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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.

-Nhat Hanh

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Training Is Needed In

Nhat Hanh

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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.

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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

Happiness And Suffering Support Each Other. To Be Is To Inter-be. It's Like The Left And The Right. If The Left Is Not There, The Right Cannot Be There. The Same Is True With Suffering And Happiness, Good And Evil.

Nirvana Is The Complete Silencing Of Concepts.

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

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

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

Happiness Reveals Itself When We Are At Peace With Ourselves.

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

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.

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.

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

When We Say, "i Take Refuge In The Buddha," We Should Also Understand That "the Buddha Takes Refuge In Me," Because Without The Second Part The First Part Is Not Complete. The Buddha Needs Us For Awakening, Understanding, And Love To Be Real Things And Not Just Concepts. They Must Be Real Things That Have Real Effects On Life. Whenever I Say, "i Take Refuge In The Buddha," I Hear "the Buddha Takes Refuge In Me."

The Past Is Gone, The Future Is Not Yet Here, And If We Do Not Go Back To Ourselves In The Present Moment, We Cannot Be In Touch With Life.

Live In The Moment

To Reconcile Conflicting Parties, We Must Have The Ability To Understand The Suffering Of Both Sides. If We Take Sides, It Is Impossible To Do The Work Of Reconciliation. And Humans Want To Take Sides. That Is Why The Situation Gets Worse And Worse. Are There People Who Are Still Available To Both Sides? They Need Not Do Much. They Need Do Only One Thing: Go To One Side And Tell All About The Suffering Endured By The Other Side, And Go To The Other Side And Tell All About The Suffering Endured By This Side. This Is Our Chance For Peace. But How Many Of Us Are Able To Do That?

Find Joy And Peace In This Very Moment.

I Think Buddhism Should Open The Door Of Psychology And Healing To Penetrate More Easily Into The Western World.

If You Get Angry Easily, It May Be Because The Seed Of Anger In You Has Been Watered Frequently Over Many Years, And Unfortunately You Have Allowed It Or Even Encouraged It To Be Watered.

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.

Follow Your Breathing, Dwell Mindfully On Your Steps, And Soon You Will Find Your Balance.

Machine Thinking Is The Opposite Of Mindfulness. If We're Really Engaged In Mindfulness When Walking Along The Path To The Village, Then We Will Consider The Act Of Each Step We Take As An Infinite Wonder, And A Joy Will Open Our Hearts Like A Flower, Enabling Us To Enter The World Of Reality.

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

Walking Meditation

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 Seven Factors Of Awakening Are Mindfulness, Investigation Of Phenomena, Diligence, Joy, Ease, Concentration, And Letting Go.

Peace In Every Step. The Shining Red Sun Is My Heart. Each Flower Smiles With Me. How Green, How Fresh All That Grows. How Cool The Wind Blows. Peace Is Every Step. It Turns The Endless Path To Joy.

Compassion Is Our Most Important Practice. Understanding Brings Compassion. Understanding The Suffering That Living Beings Undergo Helps Liberate The Energy Of Compassion. And With That Energy You Know What To Do.

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

Mother Earth Is Very Talented.

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

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.

Looking Deeply Into The Wrong Perceptions, Ideas, And Notions That Are At The Base Of Our Suffering Is The Most Important Practice In Buddhist Meditation.

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

We Have More Possibilities Available In Each Moment Than We Realize.

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

Freedom Is The Real Foundation Of Happiness.

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

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

Once You Develop The Practice Of Smiling, You May Not Need A Reminder. You Will Smile As Soon As You Hear A Bird Singing Or See The Sunlight Streaming Through The Window.

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

One Day I Saw A Picture Of The Buddha On A Buddhist Magazine And He Was Sitting On The Grass, And He Was Sitting On The Grass, Very Peaceful, Smiling, And I Was Impressed. Around Me People Were Not Like That, So I Had The Desire To Be Someone Like Him. I Nourished That Kind Of Desire Until The Age Of Sixteen, When I Had The Permission From My Parents To Go And Ordain As A Buddhist Monk.

