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If you can recognize and accept your pain without running away from it, you will discover that although pain is there, joy can also be there at the same time.
We human beings used to have this kind of wisdom. But we have lost touch with it. We don’t know how to rest anymore. We don’t allow the body to rest, to release the tension, and heal. We rely almost entirely on medication to deal with sickness and pain. Yet the most effective ways to ease and transform our suffering are already available to us without any prescription and at no financial cost.
Mindfulness is the best way to be with our suffering without being overwhelmed by it. Mindfulness is the capacity to dwell in the present moment, to know what’s happening in the here and now.
The Buddha said that nothing can survive without food. This is true, not just for the physical existence of living beings, but also for states of mind. Love needs to be nurtured and fed to survive; and our suffering also survives because we enable and feed it.
When suffering arises, the first thing to do is to stop, follow our breathing, and acknowledge it. Don’t try to deny uncomfortable emotions or push them down. Breathing in, I know suffering is there. Breathing out, I say hello to my suffering.
The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk. You have an opportunity to practice deep, compassionate listening. If you can listen to the other person with compassion, your listening is like a salve for her wound. In the practice of compassionate listening, you listen with only one purpose, which is to give the other person the chance to speak out and to suffer less.
We can condition our bodies and minds to happiness with the five practices of letting go, inviting positive seeds, mindfulness, concentration, and insight.
This body is not yours alone. It is also the body of your ancestors. Your body is a collective product of your nation, of your people, of your culture, of your ancestors. So you are not strictly an individual. You are partly collective.
When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have.
According to the Buddha, a human being is made of five elements, called skandhas in Sanskrit. They are: form (body), feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.
To live in peace, you have to be aware of your tendencies—your habit energies—so you can exercise some self-control.
Look deeply into the nature of your feelings to find their roots, to see which feelings need to be transformed, and nourish those feelings that bring about peace, joy, and well-being.
Each day you only need to take a few solid steps in the direction of your goal.
There’s a basic text in Buddhism that teaches us how to meditate on our body. It’s called the Kayagatasati Sutta, Mindfulness of the Body in the Body. The body is an important object of meditation. It contains the cosmos, the Kingdom of God, the Pure Land of the Buddha, and our ancestors both spiritual and genetic.
According to Master Linji the miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth.
