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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.

-Nhat Hanh

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When You Suffer, You

Nhat Hanh

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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.

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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.

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.

Because Of Your Smile, You Make Life More Beautiful.

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.

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

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

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

Life Has Left Her Footprints On My Forehead. But I Have Become A Child Again This Morning. The Smile, Seen Through Leaves And Flowers, Is Back To Smooth Away The Wrinkles, As The Rains Wipe Away Footprints On The Beach. Again A Cycle Of Birth And Death Begins.

Before Practicing Meditation, We See That Mountains Are Mountains. When We Start To Practice, We See That Mountains Are No Longer Mountains. After Practicing A While, We See That Mountains Are Again Mountains. Now The Mountains Are Very Free. Our Mind Is Still With The Mountains, But It Is No Longer Bound To Anything.

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

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?

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

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

If We Are Free From Attachment, We Can Easily Recognize Ourselves In Other People, In Different Forms Of Manifestation, And Then We Don't Have To Suffer.

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

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

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

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

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

From Time To Time, To Remind Ourselves To Relax And Be Peaceful, We May Wish To Set Aside Some Time For A Retreat, A Day Of Mindfulness, When We Can Walk Slowly, Smile, Drink Tea With A Friend, Enjoy Being Together As If We Are The Happiest People On Earth.

Breathing In, I Calm Body And Mind. Breathing Out, I Smile. Dwelling In The Present Moment I Know This Is The Only Moment.

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

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

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.

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

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

Happiness Is The Cessation Of Suffering. Well-being.

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

In One Sheet Of Paper, We See Everything Else, The Cloud, The Forest, The Logger. I Am, Therefore You Are. You Are, Therefore I Am. That Is The Meaning Of The Word "interbeing." We Interare.

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.

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

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

There Are Many, Many Christians Who Practice Buddhism, And They Become Better And Better Christians All The Time.

Happiness Reveals Itself When We Are At Peace With Ourselves.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

In Order To Be Loved, We Have To Love, Which Means We Have To Understand.

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.

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.

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.

Eating Mindfully Is A Most Important Practice Of Meditation. We Can Eat In A Way That We Restore The Cookie Of Our Childhood. The Present Moment Is Filled With Joy And Happiness. If You Are Attentive, You Will See It.

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.

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

We Talk About Social Service, Service To The People, Service To Humanity, Service To Others Who Are Far Away, Helping To Bring Peace To The World - But Often We Forget That It Is The Very People Around Us That We Must Live For First Of All. If You Cannot Serve Your Wife Or Husband Or Child Or Parent - How Are You Going To Serve Society? If You Cannot Make Your Own Child Happy, How Do You Expect To Be Able To Make Anyone Else Happy? If All Our Friends In The Peace Movement Or Of Service Communities Of Any Kind Do Not Love And Help Each Other, Whom Can We Love And Help?

Freedom Is Not Given To Us By Anyone; We Have To Cultivate It Ourselves. It Is A Daily Practice... No One Can Prevent You From Being Aware Of Each Step You Take Or Each Breath In And Breath Out.

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

When The Energy Of Compassion And Love Touches Us, Healing Establishes Itself.

We Have To Learn To Die In Every Moment In Order To Be Fully Alive.

Every Step Taken In Mindfulness Brings Us One Step Closer To Healing Ourselves And The Planet.

In Modern Society Most Of Us Don't Want To Be In Touch With Ourselves; We Want To Be In Touch With Other Things Like Religion, Sports, Politics, A Book - We Want To Forget Ourselves. Anytime We Have Leisure, We Want To Invite Something Else To Enter Us, Opening Ourselves To The Television And Telling The Television To Come And Colonize Us.

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.

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

If We Are Too Busy, If We Are Carried Away Every Day By Our Projects, Our Uncertainty, Our Craving, How Can We Have The Time To Stop And Look Deeply Into The Situation-our Own Situation, The Situation Of Our Beloved One, The Situation Of Our Family And Of Our Community, And The Situation Of Our Nation And Of The Other Nations?

Every Moment Is A Moment Of Happiness.

Moments Of Happiness

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

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.

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.

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.

You Are Like Fireworks. You Go Out Into Your Children, Your Friends, Your Society, And The Whole World.

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.

Each Second Of Life Is A Miracle

Freedom Is The Real Foundation Of Happiness.

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

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.

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

Our Own Life Has To Be Our Message.