The Real Power Of The Buddha Was That He Had So Much Love. He Saw People Trapped In Their Notions Of Small Separate Self, Feeling Guilty Or Proud Of That Self, And He Offered Revolutionary Teachings That Resounded Like A Lion's Roar, Like A Great Rising Tide, Helping People To Wake Up And Break Free From The Prison Of Ignorance.

Each Moment Is A Chance For Us To Make Peace With The World, To Make Peace Possible For The World, To Make Happiness Possible For The World.

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

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.

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

Human Beings Are Innately Loving Beings. When We Fail To Love, It Is Because An Element Of Ignorance Has Intruded Into Our Experience, Submerging Our Natural Impulse To Love.

You Carry Mother Earth Within You. She Is Not Outside Of You. Mother Earth Is Not Just Your Environment.

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Walking Meditation

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

Without Collective Awakening The Catastrophe Will Come. I Think People In The Mass Media, Journalists, Film Makers And Others, You Can Contribute To The Collective Awakening If You Are Awake And Then Your Life Will Embody That Awakening.

We Who Have Touched War Have A Duty To Bring The Truth About War To Those Who Have Not Had A Direct Experience Of It. We Are The Light At The Tip Of The Candle. It Is Really Hot, But It Has The Power Of Shining And Illuminating. If We Practice Mindfulness, We Will Know How To Look Deeply Into The Nature Of War And, With Our Insight, Wake People Up So That Together We Can Avoid Repeating The Same Horrors Again And Again.

Together We Can

Smile, Breathe, Go Slowly.

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.

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.

Harm No Person, Animal, Plant Or Mineral.

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.

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

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

Painful Feelings

In 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.

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.

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

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.

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

The More Compassionate You Are, The More Generous You Can Be. The More Generous You Are, The Move Loving Friendliness You Cultivate To Help The World.

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.

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.

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.

If We Are Not Happy, If We Are Not Peaceful, We Cannot Share Peace And Happiness With Others, Even Those We Love, Those Who Live Under The Same Roof. If We Are Peaceful, If We Are Happy, We Can Smile And Blossom Like A Flower, And Everyone In Our Family, Our Entire Society, Will Benefit From Our Peace.

Meditation Means To Look Deeply, To Touch Deeply, So We Can Realize We Are Already Home.

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.

So If We Love Someone, We Should Train In Being Able To Listen. By Listening With Calm And Understanding, We Can Ease The Suffering Of Another Person. [true Love. A Practice For Awakening The Heart.]

Life Is Filled With Suffering, But It Is Also Filled With Many Wonders, Like The Blue Sky, The Sunshine, The Eyes Of A Baby. To Suffer Is Not Enough. We Must Also Be In Touch With The Wonders Of Life. They Are Within Us And All Around Us, Everywhere, Any Time.

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

Every Day We Touch What Is Wrong, And, As A Result, We Are Becoming Less And Less Healthy. That Is Why We Have To Learn To Practice Touching What Is Not Wrong—inside Us And Around Us. When We Get In Touch With Our Eyes, Our Heart, Our Liver, Our Breathing, And Our Non-toothache And Really Enjoy Them, We See That The Conditions For Peace And Happiness Are Already Present.

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

Nonviolent Action, Born Of The Awareness Of Suffering And Nurtured By Love, Is The Most Effective Way To Confront Adversity.

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

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

Every Day We Do Things, We Are Things That Have To Do With Peace. If We Are Aware Of Our Life..., Our Way Of Looking At Things, We Will Know Ohw To Make Peace Right In The Moment, We Are Alive.

Whenever Anger Comes Up, Take Out A Mirror And Look At Yourself. When You Are Angry, You Are Not Very Beautiful.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Fact That I Am Standing There And Washing Bowls Is A Wondrous Reality. I'm Being Completely Myself, Following My Breath, Conscious Of My Presence, And Conscious Of My Thoughts And Actions.

