The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: Bring calm to your life with the ultimate mindfulness guide from a Buddhist monk

by Haemin Sunim

It is not that the world is objectively joyful or sad and produces a corresponding feeling in us. Rather, feelings originate with the mind projecting its subjective experience onto the world. The world isn’t inherently joyful or sad; it just is.

When we look at the outside world, we are looking at only a small part that interests us. The world we see is not the entire universe but a limited one that the mind cares about. However, to our minds, that small world is the entire universe. Our reality is not the infinitely stretching cosmos but the small part we choose to focus on. Reality exists because our minds exist. Without the mind, there would be no universe.”

When you have an unpleasant feeling, don’t grab hold of it and turn it over and over. Instead, leave it alone so it can flow. The wave of emotion will naturally recede on its own

When you are stressed out, be aware of your stress. When you are irritated, be aware of your irritation. When you are angry, be aware of your anger. As soon as you become aware of these feelings you are no longer lost in them. Your awareness allows you to witness them from the outside. Awareness is inherently pure, like the open sky.

When you leave work for the day, if you find yourself asking, “Do I have to live my whole life like this?” Then try the following: Wake up a little earlier the next morning, and sit in silence, as if in meditation. Breathe in deeply and slowly, and ask yourself how your work is helping others, regardless of how insignificantly or indirectly. As you focus more on others, you can reconnect with the meaning and purpose of your work. *

Without love in our hearts, we find the world meaningless and random. Without love in our hearts, we become strangers even to our family and friends. *

The wise do not fight the world. In the most relaxed and playful manner, they simply embody the truth that they are one with it.

Humor opens closed hearts. Humor can free us from the grip of our thoughts. When we smile, we feel we can accept things we previously could not. We feel we can forgive those who have wronged us. Humor is an essential part of life.

What makes music beautiful is the distance between one note and another. What makes speech eloquent is the appropriate pause between words. From time to time we should take a breath and notice the silence between sounds.

As the spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti said, pure attention without judgment is not only the highest form of human intelligence, but also the expression of love. Observe the changing energy both attentively and lovingly as it unfolds in the space of your mind.

When someone tells you, “No,” don’t react emotionally and lose control. “No” may open up a surprising new world to you. “No” may unexpectedly lead you to good people. If you begin to push back against the unchangeable “No,” you will suffer in the process and miss other opportunities.

Things I liked when I was young but now couldn’t care less about: Airplane rides, all-you-can-eat buffets, horror movies, staying up all night. Things I enjoy now that I am older: Mozart, brown rice, meditation, spending time alone, regular exercise. We change without realizing it. We are in the midst of change even now.

Do not lament that the world has changed. Do not resent that people have changed. Evaluating the present through the memories of the past can cause sadness. Whether you like it or not, change is inevitable. Embrace and welcome it.

Spirituality must be practiced not just in solitude but also among people. Open up to people around you and feel connected. This is the true challenge of spiritual practice.

Remember that you are neither your feelings nor the story your mind tells about you to make sense of them. You are the vast silence that knows of their emergence and their disappearance.

Maturity comes with experience. One lesson of maturity is that we should not take our thoughts too seriously, and must learn to curb our ego and see the bigger picture. Being right isn’t nearly as important as being happy together.

“Whether we like it or not, we are all connected, and it is unthinkable to be happy all by oneself.” —HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA*

Inside of us there is a steep mountain of fear and a deep river of grief. But there is also the compassionate eye witnessing your inner landscape. May you find your inner witness, the source of freedom and healing.

When a wise person wants something from others, she first does what she desires from them, exemplifying rather than asking for it. If you want a friend to remember your birthday, remember hers first. If you want your husband to give you a massage, give him a massage first. If you want your children to watch less TV, turn off your TV first. Don’t just wait for what you want to happen. Act first.

