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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.

-Nhat Hanh

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You Have Two Gardens:

Nhat Hanh

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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.

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As Long As You Find Something Beautiful, Good, And True To Believe In And Abide By, You Have The Equivalent Of God In Your Life.

Listening To And Understanding Our Inner Sufferings Will Resolve Most Of The Problems We Encounter.

Nirvana Is The Complete Silencing Of Concepts.

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.

Breathing In, I Am Aware That I Am Breathing In. Breathing Out, I Am Aware That I Am Breathing Out. Breathing In, I Am Grateful For This Moment. Breathing Out, I Smile. Breathing In, I Am Aware Of The Preciousness Of This Day. Breathing Out, I Vow To Live Deeply In This Day.

A Look Filled With Understanding, An Accepting Smile, A Loving Word, A Meal Shared In Warmth And Awareness Are The Things Which Create Happiness In The Present Moment. By Nourishing Awareness In The Present Moment, You Can Avoid Causing Suffering To Yourself And Those Around You. The Way You Look At Others, Your Smile, And Your Small Acts Of Caring Can Create Happiness. True Happiness Does Not Depend On Wealth Or Fame.

The Moment You Understand The Importance Of Loving Yourself, You Will Stop Hurting Others.

Loving Yourself

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.

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

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

Happiness Is The Cessation Of Suffering. Well-being.

You Are Me, And I Am You. Isn't It Obvious That We "inter-are"? You Cultivate The Flower In Yourself, So That I Will Be Beautiful. I Transform The Garbage In Myself, So That You Will Not Have To Suffer.

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.

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

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.

If You Think That Peace And Happiness Are Somewhere Else And You Run After Them, You Will Never Arrive.

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Enlightenment Outside Of Daily Life.

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

People Suffer Because They Are Caught In Their Views. As Soon As We Release Those Views, We Are Free And We Don't Suffer Anymore.

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 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.

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

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.

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

When We Are Mindful, Deeply In Touch With The Present Moment, Our Understanding Of What Is Going On Deepens, And We Begin To Be Filled With Acceptance, Joy, Peace And Love.

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.

The Healing Of Ourselves Is The Healing Of The Whole Nation. Society Is Only A Manifestation Of Our Collective Consciousness And Our Collective Consciousness Has A Lot Of Fear, Violence And Hatred In It. ... It Is Possible To Transform Our Heart...not Much Time Is Needed...(the Transformation Can Be Born) The Moment You Vow To Go In The Direction Of Peace And Service.

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

Thanks To Impermanence, Everything Is Possible.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Infinite Possibilities

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.

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?

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

Lack Of Understanding

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.

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Meditation Can Help Us Embrace Our Worries, Our Fear, Our Anger; And That Is Very Healing. We Let Our Own Natural Capacity Of Healing Do The Work.

Our Smile Will Bring Happiness To Us And To Those Around Us. Even If We Spend A Lot Of Money On Gifts For Everyone In Our Family, Nothing We Buy Could Give Them As Much Happiness As The Gift Of Our Awareness, Our Smile. And This Precious Gift Costs Nothing.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Each Second Of Life Is A Miracle

If We Are Not Peaceful, If We Are Not Feeling Well In Our Skin, We Cannot Demonstrate Real Peace, And We Cannot Raise Our Children Well Either.

There Are Some People Who Eat An Orange But Don't Really Eat It. They Eat Their Sorrow, Fear, Anger, Past, And Future.

Anyone Who Is Practicing Understanding And Compassion Can Exemplify True Power. Anyone Can Be A Buddha.

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

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.

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.

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

Painful Feelings

The Essence Of Love And Compassion Is Understanding, The Ability To Recognize The Physical, Material, And Psychological Suffering Of Others, To Put Ourselves "inside The Skin" Of The Other. We "go Inside" Their Body, Feelings, And Mental Formations, And Witness For Ourselves Their Suffering. Shallow Observation As An Outsider Is Not Enough To See Their Suffering. We Must Become One With The Subject Of Our Observation. When We Are In Contact With Another's Suffering, A Feeling Of Compassion Is Born In Us. Compassion Means, Literally, "to Suffer With."

