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To Dwell In The Here And Now Does Not Mean You Never Think About The Past Or Responsibly Plan For The Future. The Idea Is Simply Not To Allow Yourself To Get Lost In Regrets About The Past Or Worries About The Future. If You Are Firmly Grounded In The Present Moment, The Past Can Be An Object Of Inquiry, The Object Of Your Mindfulness And Concentration. You Can Attain Many Insights By Looking Into The Past. But You Are Still Grounded In The Present Moment.

-Nhat Hanh

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To Dwell In The

Nhat Hanh

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To Dwell In The Here And Now Does Not Mean You Never Think About The Past Or Responsibly Plan For The Future. The Idea Is Simply Not To Allow Yourself To Get Lost In Regrets About The Past Or Worries About The Future. If You Are Firmly Grounded In The Present Moment, The Past Can Be An Object Of Inquiry, The Object Of Your Mindfulness And Concentration. You Can Attain Many Insights By Looking Into The Past. But You Are Still Grounded In The Present Moment.

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

Reality Is Reality. It Transcends Every Concept. There Is No Concept Which Can Adequately Describe It, Not Even The Concept Of Interdependence.

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We Are Determined Not To Take As The Aim Of Our Life Fame, Profit, Wealth, Or Sensual Pleasure, Nor To Accumulate Wealth While Millions Are Hungry And Dying. We Are Committed To Living Simply And Sharing Our Time, Energy, And Material Resources With Those Who Are In Need.

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.

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.

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.

Peace Is Present Right Here And Now, In Ourselves And In Everything.

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Peace Is Every Step

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.

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

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

Life Is Available Only In The Present Moment.

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.

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.

‎we Have A Lamp Inside Us. The Oil Of That Lamp Is Our Breathing, Our Steps, And Our Peaceful Smile. Our Practice Is To Light Up The Lamp.

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.

Anger Is The Energy That People Use In Order To Act. But When You Are Angry, You Are Not Lucid, And You Might Do Wrong Things. That Is Why Compassion Is A Better Energy.

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

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.

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

In April, We Cannot See Sunflowers In France, So We Might Say The Sunflowers Do Not Exist. But The Local Farmers Have Already Planted Thousands Of Seeds, And When They Look At The Bare Hills, They May Be Able To See The Sunflowers Already. The Sunflowers Are There. They Lack Only The Conditions Of Sun, Heat, Rain And July. Just Because We Cannot See Them Does Not Mean That They Do Not Exist.

Breathe In Deeply To Bring Your Mind Home To Your Body. Then Look At, Or Think Of, The Person Triggering This Emotion: With Mindfulness, You Can See That She Is Unhappy, That She Is Suffering. You Can See Her Wrong Perceptions. You Can See That She Is Not Beautiful When She Says Things That Are Unkind.

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

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

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

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.

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

Seeds Can Produce Seeds Seeds Can Produce Formations. Formations Can Produce Seeds. Formations Can Produce Formations.

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.

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.

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

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

There Are Always Some People Who Are Ready To Embrace A Doctrine, A Notion, A Dogma, And They Miss The Real Teaching.

If You Abandon The Present Moment, You Cannot Live The Moments Of Your Daily Life Deeply.

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

Because Of Your Smile, You Make Life More Beautiful.

The Only Answer To Fear Is More Understanding. And There Is No Understanding If There Is No Effort To Look More Deeply To See What Is There In Our Heart And In The Heart Of The Other Person.

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

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

The Roots Of War Are In The Way We Live Our Daily Lives -- The Way We Develop Our Industries, Build Up Our Society, And Consume Goods.

Do Not Be Idolatrous About Or Bound To Any Doctrine, Theory, Or Ideology, Even Buddhist Ones. All Systems Of Thought Are Guiding Means; They Are Not Absolute Truth.

To Develop Understanding, You Have To Practice Looking At All Living Things With The Eyes Of Compassion.

Our Life Is A Manifestation, And We Can Very Well Make That Manifestation Beautiful And Meaningful And Have A Good Influence.

Do Not Avoid Contact With Suffering Or Close Your Eyes Before Suffering. Do Not Lose Awareness Of The Existence Of Suffering In The Life Of The World. Find Ways To Be With Those Who Are Suffering By All Means, Including Personal Contact And Visits, Images, Sounds. By Such Means, Awaken Yourself And Others To The Reality Of Suffering In The World.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

To Be Free, First Of All, Is To Be Free From Wrong Views That Are The Foundation Of All Kinds Of Suffering And Fear And Violence.

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.

If You Love Someone But Rarely Make Yourself Available To Him Or Her, That Is Not True Love.

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.

When We Live In The Spirit Of Gratitude, There Will Be Much Happiness In Our Life. The One Who Is Grateful Is The One Who Has Much Happiness While The One Who Is Ungrateful Will Not Be Able To Have Happiness.

