More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Spirituality is not religion. It is a path for us to generate happiness, understanding, and love, so we can live deeply each moment of our life.
The first wrong view we need to liberate ourselves from is the idea that we are a separate self cut off from the rest of the world.
The second wrong view that many of us hold is the view that we are only this body, and that when we die we cease to exist.
The third wrong view that many of us have is the idea that what we are looking for—whether it be happiness, heaven, or love—can be found only outside us in a distant future.
the concentrations on emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness.
four additional concentrations on impermanence, non-craving, letting go, and nirvana.
Once we accept the reality of impermanence, we have to also accept the truth of no self.
I think (too much), therefore I am (not there to live my life).
we should never accept anything on blind faith, regarding it as absolute, unchanging truth.
We are continued in our children, in our students, in everyone whose lives we have touched.
It’s the quality of our life that is important, not how long we live.
If our mind is not with our body, we cannot say that we’re fully present.
To be alive is the greatest of all miracles.
The more you water the seeds of mindfulness, concentration, insight, and love in you, the more your buddha body will grow, and the happier and freer you’ll become.
Reconciling with someone we’re angry with, using loving speech, is healing for both parties.
It is never too late to reconcile with a loved one,
as soon as we realize that things do not exist outside one another, we touch the deepest level of the cosmic.
we want to touch the ultimate, we have to look within our own body and not outside.
We just need to sit down and look deeply to discover that the whole cosmos is right here within us.
where is heaven, the Kingdom of God? Also right here.
Only the present moment is real.
If we continue to hold on to a dream for something in the future, we lose the present moment.
lose the present, we lose everything. We lose freedom, peace, joy, and the opportunity to touch the Kingdom of God, to touch nirvana.
Freedom is a practice and a habit.
It means to not be getting busy all the time, to be free from busyness.
we live deeply each moment of our work.
We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being.
Once there is understanding, releasing fear and anger becomes possible.
If we want peace, we have to be peace.
means to stay in touch with the ultimate dimension in the present moment, so we can realize our dreams with joy, ease, and freedom.
Our dream gives us vitality. It gives our life meaning.
What do you really want to do with your life?
Once you can identify your deepest intention, you have a chance to be true to yourself, to live the kind of life you’d like to live, and to be the kind of person you’d like to be.
you also need to find out what their deepest dreams are.
If you live with someone but each of you is pursuing a different ideal, you’ll never be able to relate to each other deeply.
We should be alive, and we should enjoy the wonders of life and do our best to help others do the same.
The will to live peacefully, happily, and with compassion is full of vitality.
You live your life in such a way that every step in the right direction and every breath along the way becomes the realization of your dream.
Concentrating a hundred percent on our breath liberates us.
We all want to live deeply so our lives are not wasted and when death comes we won’t have any regrets.
When we are fully established in the present moment, we know that we are alive, and that it’s a miracle to be alive.
We may agree with the truth of impermanence, and yet we still behave as though everything is permanent,
We want to stay a certain way, and we want our loved one to stay a certain way. But that’s not possible.
Take good care of your garden so you can help your beloved take good care of theirs.
soon as we realize that in this very moment we already have enough, and we already are enough, true happiness becomes possible.
Happiness is a habit. It’s a training. With mindfulness, concentration, and insight, we can free ourselves from feelings of restlessness and craving, and realize that, right now, we already have more than enough conditions to be happy.
Once we can see the hook, whatever it is we’re craving simply won’t be appealing anymore, and we’ll be free.
Once you have cultivated love and understanding in yourself, you have something to offer the other person. But so long as we don’t yet love or understand ourselves, how can we blame others for not loving us, or not understanding us?
Every time we reunite body and mind, we are reconciling with ourselves.
It’s you who makes the moment happy, not the moment that makes you happy.
