Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.
Thich Nhat Hanh
People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?
There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.
Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.
Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.
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.
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive.
It's very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.
If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.
We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don't allow our bodies to heal, and we don't allow our minds and hearts to heal.
Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. 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.
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer.
In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.
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 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.
Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart and know that my heart still functions normally. I feel grateful for my heart.
We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.
When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?
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.
True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There's no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity.
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.
Peace in the world starts with peace in oneself. If everyone lives mindfully, everyone will be more healthy, feel more fulfilled in their daily lives and there will be more peace.
Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.
The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.
Let us fill our hearts with our own compassion - towards ourselves and towards all living beings.
Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.
When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born.
Fearlessness is not only possible, it is the ultimate joy. When you touch nonfear, you are free.
Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.
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.
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.
Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath.
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.
If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.
If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.
Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish.
Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.
With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.
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.
We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.
Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.
With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it.
If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.
You are a child of the sun, you come from the sun, and that is something true with the Earth also... your relationship with the Earth is so deep, and the Earth is in you and this is something not very difficult, much less difficult then philosophy.
When we give ourselves the chance to let go of all our tension, the body's natural capacity to heal itself can begin to work.
The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion's roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.
Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.