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

The Noble Eight-fold Path Is The Path Of Living In Awareness. Mindfulness Is The Foundation. By Practicing Mindfulness, You Can Develop Concentration, Which Enables You To Attain Understanding. Thanks To Right Concentration, You Realize Right Awareness, Thoughts, Speech, Action, Livelihood And Effort. The Understanding Which Develops Can Liberate You From Every Shackle Of Suffering And Give Birth To True Peace And Joy.

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

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

To Take Good Care Of Yourself And To Take Good Care Of Living Beings And Of The Environment Is The Best Way To Love God.

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.

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

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

Peace Ca N Exist Only In The Present Moment. It Is Rid Iculous To Say "wait Until I Fi Nish This, Then I Will Be Free To Live In Peace." What Is "this" ? A Diploma, A Job, A House, The Payment Of A Debt? If Yo U Th Ink That Way, Peace Wi Ll Never Come. There Is Always Another "th Is" That Wi Ll Fo Llow The Present One. If You Are Not Living In Peace At This Moment, You Will Never Be Able To . If You Truly Wa Nt To Be At Peace, You Must Be At Peace Right Now. Otherwise, There Is Only "the Hope Of Peace Some Day.

I Vow To Live Fully In Each Moment.

Morning Inspirational

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.

The Three Kinds Of Pride Are: (1) Thinking I Am Better Than The Other(s); (2) Thinking I Am Worse Than The Other(s); And (3) Thinking I Am Just As Good As The Other(s).

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.

We Are Here To Awaken From Our Illusion Of Separateness.

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

Personal Growth

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

When We Smile, The Muscles Around Our Mouth Are Stretched And Relaxed, Just Like Doing Yoga. Smiling Is Mouth Yoga. We Release The Tension From Our Face As We Smile. Others Who Run Into Us Notice It, Even Strangers, And Are Likely To Smile Back. It Is A Wonderful Chain Reaction That We Can Initiate, Touching The Joy In Anyone We Encounter. Smiling Is An Ambassador Of Goodwill.

It Is Not Impermanence That Makes Us Suffer. What Makes Us Suffer Is Wanting Things To Be Permanent When They Are Not.

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

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.

Mindfulness Practices Enhance The Connection Between Our Body, Our Mind And Everything Else That Is Around Us. Mindful Living Is The Key To Understanding Our Struggles With Weight And To Empowering Us To Control Our Weight.

When It Comes To Health And Well-being, Regular Exercise Is About As Close To A Magic Potion As You Can Get.

Walk And Touch Peace Every Moment. Walk And Touch Happiness Every Moment. Each Step Brings A Fresh Breeze. Each Step Makes A Flower Bloom. Kiss The Earth With Your Feet. Bring The Earth Your Love And Happiness. The Earth Will Be Safe When We Feel Safe In Ourselves.

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.

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.

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

Feelings, Whether Of Compassion Or Irritation, Should Be Welcomed, Recognized, And Treated On An Absolutely Equal Basis; Because Both Are Ourselves. The Tangerine I Am Eating Is Me. The Mustard Greens I Am Planting Are Me. I Plant With All My Heart And Mind. I Clean This Teapot With The Kind Of Attention I Would Have Were I Giving The Baby Buddha Or Jesus A Bath. Nothing Should Be Treated More Carefully Than Anything Else. In Mindfulness, Compassion, Irritation, Mustard Green Plant, And Teapot Are All Sacred.

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

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

If We Chew Every Morsel Of Our Food, In That Way We Become Grateful, And When You Are Grateful, You Are Happy.

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

I Am Inviting You To Go Deeper, To Learn And To Practice So That You Become Someone Who Has A Great Capacity For Being Solid, Calm, And Without Fear, Because Our Society Needs People Like You Who Have These Qualities, And Your Children, Our Children, Need People Like You, In Order To Go On, In Order To Become Solid, And Calm, And Without Fear.

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

If You Have Not Suffered Hunger, You Do Not Appreciate Having Something To Eat. If You Have Not Gone Through A War, You Don't Know The Value Of Peace. That Is Why We Should Not Try To Run Away From One Thing After Another Thing. Holding Our Suffering, Looking Deeply Into It, We Find A Way To Happiness.

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

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

Let Us Fill Our Hearts With Our Own Compassion - Towards Ourselves And Towards All Living Beings.

The Root-word "buddha" Means To Wake Up, To Know, To Understand; And He Or She Who Wakes Up And Understands Is Call A Buddha. It Is As Simple As That. The Capacity To Wake Up, To Understand, And To Love Is Called Buddha Nature.

If 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.

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

In Order To Rally People, Governments Need Enemies... If They Do Not Have A Real Enemy, They Will Invent One In Order To Mobilize Us.

There Are Many Levels Of Christianity. There Are Many Notions About God. To Believe That God Is A Person Is Just One Of The Notions Of God That You Can Find In Christianity. So, We Should Not Say That There Is One Christianity. There Are Many Christianities.

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.

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

The Buddha Said, 'nothing Can Survive Without Food.' This Is A Very Simple And Very Deep Truth. Love And Hate Are Both Living Phenomena. If We Do Not Nourish Our Love, It Will Die And May Turn Into Hate. If We Want Love To Last, We Have To Nurture It And Give It Food Every Day. Hate Is The Same; If We Don't Feed It, It Cannot Survive.

