Inevitable Moments Of Grief, Loss, And Change. Knowledge And Achievements Matter Little If We Do Not Yet Know How To Touch The Heart Of Another And Be Touched. Wisdom Is Alive Only As Long As It Is Lived, Understanding Is Liberating Only As Long As It Is Applied.

The Goal Of Practice Is Always To Keep Our Beginner's Mind.

Refraining From Stealing: Care With Material Goods. Undertake For One Week To Act On Every Single Thought Of Generosity That Arises Spontaneously In Your Heart.

The Light Around Someone Who Speaks Truth, Who Consistently Acts With Compassion For All, Even In Great Difficulty, Is Visible To All Around Them.

When Repeated Difficulties Do Arise, Our First Spiritual Approach Is To Acknowledge What Is Present, Naming, Softly Saying 'sadness, Sadness', Or 'remembering, Remembering', Or Whatever.

Know That The Freedom You Seek Can Be Found Right Here Where You Are.

Skill In Concentrating And Steadying The Mind Is The Basis For All Types Of Meditation.

We Must Look At Ourselves Over And Over Again In Order To Learn To Love, To Discover What Has Kept Our Hearts Closed, And What It Means To Allow Our Hearts To Open.

How Well We Have Learned To Let Go

When Attachment Arises In The Place Of Love, It Sees The Other As Separate; It Grasps And Needs. Attachment Is Conditional; It Seeks Control And It Fear Loss. Ask Your Heart If Attachment Has Replaced Love. If We Speak To Our Heart, It Will Always Tell Us The Truth.

Compassion Is Our Deepest Nature. It Arises From Our Interconnection With All Things.

Interconnection

In Any Moment We Can Learn To Let Go Of Hatred And Fear. We Can Rest In Peace, Love, And Forgiveness. It Is Never Too Late. Yet To Sustain Love We Need To Develop Practices That Cultivate And Strengthen The Natural Compassion Within Us.

Great Spiritual Traditions Are Used As A Means To Ripen Us, To Bring Us Face To Face With Our Life, And To Help Us To See In A New Way By Developing A Stillness Of Mind And A Strength Of Heart.

When We Take The One Seat On Our Meditation Cushion We Become Our Own Monastery. We Create The Compassionate Space That Allows For The Arising Of All Things: Sorrows, Loneliness, Shame, Desire, Regret, Frustration, Happiness.

Most People Discover That When Hate Is Gone, They Will Be Forced To Deal With Their Own Pain.

As Desire Abates, Generosity Is Born. When We Are Connected And Present, What Else Is There To Do But Give?

Most Of Us Have Spent Our Lives Caught Up In Plans, Expectations, Ambitions For The Future; In Regrets, Guilt Or Shame About The Past. To Come Into The Present Is To Stop The War.

It Is Possible To Speak With Our Heart Directly. Most Ancient Cultures Know This. We Can Actually Converse With Our Heart As If It Were A Good Friend. In Modern Life We Have Become So Busy With Our Daily Affairs And Thoughts That We Have Lost This Essential Art Of Taking Time To Converse With Our Heart.

The Longing For Initiation Is Universal And For Modern Youth, It Is A Desperate Need. When Nothing Is Offered In The Way Of Spiritual Initiation To Prove One's Entry Into The World Of Men And Women, Initiation Happens Instead In The Road Or The Street, In Cars At High Speed, With Drugs, With Dangerous Sex, With Weapons. However Troubling, This Behavior Is Rooted In A Fundamental Truth; A Need To Grow.

Within Each Of Us There Is A Silence As Vast As The Universe. We Long For It. We Can Return To It.

Though Outer Events May Be Difficult, The Key To Our Happiness Is How Our Mind Responds To Them.

Those Who Are Awake Live In A State Of Constant Amazement.

...spiritual Opening Is Not A Withdrawal To Some Imagined Realm Or Safe Cave. It Is Not A Pulling Away, But A Touching Of All The Experience Of Life With Wisdom And With A Heart Of Kindness, Without Any Separation.

The Aim Of Spiritual Life Is To Awaken A Joyful Freedom, A Benevolent And Compassionate Heart In Spite Of Everything.

Compassion For Ourselves Gives Rise To The Power To Transform Resentment Into Forgiveness, Hatred Into Friendliness, And Fear Into Respect For All Beings.

If You Want To Love, Take The Time To Listen To Your Heart. In Most Ancient And Wise Cultures It Is A Regular Practice For People To Talk To Their Heart. There Are Rituals, Stories, And Meditative Skills In Every Spiritual Tradition That Awaken The Voice Of The Heart. To Live Wisely, This Practice Is Essential, Because Our Heart Is The Source Of Our Connection To And Intimacy With All Of Life. And Life Is Love. This Mysterious Quality Of Love Is All Around Us, As Real As Gravity... Yet How Often We Forget About Love.

Breathing Meditation Can Quiet The Mind, Open The Body, And Develop A Great Power Of Concentration.

For Most Of Us, Generosity Is A Quality That Must Be Developed. We Have To Respect That It Will Grow Gradually; Otherwise Our Spirituality Can Become Idealistic And Imitative, Acting Out The Image Of Generosity Before It Has Become Genuine.