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.

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

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

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

Live In Such A Way That You Embody True Peace, That You Can Be Peace In Every Moment Of Your Daily Life. It Is Possible For Everyone To Generate The Energy Of Peace In Every Step.

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

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.

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.

Drink Your Tea Slowly And Reverently, As If It Is The Axis On Which The World Earth Revolves - Slowly, Evenly, Without Rushing Toward The Future.

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.

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.

Meditation Is Not To Get Out Of Society, To Escape From Society, But To Prepare For A Reentery Into Society.

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

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

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

It's Like Growing Lotus Flowers. You Cannot Grow Lotus Flowers On Marble. You Have To Grow Them On The Mud. Without Mud You Cannot Have Lotus Flowers. Without Suffering, You Have No Way To Learn How To Be Understanding And Compassionate.

In Order To Heal Others, We First Need To Heal Ourselves. And To Heal Ourselves, We Need To Know How To Deal With Ourselves.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Because You Are Alive, Everything Is Possible.

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

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.

We Are Always Running, And It Has Become A Habit. We Struggle All The Time, Even During Our Sleep. We Are At War With Ourselves, And We Can Easily Start A War With Others.

That Is Why Those Who Are Not Capable Of Being There In The Present Moment, They Don't Really Live Their Life - They Live Like Dead People.

Look Deeply; I Arrive In Every Second To Be A Bud On A Spring Branch ... To Be A Jewel Hiding Itself In A Stone.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Purpose Of A Vacation Is To Have The Time To Rest. But Many Of Us, Even When We Go On Vacation, Don't Know How To Rest. We May Even Come Back More Tired Than Before We Left.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Miracle Is To Walk On The Earth.

We Will Be More Successful In All Our Endeavors If We Can Let Go Of The Habit Of Running All The Time, And Take Little Pauses To Relax And Re-center Ourselves. And We'll Also Have A Lot More Joy In Living.

Fear Is Born From Ignorance. We Think That The Other Person Is Trying To Take Away Something From Us. But If We Look Deeply, We See That The Desire Of The Other Person Is Exactly Our Own Desire - To Have Peace, To Be Able To Have A Chance To Live.

‎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.

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

Today Is The Most Important Day Of Our Lives.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

It Is Possible That The Next Buddha Will Not Take The Form Of An Individual. The Next Buddha May Take The Form Of A Community -a Community Practicing Understanding And Loving Kindness, A Community Practicing Mindful Living. This May Be The Most Important Thing We Can Do For The Survival Of The Earth.

When You Have A Toothache, You Think That Not Having A Toothache Will Make You Very Happy. But When You Don't Have A Toothache, Often You Are Still Not Happy. If You Practice Awareness, You Suddenly Become Very Rich, Very Very Happy.

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

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

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

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

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

Because Of Your Smile, You Make Life More Beautiful.

We May Think Of Peace As The Absence Of War, That If The Great Powers Would Reduce Their Weapons Arsenals, We Could Have Peace. But If We Look Deeply Into The Weapons, We Will See Our Own Minds - Our Own Prejudices, Fears, And Ignorance.

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

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.

Look Into A Flower And You See The Whole Cosmos.

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

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

Breath Is The Bridge Which Connects Life To Consciousness, Which Unites Your Body To Your Thoughts. Whenever Your Mind Becomes Scattered, Use Your Breath As The Means To Take Hold Of Your Mind Again.

There Is 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.

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

To Be Loved Means To Be Recognized As Existing.

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.

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 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.

Life Is Available Only In The Present 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.

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.

We Try Many Ways To Be Awake, But Our Society Still Keeps Us Forgetful. Meditation Is To Help Us Remember.

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.

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

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.

Just Listen Be Peace.

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

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

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

We Inter-breath With The Rain Forests, We Drink From The Oceans. They Are Part Of Our Own Body.

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.

