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We Can Smile, Breathe, Walk, And Eat Our Meals In A Way That Allows Us To Be In Touch With The Abundance Of Happiness That Is Available. We Are Very Good At Preparing To Live, But Not Very Good At Living. We Know How To Sacrifice Ten Years For A Diploma, And We Are Willing To Work Very Hard To Get A Job, A Car, A House, And So On. But We Have Difficulty Remembering That We Are Alive In The Present Moment, The Only Moment There Is For Us To Be Alive. Every Breath We Take, Every Step We Make, Can Be Filled With Peace, Joy, And Serenity. We Need Only To Be Awake, Alive In The Present Moment.

-Nhat Hanh

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We Can Smile, Breathe,

Nhat Hanh

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We Can Smile, Breathe, Walk, And Eat Our Meals In A Way That Allows Us To Be In Touch With The Abundance Of Happiness That Is Available. We Are Very Good At Preparing To Live, But Not Very Good At Living. We Know How To Sacrifice Ten Years For A Diploma, And We Are Willing To Work Very Hard To Get A Job, A Car, A House, And So On. But We Have Difficulty Remembering That We Are Alive In The Present Moment, The Only Moment There Is For Us To Be Alive. Every Breath We Take, Every Step We Make, Can Be Filled With Peace, Joy, And Serenity. We Need Only To Be Awake, Alive In The Present Moment.

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Sometimes You Have A Flash Of Insight, But It's Not Strong Enough To Survive. Therefore In The Practice Of Buddhism, Samadhi Is The Power To Maintain Insight Alive In Every Moment, So That Every Speech, Every Word, Every Act Will Bear The Nature Of That Insight. It Is A Question Of Cleaning. And You Clean Better If You Are Surrounded By Those Who Are Practicing Exactly The Same.

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

The Sangha Is A Community Where There Should Be Harmony And Peace And Understanding. That Is Something Created By Our Daily Life Together. If Love Is There In The Community, If We've Been Nourished By The Harmony In The Community, Then We Will Never Move Away From Love.

Anger Is Like A Flame Blazing Up And Consuming Our Self-control, Making Us Think, Say, And Do Things That We Will Probably Regret Later.

We Can Smile, Breathe, Walk, And Eat Our Meals In A Way That Allows Us To Be In Touch With The Abundance Of Happiness That Is Available. We Are Very Good At Preparing To Live, But Not Very Good At Living. We Know How To Sacrifice Ten Years For A Diploma, And We Are Willing To Work Very Hard To Get A Job, A Car, A House, And So On. But We Have Difficulty Remembering That We Are Alive In The Present Moment, The Only Moment There Is For Us To Be Alive. Every Breath We Take, Every Step We Make, Can Be Filled With Peace, Joy, And Serenity. We Need Only To Be Awake, Alive In The Present Moment.

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.

If We Are At War With Our Parents, Our Family, Our Society, Or Our Church, There Is Probably A War Going On Inside Us Also, So The Most Basic Work For Peace Is To Return To Ourselves And Create Harmony Among The Elements Within Us - Our Feelings, Our Perceptions, And Our Mental States. That Is Why The Practice Of Meditation, Looking Deeply, Is So Important.

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.

There Is A Time For Everything. There Is A Time When I Sit Down, I Concentrate Myself On The Problem Of My Bills, But I Would Not Worry Before That. One Thing At A Time.

Anger Is Like A Storm Rising Up From The Bottom Of Your Consciousness. When You Feel It Coming, Turn Your Focus To Your Breath.

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

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.

If Love Is In Our Hearts, Every Thought, Word, And Deed Can Bring About A Miracle. Because Understanding Is The Very Foundation Of Love, Words And Actions That Emerge From Our Love Are Always Helpful.

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

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.

The Buddha Said That If We Know How To Look Deeply Into Our Suffering And Recognize What Feeds It, We Are Already On The Path Of Emancipation.

In Buddhism, We Talk Of Meditation As An Act Of Awakening, To Be Awake To The Fact That The Earth Is In Danger And Living Species Are In Danger.

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

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

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.

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.

When You Look At The Sun During Your Walking Meditation, The Mindfulness Of The Body Helps You To See That The Sun Is In You; Without The Sun There Is No Life At All And Suddenly You Get In Touch With The Sun In A Different Way.

