Life is painful, suffering is optional.
Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control.
If we can keep at least a bit of the mind clear about temporality, we can mange complicated, even difficult, times with grace.
The voice of Thich Nhat Hanh-friendly, patient, steadfast, confident, contemporary, and often witty-seems, to me, an intermediary big brother talking directly to me on every page saying, ‘Look! It’s right there in you,’ the very wisdom that leads to compassion.
Clearly the path of mitzvot is a form of meditation. The intention to act impeccably requires complete dedication and unwavering attention. I was also impressed with LUzzato’s insistence that mitzvot practice is joyful.
Mindfulness is attentiveness, moment to moment. What’s happening right now and what’s coming up in me in response to what’s happening right now. Importantly, this is in the service of being able to choose wisely so that I avoid complicating my own life and the lives of others.
If you take a deep breath and look around, ‘Look what’s happening to me!’ can become ‘Look what’s happening!’ And what’s happening? The incredible drama of life is happening. And we’re in it!
Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that.
Concentration and mindfulness are the internal ways in which the mind restores itself from being out of balance and lost in confusion to a condition of ease, clarity, and wisdom. No external action needs to happen.
The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in.
Steadfast benevolence, sustained by the wisdom that anything other than benevolence is painful, protects the mind from all afflictions.
When the mind is clear, behavior is always impeccable.
Suffering is the demand that experience be different from what it is.
May I meet each moment fully and meet it as a friend.
The Buddha taught complete honesty, with the extra instruction that everything a person says should be truthful and helpful.
People are realizing that what seemed important to them in their lives-materialism and consumerism-doesn’t work at all to make a happy heart. It actually makes an unhappy heart. And an unhappy world.
Buddha also said that the Dharma, like a bird, needs two wings to fly, and that the wing that balances Wisdom is compassion.
The prohibition of L’shon Hara is the Jewish equivalent of the Buddhist practice of Right Speech.
Dedication to goodness-dedication in response to an inner moral mandate rather than external restraint-was both the antidote to the pain and the source of great happiness.
My redeemer is always the person next to me.
Sometimes I think the only thing worth saying is “I love you.