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

It Is Possible To Live Twenty-four Hours A Day In A State Of Love. Every Movement, Every Glance, Every Thought, And Every Word Can Be Infused With Love.

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.

Compassion Is A Mind That Removes The Suffering That Is Present In The Other.

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

We Really Have To Understand The Person We Want To Love. If Our Love Is Only A Will To Possess, It Is Not Love. If We Only Think Of Ourselves, If We Know Only Our Own Needs And Ignore The Needs Of The Other Person, We Cannot Love.

The Bad Things, Don't Do Them. The Good Things, Try To Do Them. Try To Purify, Subdue Your Own Mind. That Is The Teaching Of All Buddhas.

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.

In Every One Of Us There Are Good Seeds And Bad. We Have The Seed Of Brotherhood, Love, Compassion, Insight. But We Have Also The Seed Of Anger, Hate, Dissent.

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

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.

We Are Looking For Happiness And Running After It In Such A Way That Creates Anger, Fear And Discrimination. So When You Attend A Retreat, You Have A Chance To Look At The Deep Roots Of This Pollution Of The Collective Energy That Is Unwholesome.

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.

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.

An Oak Tree Is An Oak Tree. That Is All It Has To Do. If An Oak Tree Is Less Than An Oak Tree, Then We Are All In Trouble.

If We Face Our Unpleasant Feelings With Care, Affection, And Nonviolence, We Can Transform Them Into A Kind Of Energy That Is Healthy And Has The Capacity To Nourish Us. By The Work Of Mindful Observation, Our Unpleasant Feelings Can Illuminate So Much For Us, Offering Us Insight And Understanding Into Ourselves And Society.

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

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.

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

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

Finding Yourself

Maybe We Have Enough Technology To Save The Planet But It Is Not Enough Because The People Are Not Ready.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Around Us, Life Bursts With Miracles, A Glass Of Water, A Ray Of Sunshine, A Leaf, A Caterpillar, A Flower, Laughter, Raindrops.

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

A Smile Can Change The Situation Of The World.

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

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

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.

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

Often We Tell Ourselves, "don't Just Sit There, Do Something!" But When We Practice Awareness, We Discover That The Opposite May Be More Helpful: "don't Just Do Something, Sit There!"

When Someone Does Not Know How To Handle His Own Suffering, One Allows It To Spill All Over The People Around Him Or Her. When You Suffer, You Make People Around You Suffer. That's Very Natural. This Is Why We Have To Learn How To Handle Our Suffering, So We Won't Spread It Everywhere.

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.

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.

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.

When We Speak, We Want To Say Something Sweet, But We Don't Say Something Sweet Because Something Is Ordering Us From Deep Down To Say Something Unkind. We Want To Open Our Hearts To People, But We Can't Do It, Because We Are Being Ordered Around By The Sufferings We Have Concealed Deep In Our Consciousness.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

If In Our Daily Life We Can Smile, If We Can Be Peaceful And Happy, Not Only We, But Everyone Will Profit From It. This Is The Most Basic Kind Of Peace Work.

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.

Your Breathing Should Flow Gracefully, Like A River, Like A Watersnake Crossing The Water, And Not Like A Chain Of Rugged Mountains Or The Gallop Of A Horse. To Master Our Breath Is To Be In Control Of Our Bodies And Minds. Each Time We Find Ourselves Dispersed And Find It Difficult To Gain Control Of Ourselves By Different Means, The Method Of Watching The Breath Should Always Be Used.

Suffering Is Not Enough. Life Is Both Dreadful And Wonderful...how Can I Smile When I Am Filled With So Much Sorrow? It Is Natural--you Need To Smile To Your Sorrow Because You Are More Than Your Sorrow.

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.

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

Each Thought, Each Action In The Sunlight Of Awareness Becomes Sacred.

To Love Our Enemy Is Impossible. The Moment We Understand Our Enemy, We Feel Compassion Towards Him/her, And He/she Is No Longer Our Enemy.

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Gordon B. Hinckley

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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