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

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.

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

There Is No Enlightenment Outside Of Daily Life.

The Practice Of Zen Is To Eat, Breathe, Cook, Carry Water, And Scrub The Toilet — To Infuse Every Act Of Body, Speech, And Mind — With Mindfulness, To Illuminate Every Leaf And Pebble, Every Heap Of Garbage, Every Path That Leads To Our Mind's Return Home.

When We Are Present, Life Is Also Present.

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

Be Peace, Don't Just Talk About It.

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

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.

Working For Peace In The Future Is To Work For Peace In The Present Moment.

The Reason We Might Lose Love Is Because We Are Always Looking Outside Of Us, Thinking That The Object Or Action Of Love Is Out There. That Is Why We Allow The Love, The Harmony, The Mature Understanding, To Slip Away From Ourselves.

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.

To Be Loved Means To Be Recognized As Existing.

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.

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

Peace And Happiness

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Happiness Is The Cessation Of Suffering.

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.

In True Dialogue, Both Sides Are Willing To Change.

You Do Not Suffer Because Things Are Impermanent. You Suffer Because Things Are Impermanent And You Think They Are Permanent.

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

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

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.

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

It Is Possible To Live Happily In The Here And 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.

Inspirational Life

Sometimes We Believe That Happiness Is Not Possible In The Here And Now, That We Need A Few More Conditions To Be Happy. So We Run Toward The Future To Get The Conditions We Think Are Missing. But By Doing So We Sacrifice The Present Moment; We Sacrifice True Life.

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

The Essence Of Nonviolence Is Love. Out Of Love And The Willingness To Act Selflessly, Strategies, Tactics, And Techniques For A Nonviolent Struggle Arise Naturally. Nonviolence Is Not A Dogma; It Is A Process.

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.

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.

The More We See, The More We Understand. The More We Understand, The Easier It Is For Us To Have Compassion And Love. Understanding Is The Source Of Love. Understanding Is Love Itself. Understanding Is Another Name For Love; Love Is Another Name For Understanding.

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

If You Find Yourself In Some Difficulty, Step Aside, And Allow Buddha To Take Your Place. The Buddha Is In You.

Finding Yourself

If You Have A Friend Who Suffers, You Have To Help Him.«my Dear Friend, You Are On Safe Ground. Everything Is Okay Now. Why Do You Continue To Suffer? Don't Go Back To The Past. It's Only A Ghost; It's Unreal». And Whenever We Recognize That These Are Only Movies And Pictures, Not Reality, We Are Free. That Is The Practice Of Mindfulness.

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

Because You Are Alive, Everything Is Possible.

Be Part Of The Miraculous Moment.

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.

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.

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

Nirvana Is The Complete Silencing Of Concepts.

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.

Life Is Only Available In The Present Moment.

If I Am Incapable Of Washing Dishes Joyfully, If I Want To Finish Them Quickly So I Can Go And Have Dessert, I Will Be Equally Incapable Of Enjoying My Dessert. With The Fork In My Hand, I Will Be Thinking About What To Do Next, And The Texture And Flavor Of The Dessert, Together With The Pleasure Of Eating It, Will Be Lost. I Will Always Be Dragged Into The Future, Never Able To Live In The Present Moment.

You Can Only Recognize Your Happiness Against The Background Of Suffering.

The Fact Is That When You Make The Other Suffer, He Will Try To Find Relief By Making You Suffer More. The Result Is An Escalation Of Suffering On Both Sides.

If You Are A Poet, You Will See Clearly That There Is A Cloud Floating In This Sheet Of Paper? ?to Be? Is To Inter-be. We Cannot Just Be By Ourselves Alone. We Have To Inter-be With Every Other Thing. This Sheet Of Paper Is, Because Everything Else Is.

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

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

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

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

Being Vegetarian Here Also Means That We Do Not Consume Dairy And Egg Products, Because They Are Products Of The Meat Industry. If We Stop Consuming, They Will Stop Producing. Only Collective Awakening Can Create Enough Determination For Action.

Meditation Is, First Of All, A Tool For Surveying Our Territory So We Can Know What Is Going On. With The Energy Of Mindfulness, We Can Calm Things Down, Understand Them, And Bring Harmony Back To The Conflicting Elements Inside Us.

The Other Person Has Wrong Perceptions About Himself And About Us. And We Have Wrong Perceptions About Ourselves And The Other Person. And That Is The Foundation For Violence And Conflict And War.

