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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.

-Nhat Hanh

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The Way We Live

Nhat Hanh

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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.

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Anger And Hatred Are The Materials From Which Hell Is Made.

The Problem Is Whether We Are Determined To Go In The Direction Of Compassion Or Not. If We Are, Then Can We Reduce The Suffering To A Minimum? If I Lose My Direction, I Have To Look For The North Star, And I Go To The North. That Does Not Mean I Expect To Arrive At The North Star. I Just Want To Go In That Direction.

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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.

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

The Miracle Is Not To Walk On Water, Or In The Air, Or On Burning Charcoal. The Miracle Is To Walk On Earth. You Breathe In, You Become Aware Of The Fact That You Are Alive. You Are Alive And You Are Walking On This Beautiful Planet. The Greatest Of Of All Miracles Is To Be Alive.

Happiness Reveals Itself When We Are At Peace With Ourselves.

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.

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

Walking Meditation

Happiness Is Available. Please Help Yourself To It.

You Need The Practice Of Mindfulness To Bring Your Mind Back To The Body And Establish Yourself In The Moment. If You Are Fully Present, You Need Only Make A Step Or Take A Breath In Order To Enter The Kingdom Of God. And Once You Have The Kingdom, You Don't Need To Run After Objects Of Your Craving, Like Power, Fame, Sensual Pleasure, And So On. Peace Is Possible. Happiness Is Possible.

Often We Tell Ourselves, "don't Just Sit There, Do Something!" But When We Practice Awareness, We Discover That The Opposite May Be More Helpful: "don't Just Do Something, Sit There!"

Recently, One Friend Asked Me, "how Can I Force Myself To Smile When I Am Filled With Sorrow? It Isn't Natural." I Told Her She Must Be Able To Smile To Her Sorrow, Because We Are More Than Our Sorrow. A Human Being Is Like A Television Set With Millions Of Channels. If We Turn The Buddha On, We Are The Buddha. If We Turn Sorrow On Then We Are Sorrow. If We Turn A Smile On, We Really Are The Smile. We Can Not Let Just One Channel Dominate Us. We Have The Seed Of Everything In Us, And We Have To Seize The Situation In Our Hand, To Recover Our Own Sovereignty.

The Secret Of Buddhism Is To Remove All Ideas, All Concepts, In Order For The Truth To Have A Chance To Penetrate, To Reveal Itself.

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

Breathing In, I Am Aware Of My Heart. Breathing Out, I Smile To My Heart And Know That My Heart Still Functions Normally. I Feel Grateful For My Heart.

Because You Are Alive, Everything Is Possible.

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

People Usually Consider Walking On Water Or In Thin Air A Miracle. But I Think The Real Miracle Is Not To Walk Either On Water Or In Thin Air, But To Walk On Earth. Every Day We Are Engaged In A Miracle Which We Don't Even Recognize: A Blue Sky, White Clouds, Green Leaves, The Black, Curious Eyes Of A Child -- Our Own Two Eyes. All Is A Miracle.

If You Have The Insight Of Non-self, If You Have The Insight Of Impermanence, You Should Make That Insight Into A Concentration That You Keep Alive Throughout The Day. Then What You Say, What You Think, And What You Do Will Then Be In The Light Of That Wisdom And You Will Avoid Making Mistakes And Creating Suffering.

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.

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

Waking Up This Morning, I Smile. Twenty-four Brand New Hours Are Before Me. I Vow To Live Fully In Each Moment And To Look At All Beings With Eyes Of Compassion.

What Is Most Important Is To Find Peace And To Share It With Others. To Have Peace, You Can Begin By Walking Peacefully. Everything Depends On Your Steps.

When Your Mind Is Liberated, Your Heart Floods With Compassion.

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

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.

With A Practice, We Can Always Remain Alive In The Present Moment. With Mindfulness, You Can Establish Yourself In The Present In Order To Touch The Wonders Of Life That Are Available In That Moment.

It Is Best If We Do Not Listen To Or Look At The Person Whom We Consider To Be The Cause Of Our Anger. Like A Fireman, We Have To Pour Water On The Blaze First And Not Waste Time Looking For The One Who Set The House On Fire. "breathing In, I Know That I Am Angry. Breathing Out, I Know That I Must Put All My Energy Into Caring For My Anger." So We Avoid Thinking About The Other Person, And We Refrain From Doing Or Saying Anything As Long As Our Anger Persists. If We Put All Our Mind Into Observing Our Anger, We Will Avoid Doing Any Damage That We May Regret Later.

The Present Moment Is The Only Moment Available To Us And It Is The Door To All Other Moments.

Peace Is Present Right Here And Now, In Ourselves And In Everything We Do And See. Every Breath We Take, Every Step We Take, Can Be Filled With Peace, Joy, And Serenity. The Question Is Whether Or Not We Are In Touch With It. We Need Only To Be Awake, Alive In The Present Moment.