By Eating Meat We Share Responsibility For Causing Climate Change, The Destruction Of Our Forests, And The Poisoning Of Our Air And Water. The Simple Act Of Becoming A Vegetarian Can Make A Difference In The Health Of Our Planet.

Your True Home Is In The Here And The Now.

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.

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

Peace Is Every Step

If You Can Feel That Mother Earth Is In You, And You Are Mother Earth, Then You Are Not Any Longer Afraid To Die Because The Earth Is Not Dying. Like A Wave Appears And Disappears And Appears Again.

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

We May Not Have Done Anything But When We Are Relaxed, When We Are Peaceful, When We Are Able To Smile And Not To Be Violent In The Way We Look At The System, At That Moment There Is A Change Already In The World.

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

Be Or Not To Be

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

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

To Be Spiritual Means To Be Solid, Calm, And Peaceful And To Be Able To Look Deeply Inside And Around Us.

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

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 First Thing I Learned Was That Even If You Have A Lot Of Money And Power And Fame, You Can Still Suffer Very Deeply.

In Us, There Is A River Of Feelings, In Which Every Drop Of Water Is A Different Feeling, And Each Feeling Relies On All The Others For Its Existence. To Observe It, We Just Sit On The Bank Of The River And Identify Each Feeling As It Surfaces, Flows By, And Disappears.

Each Minute We Spend Worrying About The Future And Regretting The Past Is A Minute We Miss In Our Appointment With Life - A Missed Opportunity To Engage Life And To See That Each Moment Gives Us The Chance To Change For The Better, To Experience Peace And Joy.

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.

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

The Desire To Be A Free Person Is Very Worthwhile. To Be Free Means You Are No Longer The Victim Of Fear, Anger, Craving, Or Suspicion.

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

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.

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

If A Child Smiles, If An Adult Smiles, That Is Very Important. If In Our Daily Lives We Can Smile, If We Can Be Peaceful And Happy, Not Only We, But Everyone Will Profit From It. If We Really Know How To Live, What Better Way To Start The Day Than With A Smile? Our Smile Affirms Our Awareness And Determination To Live In Peace And Joy. The Source Of A True Smile Is An Awakened Mind.

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

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

I Do Many Kinds Of Work, And If You Forbid Me From Binding Books, From Gardening, From Writing Poetry, From Practicing Walking Meditation, From Teaching Children, I Will Be Very Unhappy. To Me, Work Is Pleasant. Pleasant Or Unpleaseant Depends On Our Way Of Looking.

As Long As We Think Our Lives Are Not Good Enough (materially), We Will Not Have Happiness. As Soon As We Realize Our Lives Are Good Enough, Happiness Immediately Appears. That Is The Practice Of Contentment.

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.

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.

If We Take The Time To Look Deeply, We See That Understanding And Compassion Arise From Suffering. Understanding Is The Understanding Of Suffering, And Compassion Is The Kind Of Energy That Can Transform Suffering. If Suffering Is Not There, We Have No Means To Cultivate Our Understanding And Our Compassion. This Is Something Quite Simple To See

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

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

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.

There Are So Many Things That Can Provide Us With Peace. Next Time You Take A Shower Or A Bath, I Suggest You Hold Your Big Toes In Mindfulness. We Pay Attention To Everything Except Our Toes. When We Hold Our Toes In Mindfulness And Smile At Them, We Will Find That Our Bodies Have Been Very Kind To Us. We Know That Any Cell In Our Toes Can Turn Cancerous, But Our Toes Have Been Behaving Very Well, Avoiding That Kind Of Problem. Yet, We Have Not Been Nice To Them At All. These Kinds Of Practices Can Bring Us Happiness.

I Am You And You Are Me; It Is Obvious We Inter-are.

When We Come To The Table, We Shouldn't Negotiate Right Away. We Should Spend Time Walking Together, Eating Together, Making Acquaintance, Telling Each Other About Our Own Suffering, Without Blame Or Condemnation. It Takes Maybe One, Two, Three Weeks To Do That. And If Communication And Understanding Are Possible, Negotiation Will Be Easier. So If I Am To Organize A Peace Negotiation, I Will Organize It In That Way.