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

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.

When We Have Anger In Us, We Suffer. When We Have Discrimination In Us, We Suffer. When We Have The Complex Of Superiority, We Suffer. When We Have The Complex Of Inferiority, We Suffer Also. So When We Are Capable Of Transforming These Negative Things In Us, We Are Free And Happiness Is Possible.

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.]

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

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.

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.

Doubt In My Tradition Is Something That Is Very Helpful. Because Of Doubt, You Can Thirst More And You Will Get A Higher Kind Of Proof.

Many People Think Excitement Is Happiness.... But When You Are Excited You Are Not Peaceful. True Happiness Is Based On Peace.

Find Joy And Peace In This Very Moment.

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.

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

Your Journey To A Healthier Weight Is Not A Journey That You Start And Then Give Up. It Is A Journey That You Are Living Every Day For The Rest Of Your Life.

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

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.

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.

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

In True Love, You Attain Freedom.

Personal Growth

Even If You Only Stop And Focus On Your Breathing For A Few Breaths, Or For A Minute Or Two, Its Very Valuable.

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

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

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

If We Are Not Fully Ourselves, Truly In The Present Moment, We Miss Everything. When A Child Presents Himself To You With His Smile, If You Are Not Really There - Thinking About The Future Or The Past, Or Preoccupied With Other Problems - Then The Child Is Not Really There For You. The Technique Of Being Alive Is To Go Back To Yourself In Order For The Child To Appear Like A Marvellous Reality. Then You Can See Him Smile And You Can Embrace Him In Your Arms.

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.

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

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

If You Touch One Thing With Deep Awareness, You Touch Everything.

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

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

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

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

To Reconcile Conflicting Parties, We Must Have The Ability To Understand The Suffering Of Both Sides.

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.

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

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.

Sometimes It Is Better Not To Talk About Art By Using The Word "art". If We Just Act With Awareness And Integrity, Our Art Will Flower, And We Don't Have To Talk About It At All.

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.

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

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.

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

Meditation Is Not Passive Sitting In Silence. It Is Sitting In Awareness, Free From Distraction, And Realizing The Clear Understanding That Arises From Concentration.

Meditation Practice

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.

Usually, People Have A Tendency To Be Caught In The Worries Concerning The Future Or In The Regret Concerning The Past. There Is Some Kind Of Energy That Is Pushing Them To Run, And They Are Not Able To Establish Themselves In The Present Moment.

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

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

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.

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

Anger Is Like A Storm Rising Up From The Bottom Of Your Consciousness. When You Feel It Coming, Turn Your Focus To Your Breath. 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 They Are Unhappy And Suffering. You Can See Their Wrong Perceptions. You'll Feel Motivated By A Desire To Say Or Do Something To Help The Other Person Suffer Less. This Means Compassionate Energy Has Been Born In Your Heart. And When Compassion Appears, Anger Is Deleted.

Freedom From Suffering Is A Great Happiness.

Great Happiness

Let Us Look At Wealth And Poverty. The Affluent Society And The Deprived Society Inter-are. The Wealth Of One Society Is Made Of The Poverty Of The Other. "this Is Like This, Because That Is Like That." Wealth Is Made Of Non-wealth Elements, And Poverty Is Made By Non-poverty Elements. [...] So We Must Be Careful Not To Imprison Ourselves In Concepts. The Truth Is That Everything Contains Everything Else. We Cannot Just Be, We Can Only Inter-be. We Are Responsible Fo Everything That Happens Around Us.

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

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.

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

You Are Not An Observer, You Are A Participant.

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.

The Most Precious Gift We Can Offer Others Is Our Presence.

Mindfulness Helps You Go Home To The Present. And Every Time You Go There And Recognize A Condition Of Happiness That You Have, Happiness Comes.

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

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

The Source Of A True Smile Is An Awakened Mind. Smiling Helps You Approach The Day With Gentleness And Understanding.

When You Say Something Really Unkind, When You Do Something In Retaliation Your Anger Increases. You Make The Other Person Suffer, And He Will Try Hard To Say Or To Do Something Back To Get Relief From His Suffering. That Is How Conflict Escalates.

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

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.

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

To Be Beautiful Means To Be Yourself. You Don’t Need To Be Accepted By Others. You Need To Accept Yourself.

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

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