When you keep clashing with someone, it may be the world’s way of asking you to look closely at yourself. When you don’t like someone, try to figure out what it is you don’t like; see whether you have a similar flaw within yourself. The flaw that you immediately notice in someone you meet is probably a flaw of yours, too. If you didn’t have it, you wouldn’t have noticed it so quickly.

Let people have their own opinions— they are entitled to them. It is when you want to change their opinion problems arise. This is not only impossible and futile but also unnecessary. How boring would the world be if everyone thought exactly the same way? When you grant people freedom, you will find yours, too.

What is the use of someone carrying a designer handbag when her behavior lacks the same refinement?

want you to know that I love your ordinariness, because I, too, am ordinary. The truth is, we are all ordinary. No matter how famous or beautiful one is, no matter how much money or power one has, no matter how many wonderful accomplishments one has had, we all have our share of setbacks, heartbreak, and loss. We have to face challenges we have no control over. Loneliness and the fear of death will accompany us to our final days. Everyone is on the same treacherous journey of life’s tainted glory. So I love you, you who shyly stood before me, murmuring softly that you are ordinary, offering the warm bottle of your heart.

Without love, our lives would pass us by in the blink of an eye. Love has the power to stop the world for a moment.

One summer night, I look up and focus on one star out of many. That star also chooses to look at me, out of all the people on earth. A meeting between two people is like this, a rare cosmic event. It is one in a million, a billion, a trillion.

The determination to convince someone might stem from being not completely convinced yourself. I do not go around trying to convince people that I am a man.

We can love our family and pray for their happiness. We can give advice and help when needed. But we can neither make decisions for them nor make them act the way we want them to. There are many things we cannot control in life. That includes those closest to us.

Knowledge wants to talk. Wisdom wants to listen.

If the essence is forgotten, ritual takes over. When ritual dominates spiritual practice, our outward appearances become more important than our inner experience. For instance, if you meditate in the hope of enlightenment, how long and with whom you meditate is not as important as how your practice has changed your heart and your relationships.

We must cultivate all three intelligences for our overall health: critical intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. If one falls to the wayside, it slows the growth of the other two. If you have developed critical intelligence but neglected emotional intelligence, then you may not be sensitive to the suffering of others. If you have developed emotional intelligence but neglected spiritual intelligence, then you may lose hope after seeing the world’s suffering. If you have developed spiritual intelligence but neglected critical intelligence, then you may fall victim to the abuse of a cult.

We don’t receive more love from God by asking for it. Rather, we awaken to the truth that God has always loved us unconditionally. We don’t turn into a buddha by striving for it. Rather, we awaken to the truth that we have been buddhas all along.

In the beginning, our prayer takes the shape of, “Please grant me this, please grant me that,” and then develops into, “Thank you for everything,” and then matures into, “I want to resemble you.” Eventually it transcends language, and we pray with our whole being in sacred silence.

Your Original Face When you are so busy that you feel perpetually chased, when worrying thoughts circle your head, when the future seems dark and uncertain, when you are hurt by what someone has said, slow down, even if only for a moment. Bring all of your awareness into the present and take a deep breath. What do you hear? What does your body feel? What does the sky look like? Only when we slow down can we finally see clearly our relationships, our thoughts, our pain. As we slow down, we are no longer tangled in them. We can step out and appreciate them for what they are. The faces of our family and colleagues who always help, the scenery that we pass by every day but fail to notice, our friends’ stories that we fail to pay attention to—in the stillness of the pause, the entirety of our being is quietly revealed. Wisdom is not something we have to strive to acquire. Rather, it arises naturally as we slow down and notice what is already there. As we notice more and more in the present moment, we come to a deeper realization that a silent observer is within us. In the primordial stillness, the silent observer witnesses everything inside and outside. Befriend the silent observer. Find out where it is, and what shape it has assumed. Do not try to imagine it as something you already know. Let all your thoughts and images merge back into silence and just sense the observer already there in silence. If you see the face of the silent observer, then you have found your original fa...