To Meditate Does Not Mean To Fight With A Problem. To Meditate Means To Observe. Your Smile Proves It. It Proves That You Are Being Gentle With Yourself, That The Sun Of Awareness Is Shining In You, That You Have Control Of Your Situation. You Are Yourself, And You Have Acquired Some Peace.

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

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.

Through My Love For You, I Want To Express My Love For The Whole Cosmos, The Whole Of Humanity, And All Beings. By Living With You, I Want To Learn To Love Everyone And All Species. 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.

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.

We Must Look Deeply. When We Buy Something Or Consume Something, We May Be Participating In An Act Of Killing. This Precept [non-killing] Reflects Our Determination Not To Kill, Either Directly Or Indirectly, And Also To Prevent Others From Killing.

We All Need A Place That Is Safe And Wholesome Enough For Us To Return For Refuge. In Buddhism, That Refuge Is Mindfulness.

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

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

Lack Of Understanding

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.

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.

There Is No Enlightenment Outside Of Daily Life.

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

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.

One Included All, And All Were Contained In One.

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.

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.

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.

I Realize That Many Elements Of The Buddhist Teaching Can Be Found In Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I Think If Buddhism Can Help, It Is The Concrete Methods Of Practice.

The Nectar Of Compassion Is So Wonderful. If You Are Committed To Keeping It Alive, Then You Are Protected. What The Other Person Says Will Not Touch Off The Anger And Irritation In You, Because Compassion Is The Real Antidote To Anger. Nothing Can Heal Anger Except Compassion. That Is Why The Practice Of Compassion Is A Very Wonderful Practice.

Guarding Knowledge Is Not A Good Way To Understand. Understanding Means To Throw Away Your Knowledge. You Have To Be Able To Transcend Your Knowledge The Way People Climb A Ladder. If You Are On The Fifth Step Of A Ladder And Think That You Are Very High, There Is No Hope For You To Climb To The Sixth.

Fear, Separation, Hate And Anger Come From The Wrong View That You And The Earth Are Two Separate Entities, The Earth Is Only The Environment. You Are In The Centre And You Want To Do Something For The Earth In Order For You To Survive. That Is A Dualistic Way Of Seeing.

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.

I Am Determined To Practice Deep Listening. I Am Determined To Practice Loving Speech.

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

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

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

Peace And Serenity

Peace Is Every Step

No One Can Practice The Precepts Perfectly, Including The Buddha... Boiled Vegetables Contain Dead Bacteria. We Cannot Practice The First Precept Or Any Of The Precepts Perfectly. But Because Of The Real Danger In Our Society-alcoholism Has Destroyed So Many Families And Has Brought About Much Unhappiness-we Have To Do Something. We Have To Live In A Way That Will Eradicate That Kind Of Damage. That Is Why Even If You Can Be Very Healthy With One Glass Of Wine Every Week, I Still Urge You With All My Strength To Abandon That Glass Of Wine.

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

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

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.

To Meditate With Mindful Breathing Is To Bring Body And Mind Back To The Present Moment So That You Do Not Miss Your Appointment With Life.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

There Is The Mud, And There Is The Lotus That Grows Out Of The Mud. We Need The Mud In Order To Make The Lotus.

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.

In True Dialogue, Both Sides Are Willing To Change.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Only Way To Ease Our Fear And Be Truly Happy Is To Acknowledge Our Fear And Look Deeply At Its Source. Instead Of Trying To Escape From Our Fear, We Can Invite It Up To Our Awareness And Look At It Clearly And Deeply.

Each Moment You Are Alive Is A Gem. It Needs You To Breathe Gently For The Miracles To Be Displayed.

Inspirational Life

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.

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

You Practice Mindfulness, On The One Hand, To Be Calm And Peaceful. On The Other Hand, As You Practice Mindfulness And Live A Life Of Peace, You Inspire Hope For A Future Of Peace.

Many Of Us Worry About The Situation Of The World . . . We Need To Remain Calm, To See Clearly. Meditation Is A Means To Be Aware, And To Try To Help.

The Situation The Earth Is In Today Has Been Created By Unmindful Production And Unmindful Consumption. We Consume To Forget Our Worries And Our Anxieties. Tranquilising Ourselves With Over-consumption Is Not The Way.