Whenever We Forgive, In Small Ways At Home, Or In Great Ways Between Nations, We Free Ourselves From The Past.

The Awakened Heart And Mind Can Be Experienced As Clarity Itself, Pure Knowing.

In Deep Self Acceptance, Grows A Compassionate Understanding.

The Focusing Of Attention On The Breath Is Perhaps The Most Universal Of The Many Hundreds Of Meditation Subjects Used Worldwide.

In Buddhist Practice, The Outward And Inward Aspects Of Taking The One Seat Meet On Our Meditation Cushion.

Every Individual In The World Has A Unique Contribution.

We Have Only Now, Only This Single Eternal Moment Opening And Unfolding Before Us, Day And Night.

As We Follow A Genuine Path Of Practice, Our Sufferings May Seem To Increase Because We No Longer Hide From Them Or From Ourselves. When We Do Not Follow The Old Habits Of Fantasy And Escape, We Are Left Facing The Actual Problems And Contradictions Of Our Life.

It Is Hard To Imagine A World Without Forgiveness. Without Forgiveness Life Would Be Unbearable. Without Forgiveness Our Lives Are Chained, Forced To Carry The Sufferings Of The Past And Repeat Them With No Release.

May I Be Given The Appropriate Difficulties So That My Heart Can Truly Open With Compassion. Imagine Asking For That.

What Would We Have To Hold In Compassion To Be At Peace Right Now? What Would We Have To Let Go Of To Be At Peace Right Now?

You Have To Accept The Way Things Are Before You Can Move On.

You Need A Community. They Remind You When You Forget, And You Remind Them When They Forget.

Ours Is A Society Of Denial That Conditions Us To Protect Ourselves From Any Direct Difficulty And Discomfort. We Expend Enormous Energy Denying Our Insecurity, Fighting Pain, Death And Loss And Hiding From The Basic Truths Of The Natural World And Of Our Own Nature.

Love Creates A Communion With Life. Love Expands Us, Connects Us, Sweetens Us, Ennobles Us. Love Springs Up In Tender Concern, It Blossoms Into Caring Action. It Makes Beauty Out Of All We Touch. In Any Moment We Can Step Beyond Our Small Self And Embrace Each Other As Beloved Parts Of A Whole.

Meditation Practice Is Neither Holding On Nor Avoiding; It Is A Settling Back Into The Moment, Opening To What Is There.

Meditation Practice

The Wholeness And Freedom We Seek Is Our True Nature, Who We Really Are.

We Need A Repeated Discipline, A Genuine Training, In Order To Let Go Of Our Old Habits Of Mind And To Find And Sustain A New Way Of Seeing.

It Takes Courage To Grieve, To Honor The Pain We Carry. We Can Grieve In Tears Or In Meditative Silence, In Prayer Or In Song. In Touching The Pain Of Recent And Long-held Griefs, We Come Face To Face With Our Genuine Human Vulnerability, With Helplessness And Hopelessness. These Are The Storm Clouds Of The Heart.

If Grief Or Anger Arises, Let There Be Grief Or Anger. This Is The Buddha In All Forms,sun Buddha, Moon Buddha, Happy Buddha, Sad Buddha. It Is The Universe Offering All Things To Awaken And Open Our Heart.

The Purpose Of A Spiritual Discipline Is To Give Us A Way To Stop The War, Not By Our Force Of Will, But Organically, Through Understanding An Gradual Training.

If You Can Sit Quietly After Difficult News; If In Financial Downturns You Remain Perfectly Calm; If You Can See Your Neighbors Travel To Fantastic Places Without A Twinge Of Jealousy; If You Can Happily Eat Whatever Is Put On Your Plate; You Can Fall Asleep After A Day Of Running Around Without A Drink Or A Pill; If You Can Always Find Contentment Just Where You Are: You Are Probably A Dog.

No Amount Of Outer Technology, No Amount Of Computers And Biotechnology And Nanotechnology Is Going To Stop The Continuation Of Warfare And Racism And Environmental Destruction. What's Called For On The Earth At This Time Is Really A Change Of Heart ... The Question Is Really Not The Future Of Humanity, But The Presence Of Eternity.

Buddhist Teachings Are Not A Religion, They Are A Science Of Mind.

In The End, Forgiveness Simply Means Never Putting Another Person Out Of Our Heart.

There Is No Higher Happiness Than Peace.

The Best Of Modern Therapy Is Much Like A Process Of Shared Meditation, Where Therapist And Client Sit Together, Learning To Pay Close Attention To Those Aspects And Dimensions Of The Self That The Client May Be Unable To Touch On His Or Her Own.

When We Struggle To Change Ourselves We, In Fact, Only Continue The Patterns Of Self-judgement And Aggression. We Keep The War Against Ourselves Alive.

As Long As You Are Trying To Be Something Other Than What You Actually Are, Your Mind Wears Itself Out. But If You Say, 'this Is What I Am, It Is A Fact That I Am Going To Investigate And Understand,' Then You Can Go Beyond.

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