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

Live In Such A Way That You Embody True Peace, That You Can Be Peace In Every Moment Of Your Daily Life. It Is Possible For Everyone To Generate The Energy Of Peace In Every Step.

It Is Often Said That The Buddha's Teaching Is Only A Raft To Help You Cross The River, A Finger Pointing To The Moon. Don't Maistake The Finger For The Moon. The Raft Is Not The Shore. If We Cling To The Raft, If We Cling To The Finger, We Miss Everything. We Cannot, In The Name Of The Finger Or The Raft Kill Each Other. Human Life Is More Precious Than Any Ideology, Any Doctrine.

The Amount Of Happiness That You Have Depends On The Amount Of Freedom You Have In Your Heart.

As Long As You Find Something Beautiful, Good, And True To Believe In And Abide By, You Have The Equivalent Of God In Your Life.

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.

Loneliness Cannot Be Alleviated Just By The Coming Together Of Two Bodies, Unless There Is Also Good Communication, Understanding, And Loving Kindness.

Reconciliation Is A Deep Practice That We Can Do With Our Listening And Our Mindful Speech. To Reconcile Means To Bring Peace And Happiness To Nations, People, And Members Of Our Family.... In Order To Reconcile, You Have To Possess The Art Of Deep Listening.

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

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.

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.

My Actions Are My Only True Belongings. I Cannot Escape The Consequences Of My Actions. My Actions Are The Ground On Which I Stand.

Birth Is Okay And Death Is Okay, If We Know That They Are Only Concepts In Our Mind. Reality Transcends Both Birth And Death.

Go Slowly, Breathe And Smile.

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

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

Those Who Are Without Compassion Cannot See What Is Seen With The Eyes Of Compassion.

Freedom From Suffering Is A Great Happiness.

Great Happiness

Happiness Does Not Come From Consumption Of Things.

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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.

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

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

Breathing In, I Am Aware That I Am Breathing In. Breathing Out, I Am Aware That I Am Breathing Out. Breathing In, I Am Grateful For This Moment. Breathing Out, I Smile. Breathing In, I Am Aware Of The Preciousness Of This Day. Breathing Out, I Vow To Live Deeply In This Day.

Mindfulness Must Be Engaged. Once There Is Seeing, There Must Be Acting. Otherwise, What's The Use Of Seeing?

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

It's Like Growing Lotus Flowers. You Cannot Grow Lotus Flowers On Marble. You Have To Grow Them On The Mud. Without Mud You Cannot Have Lotus Flowers. Without Suffering, You Have No Way To Learn How To Be Understanding And Compassionate.

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.

With Understanding, Those We Love Will Certainly Flower.

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?

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.

Your Breathing Should Flow Gracefully, Like A River, Like A Watersnake Crossing The Water, And Not Like A Chain Of Rugged Mountains Or The Gallop Of A Horse. To Master Our Breath Is To Be In Control Of Our Bodies And Minds. Each Time We Find Ourselves Dispersed And Find It Difficult To Gain Control Of Ourselves By Different Means, The Method Of Watching The Breath Should Always Be Used.

When We Respect Our Blood Ancestors And Our Spiritual Ancestors, We Feel Rooted. If We Find Ways To Cherish And Develop Our Spiritual Heritage, We Will Avoid The Kind Of Alienation That Is Destroying Society, And We Will Become Whole Again. ... Learning To Touch Deeply The Jewels Of Our Own Tradition Will Allow Us To Understand And Appreciate The Values Of Other Traditions, And This Will Benefit Everyone.

Listening Is A Very Deep Practice. You Have To Empty Yourself. You Have To Leave Space In Order To Listen Especially To People We Think Are Our Enemies - The Ones We Believe Are Making Our Situation Worse. When You Have Shown Your Capacity For Listening And Understanding, The Other Person Will Begin To Listen To You, And You Have A Change To Tell Him Or Her Of Your Pain, And It's Your Turn To Be Healed. This Is The Practice Of Peace.

Wrong Perceptions Cannot Be Removed By Guns And Bombs. They Should Be Removed By Deep Listening, Compassionate Listening, And Loving Space.

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."

When You Hold A Child In Your Arms, Or Hug Your Mother, Or Your Husband, Or Your Friend, If You Breathe In And Out Three Times, Your Happiness Will Be Multiplied At Least Tenfold.

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

There Are Two Ways To Wash The Dishes. One Way Is To Wash Them To Get Them Clean. The Other Way Is To Wash Them In Order To Wash The Dishes.

Every Moment Is A Moment Of Happiness.

Moments Of Happiness

Take My Hand. We Will Walk. We Will Only Walk. We Will Enjoy Our Walk Without Thinking Of Arriving Anywhere.

