The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World

by Haemin Sunim

According to the Buddha’s teaching, however, the boundary between the mind and the world is actually thin, porous, and ultimately illusory. 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.

We neither can nor want to know every single thing that happens in the world. If we did, we would go crazy from the overload of information. If we look at the world through the lens of our mind, the way my friend did, we will readily notice what we are looking for, because our mind will focus on it.

To get food unstuck from a frying pan, just pour water in the pan and wait. After a while the food loosens on its own. Don’t struggle to heal your wounds. Just pour time into your heart and wait. When your wounds are ready, they will heal on their own.

The road to happiness lies not just in finding a good job, but also in learning to enjoy what you are asked to do.

Choose happiness, not success, as your life’s goal. If you become successful but aren’t happy, then what is the point?

Demonstrations of love are small, compared with the great thing that is hidden behind them.

You are beautiful not because you are better than others but because there is only you who can smile like that. May you fall in love with your unique self.

Life is like a slice of pizza. It looks delicious in an advertisement, but when we actually have it, it is not as good as we imagined. If you envy someone’s life, remember the pizza in the ad. It always looks better than it is.