Eating Together

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

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

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

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

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

Wisdom And Joy Arise When You Learn To Exist Now Rather Than In The Nonexistent Past Or Future.

There Is A Story In Zen Circles About A Man And A Horse. The Horse Is Galloping Quickly, And It Appears That The Man On The Horse Is Going Somewhere Important. Another Man Standing Alongside The Road, Shouts, «where Are You Going?» And The First Man Replies, «i Don't Know! Ask The Horse!» This Is Also Our Story. We Are Riding A Horse, And We Don't Know Where We Are Going And We Can't Stop. The Horse Is Our Habit Energy Pulling Us Along, And We Are Powerless.

When You Enter Deeply Into This Moment, You See The Nature Of Reality, And This Insight Liberates You From Suffering And Confusion. Peace Is Already There To Some Extent: The Problem Is Whether We Know How To Touch It.

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

The Present Moment Contains Past And Future. The Secret Of Transformation, Is In The Way We Handle This Very Moment.

Each Second Of Life Is A Miracle

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.

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

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

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.

When We Walk Like (we Are Rushing), We Print Anxiety And Sorrow On The Earth. We Have To Walk In A Way That We Only Print Peace And Serenity On The Earth... Be Aware Of The Contact Between Your Feet And The Earth. Walk As If You Are Kissing The Earth With Your Feet.

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.

Only The Present Moment Contains Life.

Peace Is Every Step

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.

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.

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

Your Anger Is Like A Flower. In The Beginning You May Not Understand The Nature Of Your Anger, Or Why It Has Come Up. But If You Know How To Embrace It With The Energy Of Mindfulness, It Will Begin To Open. You May Be Sitting, Following Your Breathing, Or You May Be Practicing Walking Meditation To Generate The Energy Of Mindfulness And Embrace Your Anger. After Ten Or Twenty Minutes Your Anger Will Have To Open Herself To You, And Suddenly, You Will See The True Nature Of Your Anger. It May Have Arisen Just Because Of A Wrong Perception Or The Lack Of Skillfulness.

Walking Meditation

Because Of Your Smile, You Make Life More Beautiful.

You Are A Miracle, And Everything You Touch Could Be A Miracle.

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

Just Listen Be Peace.

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 Would Not Be Happy If I Had Not Become A Monk.

There Are Many Ways To Calm A Negative Energy Without Suppressing Or Fighting It. You Recognize It, You Smile To It, And You Invite Something Nicer To Come Up And Replace It; You Read Some Inspiring Words, You Listen To A Piece Of Beautiful Music, You Go Somewhere In Nature, Or You Do Some Walking Meditation.

Walking Meditation

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

If We Are Peaceful, If We Are Happy, We Can Smile, And Everyone In Our Family, Our Entire Society, Will Benefit From Our Peace.

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 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.

Find Joy And Peace In This Very Moment.

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

I Think, Therefore I Am ... Not Here.

Fearlessness Is Not Only Possible, It Is The Ultimate Joy. When You Touch Nonfear, You Are Free.

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.

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.

The Organic Gardener Does Not Think Of Throwing Away The Garbage. She Knows That She Needs The Garbage. She Is Capable Of Transforming The Garbage Into Compost, So That The Compost Can Turn Into Lettuce, Cucumber, Radishes, And Flowers Again...with The Energy Of Mindfulness, You Can Look Into The Garbage And Say: I Am Not Afraid. I Am Capable Of Transforming The Garbage Back Into Love.

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.

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.

You Are A Buddha, And So Is Everyone Else. I Didn't Make That Up. It Was The Buddha Himself Who Said So. He Said That All Beings Had The Potential To Become Awakened. To Practice Walking Meditation Is To Practice Living In Mindfulness. Mindfulness And Enlightenment Are One. Enlightenment Leads To Mindfulness And Mindfulness Leads To Enlightenment.

Walking Meditation

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.

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.

True Self Is Non-self, The Awareness That The Self Is Made Only Of Non-self Elements. There's No Separation Between Self And Other, And Everything Is Interconnected. Once You Are Aware Of That You Are No Longer Caught In The Idea That You Are A Separate Entity.