When We Give Ourselves The Chance To Let Go Of All Our Tension, The Body's Natural Capacity To Heal Itself Can Begin To Work.

If You Truly Get In Touch With A Piece Of Carrot, You Get In Touch With The Soil, The Rain, The Sunshine. You Get In Touch With Mother Earth And Eating In Such A Way, You Feel In Touch With True Life, Your Roots, And That Is Meditation. If We Chew Every Morsel Of Our Food In That Way We Become Grateful And When You Are Grateful, You Are Happy.

Every One Of Us Needs A Home. The World Needs A Home. There Are So Many Young People Who Are Homeless. They May Have A Building To Live In, But They Are Homeless In Their Hearts. That Is Why The Most Important Practice Of Our Time Is To Give Each Person A Home.

We Are Here To Awaken From Our Illusion Of Separateness.

Harm No Person, Animal, Plant Or Mineral.

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.

If You Suffer And Make Your Loved Ones Suffer, There Is Nothing That Can Justify Your Desire.

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

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.

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.

Our Own Lives Are The Instruments With Which We Experiment With Truth.

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.

It Is Said That God Has Created Man In His Own Image. But It May Be That Humankind Has Created God In The Image Of Humankind.

Scientists Tell Us That We Have Enough Technology To Save Our Planet. . . . Yet We Don't Take Advantage Of This New Technology. . . . The Technological Has To Work Hand-in-hand With The Spiritual. Our Spiritual Life Is The Element That Can Bring About The Energies Of Peace, Calm, Brotherhood, Understanding, And Compassion. Without That, Our Planet Doesn't Stand A Chance.

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.

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

One Hour Of Compassionate Deep Listening Can Bring About Transformation And Healing.

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

When We Enter The Present Moment Deeply, Our Regrets And Sorrows Disappear, And We Discover Life With All Its Wonders.

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

What You Are Looking For Is Already In You...you Already Are Everything You Are Seeking.

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.

The Greatest Of All Miracles Is To Be Alive.

Your Anxiety Is Your Baby. You Have To Take Care Of It. You Have To Go Back To Yourself, Recognize The Suffering In You, Embrace The Suffering, And You Get Relief. And If You Continue With Your Practice Of Mindfulness, You Understand The Roots, The Nature Of The Suffering, And You Know The Way To Transform It.

If You Are Capable Of Brushing Your Teeth In Mindfulness, Then You Will Be Able To Enjoy The Time When You Take A Shower, Cook Your Breakfast, Sip Your Tea.

As A Population, If A Large Number Of People Make Even Small Moves To Eat Less Meat And More Plant-based Foods, The Livestock Industry Will Shrink. Over Time, Farmers Will Find Other Crops To Support Their Livelihoods. Through Such Collective Awakening We Can Make A Difference In Our World.

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

When You Call Me European, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Arab, I Say Yes. When You Call Me Black, I Say Yes. When You Call Me White, I Say Yes. Because I Am In You And You Are In Me. We Have To Inter-be With Everything In The Cosmos.

If I Succeed In Loving You, I Will Be Able To Love Everyone And All Species On Earth... This Is The Real Message Of Love

My Love For You

Our Nature Is The Nature Of No Birth And No Death. It Is Impossible For A Cloud To Pass From Being Into Nonbeing. And That Is True With A Beloved Person. They Have Not Died. They Have Continued In Many New Forms And You Can Look Deeply And Recognize Them In You And Around You.

Suppose You Are Drinking A Cup Of Tea. When You Hold Your Cup, You May Like To Breathe In, To Bring Your Mind Back To Your Body, And You Become Fully Present. And When You Are Truly There, Something Else Is Also There - Life, Represented By The Cup Of Tea. In That Moment You Are Real, And The Cup Of Tea Is Real. You Are Not Lost In The Past, In The Future, In Your Projects, In Your Worries. You Are Free From All Of These Afflictions. And In That State Of Being Free, You Enjoy Your Tea. That Is The Moment Of Happiness, And Of Peace.

If We Practice Mindfulness, We Always Have A Place To Be When We Are Afraid.

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.

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

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

The Moment You Wake Up, Right Away, You Can Smile... You Are Aware That A New Day Is Beginning, That Life Is Offering You Twenty-four Brand New Hours To Live, And That That's The Most Precious Of Gifts.

To Think In Terms Of Either Pessimism Or Optimism Oversimplifies The Truth. The Problem Is To See Reality As It Is. A Pessimistic Attitude Can Never Create The Calm And Serene Smile Which Blossoms On The Lips Of Bodhisattvas And All Those Who Obtain The Way.

When We Are Present, Life Is Also Present.

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

No Blame, No Reasoning, No Argument, Just Understanding. If You Understand, And You Show That You Understand, You Can Love, And The Situation Will Change.

