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July 19, 2022 - January 19, 2024
The Buddha taught us to meditate on the body. He suggested that we lie on the ground and begin to breathe.
“My heart,” you say, “I know that you are there for me, and I want to be there for you, too.” In this way, you will stop drinking alcohol and you will stop smoking, because they are harmful to your heart.
“I am here for my breathing; I am here for my body; I am here for my troubles, for my depression, and for my suffering.”
You can practice mindfulness of the breath for a minute or walk mindfully toward the person you love most in the world.
“Dear one, I am really here for you.” You embrace the presence of the other with the mindfulness that is within you.
To be loved is to be recognized as existing.
“Dear one, I am here, really here, for you.” All of us can practice this mantra. It really works.
“I don’t need these things. I already have suffering, violence, anger, and despair in me. I refuse to watch these programs. I am going to seek out things that are refreshing in nature, healing and helpful things. I will practice walking meditation; I will make contact with the blue sky, with spring, with the song of birds. I will play with my little girl, my little boy. I’ll do those kinds of things.”
benefit from their refreshing and helpful presence. If you are facing a sunset, a marvelous spectacle, give yourself a chance to be in touch with it. Give yourself five minutes, breathing deeply, and you will be truly there. Touch the beauty of nature in a deep way. That will do your body and mind a great deal of good. This is the third miracle of mindfulness—maintaining this precious presence in order to benefit from it. If something negative comes to the surface, such as your despair and anger, or the despair and anger of your spouse, you need the energy of mindfulness to embrace it.
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“Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.”
We should train ourselves to see our feelings also as a river. In that river, each feeling is a drop of water. Feelings are born, take shape, last for a few moments, and then disappear. As with the physical form, birth and death of feelings occur in every moment.
“This feeling is in me, it will stay for a while, and then it will disappear because it is impermanent.” Just by seeing the impermanence of feelings in this way we suffer a lot less. This is true for both the feelings that arise from physical form and those that arise from perceptions.
For you to truly be here, thinking has to stop. As you are practicing mindfulness of the breath, the
You can use this poem during sitting meditation or during walking meditation. As you breathe in or take a step, you say, “I have arrived.” Here and now. I am not running anymore. I have been running all my life, but now I am deciding to stop because I have learned that life is here. When you stop, happiness starts to be possible.
“I am home.” I am already home,
The future is being made out of the present, so the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. This is logical and clear.
There is a third thing that mindfulness does, which concerns our environment and society. If you are an environmental or peace activist, your work will be much more meaningful if you have peace, solidity, and freedom in yourself. Then you will serve society and the environment much more effectively.
In Buddhism, it is said that love and compassion are made out of one substance, which is called understanding. If you understand, you can love.
You actually could be the best psychotherapist for the person you love, because you know him better than anyone. To do that, you have to take a fresh look at your view of him and look deeply at the situation.
In; out. Deep; slow. Calm; ease. Smile; release.
Mindfulness is first of all the ability recognize what is happening in the present moment. It is simple recognition—without judgment or criticism, without suppression or attachment. I breathe in, and I am aware that the in-breath is here. I breathe out, and I am aware that the out-breath is here. There is no criticism or struggle. There is no effort either to reject anything or grab on to it.
You do not have to struggle against a desire. There is no need for a battle within you. Mindfulness is something that embraces and includes things like desire,
Breathing in, I calm my feelings. Breathing out, I smile at my feelings.
You too are a tree. During a storm of emotion, you should not stay at the level of the head or the heart, which are like the top of the tree. You have to leave the heart, the eye of the storm, and come back to the trunk of the tree. Your trunk is one centimeter below your navel. Focus there, paying attention only to the movement of your abdomen, and continue to breathe. Then you will survive the storm of strong emotion.
It is essential to understand that an emotion is merely something that arises, remains, and then goes away.
you are much more than your emotions.
After ten or twenty minutes, the emotion will go away, and you will be saved from the storm.
Happiness can be attained by letting go, including letting go of your ideas about happiness.
The secret of happiness is being able to let go of your cows. You should call your cows by their true names.
“Dear one, I am here for you,”
“Dear one, I know that you are here, alive, and that makes me very happy.”
“Dear one, I know that you are suffering. That’s why I am here for you.”
“Dear one, I am suffering. I need your help.”
When your suffering has been caused by the person you love the most in the world, the pain is very great.
In true love, there is no place for pride. I beg you to remember this. You share happiness and adversity with this person, so you must go to him or her and share the truth about your suffering. “Dear one, I am suffering too much. I want you to help me. Explain to me why you said that to me.”
We should not trust our perceptions too much—that is something the Buddha taught. “Are you sure of your perceptions?” he asked us. I urge you to write this phrase down on a card and put it up on the wall of your room: “Are you sure of your perceptions?” There is a river of perceptions in you. You should sit down on the bank of this river and contemplate your perceptions.
“Dear one, I am suffering deeply. I need you to help me to get out of this suffering. I need you to explain this to me.” This is the language of true love.
Impermanence is the very heart of life. It makes life possible.
You must definitely get beyond this thought. You already are everything you are seeking. Do not try to become something else.
We suffer because we want to deny ourselves. We want to become something else, and so we never stop running.
You must come back to yourself to touch the ground of your being, the ultimate dimension of reality, nirvana.
Deep looking helps you to stop, and stopping helps you to look deeply. Those two help each other. In order to look, you have to stop, and when you are looking deeply, you are stoping.