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

Live Your Daily Life In A Way That You Never Lose Yourself

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

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

We Know How To Sacrifice Ten Years For A Diploma, And We Are Willing To Work Hard To Get A Job, A Car, A House, And So On. But We Have Difficulty Remembering That We Are Alive In The Present Moment, The Only Moment There Is For Us To Be Alive.

Though We All Have The Fear And The Seeds Of Anger Within Us, We Must Learn Not To Water Those Seeds And Instead Nourish Our Positive Qualities - Those Of Compassion, Understanding, And Loving Kindness.

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.

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.

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

If Things Were Not Impermanent, Life Would Not Be Possible.

Without Being Peace, We Cannot Do Anything For Peace. If We Cannot Smile, We Cannot Help Other People To Smile. If We Are Not Peaceful, Then We Cannot Contribute To The Peace Movement.

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.

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

Smile, Breathe And Go Slowly.

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.

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

When You Love Someone

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.

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.

If You Do Not Give Right Attention To The One You Love, It Is A Kind Of Killing. When You Are In The Car Together, If You Are Lost In Your Thoughts, Assuming You Already Know Everything About Her, She Will Slowly Die.

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.

When You Understand The Roots Of Anger In Yourself And In The Other, Your Mind Will Enjoy True Peace, Joy And Lightness

No Single Tradition Monopolizes The Truth. We Must Glean The Best Values Of All Traditions And Work Together To Remove The Tensions Between Traditions In Order To Give Peace A Chance.

You Are What You Want To Become. Why Search Anymore? You Are A Wonderful Manifestation. The Whole Universe Has Come Together To Make Your Existence Possible. There Is Nothing That Is Not You. The Kingdom Of God, The Pure Land, Nirvana, Happiness, And Liberation Are All You.

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.

You Have An Appointment With Life, An Appointment That Is In The Here And Now.

If We Take Something To Be The Truth, We May Cling To It So Much That When The Truth Comes And Knocks On Our Door, We Won't Want To Let It In.

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.

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.

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

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

We Are Here To Awaken From Our Illusion Of Separateness.

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.

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.

Leaves Are Usually Looked Upon As The Children Of The Tree. Yes, They Are Children Of The Tree, Born From The Tree, But They Are Also Mothers Of The Tree. The Leaves Combine Raw Sap, Water, And Minerals, With Sunshine And Gas, And Convert It Into A Variegated Sap That Can Nourish The Tree. In This Way, The Leaves Become The Mother Of The Tree. We Are All Children Of Society, But We Are Also Mothers. We Have To Nourish Society. If We Are Uprooted From Society, We Can Not Trasform It Into A More Liveable Place For Us And Our Children.

In True Dialogue, Both Sides Are Willing To Change.

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

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.

When You Plant Lettuce, If It Does Not Grow Well, You Don't Blame The Lettuce. You Look For Reasons It Is Not Doing Well. It May Need Fertilizer, Or More Water, Or Less Sun. You Never Blame The Lettuce. Yet If We Have Problems With Our Friends Or Family, We Blame The Other Person. But If We Know How To Take Care Of Them, They Will Grow Well, Like The Lettuce. Blaming Has No Positive Effect At All, Nor Does Trying To Persuade Using Reason And Arguments. That Is My Experience. No Blame, No Reasoning, No Argument, Just Understanding.

Positive Thinking

Please Don't Wait Until The Doctors Tell You That You Are Going To Have A Baby To Begin To Take Care Of It. It Is Already There. Whatever You Are, Whatever You Do, Your Baby Will Get It. Anything You Eat, Any Worries That Are On Your Mind Will Be For Him Or Her. Can You Tell Me That You Cannot Smile? Think Of The Baby, And Smile For Him, For Her, For The Future Generations. Please Don't Tell Me That A Smile And Your Sorrow Just Don't Go Together. It's Your Sorrow, But What About Your Baby? It's Not His Sorrow, Its Not Her Sorrow.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Real Separation Between Self Or No-self. Anything You Do For Yourself You Do For The Society At The Same Time. And Anything You Do For Society You Do For Yourself Also.

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

When Our Beliefs Are Based On Our Own Direct Experience Of Reality And Not On Notions Offered By Others, No One Can Remove These Beliefs From Us.

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

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.