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.

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

The Energy Of Compassion Is Very Strong. We Suffer. That Is Real. But We Have Learned Not To Get Angry And Not To Allow Ourselves To Be Carried By Anger. We Realize Right Away That That Is Fear. That Is Corruption.

You Who Are Journalists, Writers, Citizens, You Have The Right And Duty To Say To Those You Have Elected That They Must Practice Mindfulness, Calm And Deep Listening, And Loving Speech. This Is Universal Thing, Taught By All Religions.

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

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.

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

I Hold My Face In My Two Hands. No, I Am Not Crying. I Hold My Face In My Two Hands To Keep The Loneliness Warm - Two Hands Protecting, Two Hands Nourishing, Two Hands Preventing My Soul From Leaving Me In Anger.

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

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

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

We Humans Think We Are Smart, But An Orchid, For Example, Knows How To Produce Noble, Symmetrical Flowers, And A Snail Knows How To Make A Beautiful, Well-proportioned Shell. Compared With Their Knowledge, Ours Is Not Worth Much At All. We Should Bow Deeply Before The Orchid And The Snail And Join Our Palms Reverently Before The Monarch Butterfly And The Magnolia Tree. The Feeling Of Respect For All Species Will Help Us Recognize The Noblest Nature In Ourselves.

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.

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.

As A Human Being, You Have The Right To Get Angry; But As A Practitioner, You Do Not Have The Right To Stop Practicing.

Meditation Is Not To Escape From Society, But To Come Back To Ourselves And See What Is Going On. Once There Is Seeing, There Must Be Acting. With Mindfulness, We Know What To Do And What Not To Do To Help.

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

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

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

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

We May Think That Justice Is Everyone Being Equal, Having The Same Rights, Sharing The Same Kind Of Advantages, But Maybe We Have Not Had The Chance To Look At The Nature Of Justice In Terms Of No-self. That Kind Of Justice Is Based On The Idea Of Self, But It May Be Very Interesting To Explore Justice In Terms Of No-self.

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

We Have To Understand In Order To Be Of Help. We All Have Pain, But We Tend To Suppress It, Because We Don't Want It To Come Up To Our Living Room. 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, But Everyone Is Suffering, And No One Wants To Listen. We Don't Know How To Express Ourselves So That People Can Understand. Because We Suffer So Much, The Way We Express Our Pain Hurts Other People, And They Don't Want To Listen.

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

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."

In All The Practice Centers In The Tradition Of Plum Village Whenever The Phone Rings Or The Clock Chimes In The Dining Hall, People Stop Everything They Are Doing And Breathe Consciously, Releasing All Thinking And Any Tension.

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.

Our Appointment With Life Is In The Present Moment. If We Do Not Have Peace And Joy Right Now, When Will We Have Peace And Joy?

It Is Possible To Live Happily In The Here And The 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.

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.

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.

Just Listen Be Peace.

Enlightenment, Peace, And Joy Will Not Be Granted By Someone Else. The Well Is Within Us, And If We Dig Deeply In The Present Moment, The Water Will Spring Forth.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

We Have To Look Deeply At Things In Order To See. When A Swimmer Enjoys The Clear Water Of The River, He Or She Should Also Be Able To Be The River.

Mindfulness Is Like That—it Is The Miracle Which Can Call Back In A Flash Our Dispersed Mind And Restore It To Wholeness So That We Can Live Each Minute Of Life.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Compassion Is A Verb.

When We Come Into Contact With The Other Person, Our Thoughts And Actions Should Express Our Mind Of Compassion, Even If That Person Says And Does Things That Are Not Easy To Accept. We Practice In This Way Until We See Clearly That Our Love Is Not Contingent Upon The Other Person Being Lovable.

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

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 Produce Peace And Happiness In Yourself, You Begin To Realize Peace For The Whole World. With The Smile That You Produce In Yourself, With The Conscious Breathing You Establish Within Yourself, You Begin To Work For Peace In The World.

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.

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.

The Terrorists, They Have The Wrong Perception. They Believe That The Other Group Is Trying To Destroy Them As A Religion, As A Civilization. So They Want To Abolish Us, To Kill Us Before We Can Kill Them. And The Antiterrorist May Think Very Much The Same Way - That These Are Terrorists And They Are Trying To Eliminate Us, So We Have To Eliminate Them First. Both Sides Are Motivated By Fear, By Anger, And By Wrong Perception.

Breathing In, I Know I Am Breathing In. Breathing Out, I Know I Am Breathing Out.

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

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

By Listening With Calm And Understanding, We Can Ease The Suffering Of Another Person.

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.

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

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

The Electron Is First Of All Your Concept Of The Electron.

Contemplate To See That Awakened People, While Not Being Enslaved By The Work Of Serving Living Beings, Never Abandon Their Work Of Serving Living Beings.

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

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