We are not noble by birth. We are noble only by virtue of the way we think, speak, and act.
FREEDOM IS THE basis of all happiness. Without freedom, there is no happiness.
A few years ago, I asked some children, “What is the purpose of eating breakfast? One boy replied, “To get energy for the day.” Another said, “The purpose of eating breakfast is to eat breakfast.” I think the second child is more correct.
When conditions are sufficient, we manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient, we no longer manifest. It does not mean that we do not exist. Like radio waves without a radio, we do not manifest.
Your body is not just yours. It is a gift and a responsibility.
Our own life is the instrument with which we experiment with the truth.
The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk. You have an opportunity to practice deep, compassionate listening. If you can listen to the other person with compassion, your listening is like a salve for her wound. In the practice of compassionate listening, you listen with only one purpose, which is to give the other person the chance to speak out and to suffer less.
It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.
Impermanence means that everything changes and that nothing remains the same in any consecutive moments. And although things change every moment, they still cannot be accurately described as the same or as different from what they were a moment ago.
We are aware that blaming and arguing can never help us and only create a wider gap between us; that only understanding, trust, and love can help us change and grow.
When you have trouble sleeping, follow your breathing in and breathing out. Bring your awareness to the different parts of your body in turn, and allow them to relax.
If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing will take place.
Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.
We are not passive. To be passive means to be pulled, pushed, and swayed by circumstances or the people around us.
Things cannot stay the same because they are influenced by everything else, everything that is not itself.
The truth is the truth, whether or not it is accepted by the majority. Therefore, I tell you children, it takes great courage to stand up for and protect what is right.
If we continue to hold on to a dream for something in the future, we lose the present moment. And if we lose the present, we lose everything.
We disregard the wonders of the present moment, thinking that heaven and the ultimate are for later, not for now.
Shallow understanding accompanies shallow compassion. Great understanding goes with great compassion.
Often our perceptions are incorrect. We get in touch with an object and think that it embodies love, happiness, a self, or purity. We tend to think that love is something sentimental that will fill the emptiness inside us. We blame our suffering on another person or group, or on bad luck, but outside conditions are not the reason it appears. Our suffering was already there.