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.

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.

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.

Choose To Be In Touch With What Is Wonderful, Refreshing, And Healing Within Yourself And Around You.

We Will Not Just Say, "i Love Him Very Much," But Instead, "i Will Do Something So That He Will Suffer Less." The Mind Of Compassion Is Truly Present When It Is Effective In Removing Another Person's Suffering.

Usually When We Hear Or Read Something New, We Just Compare It To Our Own Ideas. If It Is The Same, We Accept It And Say That It Is Correct. If It Is Not, We Say It Is Incorrect. In Either Case, We Learn Nothing.

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.

It's Like A Mother, When The Baby Is Crying, She Picks Up The Baby And She Holds The Baby Tenderly In Her Arms. Your Pain, Your Anxiety Is Your Baby. You Have To Take Care Of It. You Have To Go Back To Yourself, To Recognize The Suffering In You, Embrace The Suffering, And You Get A Relief.

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.

Let Us Not Be Afraid Of Decreasing. It Is Like The Moon, We See The Moon Increasing And Decreasing, But It Is Always The Moon.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

May We Awaken From Forgetfulness And Realize Our True Home.

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

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.

To Live In The Present Moment Is A Miracle.

Live In The Present

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.

Meditation Is Not To Get Out Of Society, To Escape From Society, But To Prepare For A Reentery Into Society.

'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.

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

If You're A Politician, You Might Want To Learn The Buddhist Way Of Negotiation. Restoring Communication And Bringing Back Reconciliation Is Clear And Concrete In Buddhism.

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

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.

Knowing That Anger Makes Me Ugly, I Smile Instead. I Return To Myself And Meditate On Love.

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.

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?

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.

In The Past There Were People Who Were Not Rich But Contented With Their Living Style, Laughing And Happy All Day. But When The New Rich People Appear, People Look At Them And Ask Why Don't I Have A Life Like That Too, A Beautiful House, Car And Garden And They Abandon Their Values.

Love Doesn't Have Any Color. Other People May Discriminate Against Us, But What Is More Important Is Whether We Discriminate Against Them. If We Don't Do That, We Are A Happier Person, And As A Happier Person, We Are In A Position To Help. And Anger, This Is Not A Help.

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.

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.

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

To Meditate Is To Be Aware Of What Is Going On - In Our Bodies, Our Feelings Our Minds, And In The World. When We Settle Into The Present Moment, We Can See The Beauties And Wonders Before Our Eyes.

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

Buddhism Teaches Us Not To Try To Run Away From Suffering. You Have To Confront Suffering. You Have To Look Deeply Into The Nature Of Suffering In Order To Recognize Its Cause, The Making Of The Suffering.

To Meditate Means To Go Home To Yourself. Then You Know How To Take Care Of The Things That Are Happening Inside You, And You Know How To Take Care Of The Things That Happen Around You.

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

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

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.

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

The 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.

My Actions Are My Only True Belongings.

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

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 Way You Speak To Others Can Offer Them Joy, Happiness, Self-confidence, Hope, Trust, And Enlightenment. Mindful Speaking Is A Deep Practice.

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

Lack Of Understanding

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

When We Shout At The Oak Tree, The Oak Tree Is Not Offended. When We Praise The Oak Tree, It Doesn't Raise Its Nose. We Can Learn The Dharma From The Oak Tree; Therefore, The Oak Tree Is Part Of Our Dharmakaya. We Can Learn From Everything That Is Around, That Is In Us.

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.

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

I Have Lost My Smile, But Don't Worry. The Dandelion Has It.

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.

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

Personal Growth

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

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

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

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. Our Practice Is To Make Ourselves Ready For The Kingdom So That It Can Manifest In The Here And The Now. You Don't Need To Die In Order To Enter The Kingdom Of Heaven. In Fact, You Have To Be Truly Alive In Order To Do So.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Still Arrive, In Order To Laugh And To Cry, To Fear And To Hope. The Rhythm Of My Heart Is The Birth And Death Of All That Is Alive.

At First Glance, That Might Seem A Little Silly: Why Put So Much Stress On A Simple Thing? But That's Precisely The Point.

It Is Difficult To Explain To Children In The "overdeveloped" Nations That Not All Children In The World Have Such Beautiful And Nourishing Food. Awareness Of This Fact Alone Can Help Us Overcome Many Of Our Own Psychological Pains. Eventually Our Contemplation Can Help Us See How To Assist Those Who Need Our Help So Much.

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

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.

Tolerance And Tranquility Are Two Characteristics Of True Love.

To Condemn Someone To Death Is To Surrender; It Proves That You Failed. You Are Not Able To Change Him, To Change Her; You Have To Kill Him Or Her. You Surrender. ... You Only Demonstrate Your Lack Of Capacity, Your Helplessness. This Is Failure.

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