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We Must Look Deeply Into The Nature Of Our Volition To See Whether It Is Pushing Us In The Direction Of Liberation From Suffering And Toward Peace And Compassion, Or In The Direction Of Affliction And Misery. What Is It That We Really Want Deep In Our Heart? Is It Money, Fame, Power? Or Is It Finding Inner Peace, Being Able To Live Life Fully And Enjoy The Present Moment?

-Nhat Hanh

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We Must Look Deeply

Nhat Hanh

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We Must Look Deeply Into The Nature Of Our Volition To See Whether It Is Pushing Us In The Direction Of Liberation From Suffering And Toward Peace And Compassion, Or In The Direction Of Affliction And Misery. What Is It That We Really Want Deep In Our Heart? Is It Money, Fame, Power? Or Is It Finding Inner Peace, Being Able To Live Life Fully And Enjoy The Present Moment?

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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.

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Just Breathing And Smiling Can Make Us Very Happy, Because When We Breathe Consciously We Recover Ourselves Completely And Encounter Life In The Present Moment.

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

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

With Understanding, Those We Love Will Certainly Flower.

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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.

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.

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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

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.

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

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Peace Is Every Step

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.

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

When You Sit In A Café, With A Lot Of Music In The Background And A Lot Of Projects In Your Head, You're Not Really Drinking Your Coffee Or Your Tea. You're Drinking Your Projects, You're Drinking Your Worries. You Are Not Real, And The Coffee Is Not Real Either. Your Coffee Can Only Reveal Itself To You As A Reality When You Go Back To Your Self And Produce Your True Presence, Freeing Yourself From The Past, The Future, And From Your Worries. When You Are Real, The Tea Also Becomes Real And The Encounter Between You And The Tea Is Real. This Is Genuine Tea Drinking.

It's Wonderful To Be Alive And To Walk On Earth.

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.

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.

People Deal Too Much With The Negative, With What Is Wrong. Why Not Try And See Positive Things, To Just Touch Those Things And Make Them Bloom?

Thinking Negative

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

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.

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

In Mindfulness One Is Not Only Restful And Happy, But Alert And Awake. Meditation Is Not Evasion; It Is A Serene Encounter With Reality.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Just Listen Be Peace.

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

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.

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

Walking Meditation

Dealing With Our Overweight - Or With Any Of Our Life's Difficulties, For That Matter - Is Not A Battle To Be Fought. Instead, We Must Learn How To Make Friends With Our Hardships And Challenges. They Are There To Help Us; They Are Natural Opportunities For Deeper Understanding And Transformation, Brining Us More Joy And Peace As We Learn To Work With Them.

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

One Included All, And All Were Contained In One.

To Abandon The Present In Order To Look For Things In The Future Is To Throw Away The Substance And Hold Onto The Shadow.

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.

I Am Determined Not To Kill, Not To Let Others Kill, And Not To Condone Any Act Of Killing In The World, In My Thinking, And In My Way Of Life. We Cannot Support Any Act Of Killing; No Killing Can Be Justified. But Not To Kill Is Not Enough ... If In Your Thinking You Allow The Killing To Go On, You Also Break This Precept. We Must Be Determined Not To Condone Killing, Even In Our Minds.

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

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

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

Freedom Is The Real Foundation Of Happiness.

When You Love Someone, You Want To Share Everything With Him Or Her. So It Is Your Duty To Say, "i Suffer And I Want You To Know" - And He Will, She Will, Appreciate It.

When You Love Someone

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.

Before You Do Something To Help, Your Presence Already Can Bring Some Relief.

Breath Is Aligned With Both Body And Mind And It Alone Can Bring Them Together.

Only Your Compassion And Your Loving Kindness Are Invincible, And Without Limit.

A Teacher Cannot Give You The Truth The Truth Is Already In You You Only Need To Open Yourself – Body, Mind And Heart- So That His Or Her Teachings Will Penetrate Your Own Seeds Of Understanding And Enlightenment If You Let The Words Enter You, The Soil And The Seeds Will Do The Rest Of The Work

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.

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.

Be Part Of The Miraculous Moment.

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

Are We Treating Our Body Kindly By The Way We Eat, By The Way We Drink, By The Way We Work? Are We Treating Ourselves With Enough Joy And Tenderness And Peace? Or Are We Feeding Ourselves With Toxins That We Get From The Market - The Spiritual, Intellectual, Entertainment Market?

The Secret To Happiness Is Happiness Itself. Wherever We Are, Any Time, We Have The Capacity To Enjoy The Sunshine, The Presence Of Each Other, The Wonder Of Our Breathing. We Don't Have To Travel Anywhere Else To Do So. We Can Be In Touch With These Things Right Now.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Fear That This Moment Will End, That We Won't Get What We Need, That We Will Lose What We Love, Or That We Will Not Be Safe. Often, Our Biggest Fear Is The Knowledge That One Day Our Bodies Will Cease Functioning. So Even When We Are Surrounded By All The Conditions For Happiness, Our Joy Is Not Complete.

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.

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.

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

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

We Do Not Have To Die To Enter The Kingdom Of Heaven, In Fact We Have To Be Fully Alive. When We Are Truly Alive We See That The Tree Is Part Of Heaven And We Are Also Part Of Heaven. The Whole Universe Is Conspiring To Reveal This To Us. Peace Is Available And When We Touch It Everything Becomes Real. We Become Ourselves, Fully Alive In The Present Moment.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Simple Practices Like Conscious Breathing And Smiling Are Very Important. They Can Change Our Civilization.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

When Practiced To Its Fullest, Mindful Eating Turns A Simple Meal Into A Spiritual Experience, Giving Us A Deep Appreciation Of All That Went Into The Meal's Creation As Well A Deep Understanding Of The Relationship Between The Food On Our Table, Our Own Health, And Our Planet's Health.

To Make Peace, Our Hearts Must Be At Peace With The World.

Spiritual Practice Is Not Just Sitting And Meditation. Practice Is Looking, Thinking, Touching, Drinking, Eating And Talking. Every Act, Every Breath, And Every Step Can Be Practice And Can Help Us To Become More Ourselves.

Go Back And Take Care Of Yourself. Your Body Needs You, Your Feelings Need You, Your Perceptions Need You. Your Suffering Needs You To Acknowledge It. Go Home And Be There For All These Things.

In True Dialogue, Both Sides Are Willing To Change.

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.

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.

To Be Loved Means To Be Recognized As Existing.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Be Peace, Don't Just Talk About It.

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

As We Cultivate Peace And Happiness In Ourselves, We Also Nourish Peace And Happiness In Those We Love.

Peace And Happiness

Live The Actual Moment. Only This Moment Is Life.

Live In The Moment

Aware Of The Suffering Caused By The Destruction Of Life, I Am Committed To Cultivating Compassion And Learning Ways To Protect The Lives Of People, Animals, Plants, And Minerals. 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.

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