We Try To Live Every Moment Like That, Dwelling Peacefully In The Present Moment, And Respond To Events With Compassion.

Sometimes When I Am Alone In My Room In The Dark, I Practice Smiling To Myself. I Do This To Be Kind To Myself, To Take Good Care Of Myself, To Love Myself. I Know That If I Cannot Take Care Of Myself, I Cannot Take Care Of Anyone Else.

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

Be Yourself. Life Is Precious As It Is. All The Elements For Your Happiness Are Already Here. There Is No Need To Run, Strive, Search, Or Struggle. Just Be.

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.

We All Have The Seeds Of Love In Us.we Can Develop This Wonderful Source Of Energy, Nurturing The Unconditional Love That Does Not Expect Anything In Return.

Unconditional Love

All Violence Is Injustice. Responding To Violence With Violence Is Injustice, Not Only To The Other Person But Also To Oneself. Responding To Violence With Violence Resolves Nothing; It Only Escalates Violence, Anger And Hatred. It Is Only With Compassion That We Can Embrace And Disintegrate Violence. This Is True In Relationships Between Individuals As Well As In Relationships Between Nations.

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

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.

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

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

Loving Ourselves Means Loving Our Community. When We Are Capable Of Loving Ourselves, Nourishing Ourselves Properly, Not Intoxicating Ourselves, We Are Already Protecting And Nourishing Society.

People Have A Hard Time Letting Go Of Their Suffering. Out Of A Fear Of The Unknown, They Prefer Suffering That Is Familiar.

Breathe In And Take One Step, And Focus All Your Attention On The Sole Of Your Foot. If You Have Not Arrived Fully, One Hundred Percent In The Here And The Now, Don't Take The Next Step.

Every Feeling Is A Field Of Energy. A Pleasant Feeling Is An Energy Which Can Nourish. Irritation Is A Feeling Which Can Destroy. Under The Light Of Awareness, The Energy Of Irritation Can Be Transformed Into And Energy Which Nourishes.

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

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

Silence Is Essential. We Need Silence Just As Much As We Need Air, Just As Much As Plants Need Light. If Our Minds Are Crowded With Words And Thoughts, There Is No Space For Us.

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.

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

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

It Is My Conviction That There Is No Way To Peace - Peace Is The Way.

Our Own Life Has To Be Our Message.

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

People Sacrifice The Present For The Future. But Life Is Available Only In The Present. That Is Why We Should Walk In Such A Way That Every Step Can Bring Us To The Here And The Now.

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.

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

The Raft Is Used To Cross The River. It Isn't To Be Carried Around On Your Shoulders. The Finger Which Points At The Moon Isn't The Moon Itself.

An Emotion Is Only An Emotion. It's Just A Small Part Of Your Whole Being. You Are Much More Than Your Emotion. An Emotion Comes, Stays For A While, And Goes Away, Just Like A Storm. If You're Aware Of That, You Won't Be Afraid Of Your Emotions.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Life Is Available Only 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.

Contemplating The Bowl, It Is Possible To See The Interdependent Elements Which Give Rise To The Bowl.

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.

Today Is The Most Important Day Of Our Lives.

To Be Or Not To Be Is Not The Question. The Question Is Whether You Can Transcend These Notions.

Be Or Not To Be

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

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

There's No Way I Can Be Tossed Around Like A Bottle Slapped Here And There On The Waves.

While Washing Dishes One Should Be Washing The Dishes, Which Means That While Washing The Dishes One Should Be Completely Aware Of The Fact That One Is Washing Dishes.

Understanding And Love Are Not Two Separate Things, But Just One. To Develop Understanding, You Have To Practice Looking At All Living Beings With The Eyes Of Compassion. When You Understand, You Cannot Help But Love. And When You Love, You Naturally Act In A Way That Can Relieve The Suffering Of People.

Life Is A Miracle, And Being Aware Of Simply This Can Already Make Us Very Happy.

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

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

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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