There needs to be a revolution in education. We must encourage schools to train our students in the art of living in peace and harmony. It isn’t easy to learn to read, write, or solve math problems, but children manage to do it. Learning how to breathe, smile, and transform anger can also be difficult, but I have seen many young people succeed. If we teach children properly, by the time they are around twelve, they will know how to live harmoniously with others.
Waking up this morning I smile. I have twenty-four hours to live. I vow to live them deeply and learn to look at the beings around me with the eyes of compassion.
Often our thinking goes around and around in circles, so we lose all our joy in living.
In; out. Deep; slow. Calm; ease. Smile; release.
Meditation is not about turning yourself into a battlefield where one side fights the other, because the basis of Buddhist meditation is nonduality.
True love gives us beauty, freshness, solidity, freedom, and peace. True love includes a feeling of deep joy that we are alive. If we don’t feel this way when we feel love, then it’s not true love.
You think the other person in your life is going to be there forever, but that is not true. That person is impermanent, just like you. So if you can do something to make that person happy, you should do it right away. Anything you can do or say to make him or her happy – say it or do it now. It’s now or never.
We are primarily responsible for our anger, but we believe very naively that if we can say something or do something to punish the other person, we will suffer less. This kind of belief should be uprooted. Because whatever you do or say in a state of anger will only cause more damage in the relationship. Instead, we should try not to do anything or say anything when we are angry.
Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you cannot get the peace and joy you deserve.
We just need to live a simple, authentic life. Our true person, our true self, doesn’t need a particular job or position. Our true self doesn’t need money, fame, or status. Our true self doesn’t need to do anything. We just live our life deeply in the present moment.
The individual consciousness also has toxins. The hells, hungry ghost, and animal realms are in us. If we want them to appear, they can appear right away. We only need to press a button and Pandora’s box will open. If we sit there and allow the negative thinking connected to past experiences to come up, we are eating the toxic matter of consciousness. Many of us sit and think, and the more we think, the more angry, upset and in despair we become.
If one’s perceptions were accurate, reality revealed itself with ease; but if one’s perceptions were erroneous, reality was veiled. People were caught in endless suffering because of their erroneous perceptions: they believed that which is impermanent is permanent, that which is without self contains self, that which has no birth and death has birth and death, and they divided that which is inseparable into parts.
Our suffering is impermanent, and that is why we can transform it. And because happiness is impermanent, that is why we have to nourish it.
If we focus exclusively on pursuing happiness, we may regard suffering as something to be ignored or resisted. We think of it as something that gets in the way of happiness. But the art of happiness is also and at the same time the art of knowing how to suffer well. If we know how to use our suffering, we can transform it and suffer much less. Knowing how to suffer well is essential to realizing true happiness.
True happiness isn’t found in success, money, fame, or power. True happiness should be found in the here and the now. With that kind of insight you can truly relax.
If we want the lotus bud to appear, it will appear. If we want it to grow, it will grow. When the lotus flower in our heart has grown, wherever we walk the Pure Land appears.
The Buddha said, “The past no longer exists, and the future is not yet here.” There is only a single moment in which we can truly be alive, and that is the present moment.
We still have not yet fully understood electrons and nuclei; for scientists, a speck of dust is very exciting. A particle of dust is a marvel.
This is the essence of love – to be there for the one you love when she is suffering.
When we compare, we see ourselves as superior, inferior, or as trying to be equal. But with this kind of comparing comes discrimination, and with discrimination comes suffering.