We must look death in the face, recognize and accept it, just as we look at and accept life.
Contemplating a beautiful sunrise, you’re not distracted by thinking about the past or the future. The more concentrated you become, the more you see the beauty all around you. So concentration is a source of happiness.
Flowers decompose, but knowing this does not prevent us from loving flowers. In fact, we are able to love them more because we know how to treasure them while they are still alive. If we learn to look at a flower in a way that impermanence is revealed to us, when it dies, we will not suffer. Impermanence is more than an idea. It is a practice to help us touch reality.
Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. It’s like a drop of ink diffused in a glass of water.
Every time we buy or consume something, we may be condoning some form of killing.
Don’t look outside yourself for happiness. Let go of the idea that you don’t have it. It is available within you.
There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. There is no way to peace, peace is the way. There is no way to enlightenment, enlightenment is the way.
Compassion is the only energy that can help us connect with another person. The person who has no compassion in him can never be happy.
Whenever a painful feeling or emotion arises, we should be able to be present with it, not fight it, but recognize it.
We can also explore four additional concentrations on impermanence, non-craving, letting go, and nirvana. These four practices are found in Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, a wonderful text from early Buddhism.
You are doing your best in order to embrace it, and so you no longer consider your partner as an enemy to be punished. You see him or her as an ally who is still there to support you.
We have to nourish our insight into impermanence every day. If we do, we will live more deeply, suffer less, and enjoy life much more. Living deeply, we will touch the foundation of reality, nirvana, the world of no birth and no death. Touching impermanence deeply, we touch the world beyond permanence and impermanence. We touch the ground of being and see that which we have called being and nonbeing are just notions. Nothing is ever lost. Nothing is ever gained.
Many parents love their children. Yet they make them suffer a lot in the name of love. They’re often not capable of understanding their children’s suffering, difficulties, hopes, and aspirations. We have to ask ourselves, “Am I really loving the other person by understanding them or am I just projecting my own needs?
Only by looking deeply into the nature of your fear can you find the way out.
Do everything in mindfulness so you can really be there, so you can love.
When there are wars within us, it will not be long before we are at war with others, even those we love.
If you are really joyful and your joy is healthy, then that benefits other people. If you’re not joyful, not fresh, or not smiling, then that doesn’t benefit anyone. If you’re inhabited by joy and freshness, even if you do nothing, we profit from you.
We have millions of ways to lose this precious time – we turn on the TV, or pick up the telephone, or start the car and go somewhere. We are not used to being with ourselves, and we act as if we don’t like ourselves and are trying to escape from ourselves. Meditation.
When you climb a beautiful mountain, invite your child within to climb with you. When you contemplate the sunset, invite her to enjoy it with you.
Violence can never bring about peace and understanding. Only by looking deeply in order to understand the true roots of violence can we achieve peace.