To Be Beautiful Means To Be Yourself.you Don't Need To Be Accepted By Others. You Need To Accept Yourself. When You Are Born A Lotus Flower, Be A Beautiful Lotus Flower, Don't Try To Be A Magnolia Flower. If You Crave Acceptance And Recognition And Try To Change Yourself To Fit What Other People Want You To Be, You Will Suffer All Your Life. True Happiness And True Power Lie In Understanding Yourself, Accepting Yourself, Having Confidence In Yourself.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

We Should Be Able To Bring The Practice Of Meditation Hall Into Our Daily Lives. We Need To Discuss Among Ourselves How To Do It. Do You Practice Breathing Between Phone Calls? Do You Practice Smiling While Cutting Carrots? Do You Practice Relaxation After Hard Hours Of Work? These Are Practical Questions. If You Know How To Apply Meditation To Dinner Time, Leisure Time, Sleeping Time, It Will Penetrate Your Daily Life, And It Will Also Have A Tremendous Effect On Social Concerns.

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

When You Suffer, You Can Look Deeply At Your Situation And Find The Many Blessings That Are Already Surrounding You. It Is Wonderful To Sit With A Pen And Paper And Write Down All The Conditions For Happiness That Are Already There, Already Available To You Right In This Moment.

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.

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

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

The Larger Your Beloved Community, The More You Can Accomplish In The World.

Beloved Community

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

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

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.

With Understanding, Those We Love Will Certainly Flower.

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

Words Can Travel Thousands Of Miles. May My Words Create Mutual Understanding And Love. May They Be As Beautiful As Gems, As Lovely As Flowers.

May We Awaken From The Dream That We Are Different.

Every Moment Is A Moment Of Happiness.

Moments Of Happiness

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.

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. Even If He Says Things That Are Full Of Wrong Perceptions, Full Of Bitterness, You Are Still Capable Of Continuing To Listen With Compassion. Because You Know That Listening Like That, You Give That Person A Chance To Suffer Less.

Enlightenment Is Always There. Small Enlightenment Will Bring Great Enlightenment. If You Breathe In And Are Aware That You Are Alive - That You Can Touch The Miracle Of Being Alive - Then That Is A Kind Of Enlightenment.

Meditation Is To Be Aware Of What Is Going On - In Our Bodies, In Our Feelings, In Our Minds, And In The World. Each Day...children Die Of Hunger.... Yet The Sunrise Is Beautiful, And The Rose That Bloomed This Morning Along The Wall Is A Miracle. Life Is Both Dreadful And Wonderful. To Practice Meditation Is To Be In Touch With Both Aspects. Please Do Not Think We Must Be Solemn In Order To Meditate. In Fact, To Meditate Well, We Have To Smile A Lot.

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?

When Another Person Makes You Suffer, It Is Because He Suffers Deeply Within Himself, And His Suffering Is Spilling Over. He Does Not Need Punishment; He Needs Help. That's The Message He Is Sending.

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.

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

Guarding Knowledge Is Not A Good Way To Understand. Understanding Means To Throw Away Your Knowledge.

Hope Is Important Because It Can Make The Present Moment Less Difficult To Bear. If We Believe That Tomorrow Will Be Better, We Can Bear A Hardship Today.

If You Come To Plum Village In The Summertime, You See Many Lotus Flowers. Without The Mud The Lotus Flowers Cannot Grow. You Cannot Separate Lotus Flowers From The Mud. It Is The Same With Understanding And Love. These Are Two Kinds Of Flowers That Grow On The Ground Of Suffering

Every Thought You Produce, Anything You Say, Any Action You Do, It Bears Your Signature.

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

When You Are A Young Person, You Are Like A Young Creek, And You Meet Many Rocks, Many Obstacles And Difficulties On Your Way. You Hurry To Get Past These Obstacles And Get To The Ocean. But As The Creek Moves Down Through The Fields, It Becomes Larges And Calmer And It Can Enjoy The Reflection Of The Sky. It's Wonderful. You Will Arrive At The Sea Anyway So Enjoy The Journey. Enjoy The Sunshine, The Sunset, The Moon, The Birds, The Trees, And The Many Beauties Along The Way. Taste Every Moment Of Your Daily Life.

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